Eating Up the Earth
June 28, 2025
Nuts and Savannahs
August 9, 2025Large Farms v Small Farms
Michael Olson’s Food Chain Radio Show #1398
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Guest: Dr. Richard J. Sexton Professor Emeritus, Agriculture and Resource Economics, UC Davis Author, Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Large Farms Verses Small Farms
In 1973, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told the nation’s farmers to “Get big or get out!” Many, if not most, of the nation’s farmers followed his advice and either got big, or got out.
The foundation of the Butz marching order was an economic-principal called “economies-of-scale.” These economies occur when an increase in the quantity of goods or services produced reduces the unit cost of production.
By way of example, let’s say Farmer Jack has a one-acre tomato farm, while farmer Jill has a 1,000-acre tomato farm. One day both farmers decide to buy one of the $10,000 tractors on display at the John Deere showroom. How much will it cost each farmer to buy their $10,000 tractor? With one acre, Farmer Jack will have to pay $10,000 per acre, but with 1,000 acres, farmer Jill will only have to pay $10 per acre.
These economies-of-scale are evident for almost all of a farm’s production inputs, from borrowing money, to buying fertilizer, to donating to the local politician’s charity foundation. Given those numbers, its plain to see why the nation is left with ever fewer farmers, growing ever fewer crops, on ever-larger parcels of land.
But wait! Not every small farmer threw in the towel. According to an AI query, there are approximately 1.4 million small, income generating farms under 100 acres remaining in the U.S. today.
That so many small farms are “hanging in there” when economies-of-scale, ag economists, bankers and the government say they should just get out, leads us to ask: Are the nation’s small farms worth saving?
Leave a comment below: Are the nation’s small farms worth saving?
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Michael Olson’s Three Laws of the Food Chain
#1 Agriculture is the foundation upon which we build all our sand castles.
#2 The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in that food.
#3 Cheap food isn’t! READ MORE
