America’s food giants swallowed the family farms
I wonder what would be the optimal size for a (mostly)self sufficient ‘village’..with enough for themselves and then to trade? Can we go back to the times when we can have free markets AND a limited amount of protectionism AND self sufficiency? Or is that contradictory.<p>If 1 square mile is 640 acres. Let’s say it can support 600 individuals or 150-200 families...can we stop expanding at that point and rather than have dense cities, simply add another square mile to form another self sufficient town ..all interconnected and clustered..with local governance and self sufficiency.
(I am speaking generally and not particularly about CAFOs)
I am not romanticizing going back to feudal farming economy..but just borrowing their structure and applying it to our modern times to not stress resources and not create pockets of dense urban towns and then urban sprawl and then rural boondocks.<p>I could be wrong but at least with soil Ag, economies of scale don’t seem to matter with full automation as we rely on less labour costs. The supply chain is a problem and it is likely people will a little more for food. But we already way too little for food and commodity Ag is subsidized. We can’t be worse off by automating farms and making them smaller and doing away with economies of scale.