Perhaps Louis could explain what he means by small farms being more productive.
Even if it is true of some small farms producing some items I am not sure what
its relevance is to anything. If you can grow 50,000 watermelon on 10 acres but
only 90,000 on 20 acres and you have a profit of 20 cents per melon is the
farmer supposed to choose to farm 10 acres on the ground that the smaller farm
is more productive?
I doubt that smaller farms are more productive around here as compared to
larger ones but whether they are or are not they often end up being sold to
larger farmers because farmers cannot make a living from them.
There is a smidgin of truth in Mark's remarks but small farmers certainly
are not dead. The term small farm is undefined by Lou. A small farm here would
be around a section i.e. a square mile. In the foothills of the Rockies or the
Aussie outback that size unit would be a joke. In Japan it would be beyond most
farmer's dreams. I can recall Don Wheeler a former economics prof. lecturing in
Hungary. When he told them that farmers with a quarter section of land would
starve in most areas of Manitoba they were sure he was spouting Commie
propaganda. THis was when Hungary was communist.
It would be nice to have some statististics. I expect the trend is that
larger farms are increeasingly responsible for a larger proportion of total
production but that smaller farms may not be decreasing all that quickly in
number. Many smaller farms survive by family members having off-farm jobs. In
fact some larger farms may crash from cash-flow problems as they over-invest and
then have a crop failure with resultant crushing debt loads. I expect that the
number of hobby farms may be increasing as well. But where are the data?
CHeers, Ken Hanly
Mark Jones wrote:
> Small farming is dead. It doesn't exist esp in the US. 'Farmers' are the
> social equivalent of laundromat-owners, the economically disenfranchised,
> overmortgaged persons who apply lots of energy and toxic chemicals to things
> and hope for the best. In the UK, the class of prepacked sandwich-makers is
> more numerous than the class of farmers. I'm sure it's the same in the US.
>
> Mark Jones
> http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> > Sent: 30 June 2000 17:37
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [PEN-L:21031] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the
> > World-System and National Emissions of]
> >
> >
> > Louis Proyect wrote:
> >
> > >Doug:
> > >>Does the revo also mean there won't be modern transportation,
> > >>chemical fertilizers, mechnized plowing and reaping, etc.? Then
> > >>there's truly no way to sustain a world population of more than, say,
> > >>a billion people, maybe fewer - meaning that at least 80% of us have
> > >>to go.
> > >
> > >You don't seem to be aware that smaller farms are more productive than
> > >large agribusiness type concerns.
> >
> > Where did I endorse large agribusiness? If small farms are more
> > productive, then let's have more of them; I'm all for separating the
> > imperatives of capital from those of real social efficiency and
> > humaneness. But even small farms use modern transportation and
> > machines.
> >
> > Doug
> >
> >
