Centralized-vs-distributed is mostly a matter of efficiencies of scale vs transportation, and efficiencies of scale almost invariably win. Pesticide/fertilizer/etc are all orthogonal (there's nothing preventing local farmers from using pesticides and fertilizer). In particular, the machinery costs per acre are lower for centralized agriculture than for distributed agriculture, but the transport costs are higher (although not as high as you might think because the costs of moving things around the country are shared broadly--not just by food producers). Besides machinery, personnel costs are much lower for centralized agriculture.
There are a lot of advantages to local agriculture, but 'cost' isn't one of them. I would like to live in a world where more food is grown locally, but that means we have to solve (and not ignore) the cost problem--how do we afford the additional machinery, personnel, etc costs that are passed along in food prices without pricing out poorer people?
There are a lot of advantages to local agriculture, but 'cost' isn't one of them. I would like to live in a world where more food is grown locally, but that means we have to solve (and not ignore) the cost problem--how do we afford the additional machinery, personnel, etc costs that are passed along in food prices without pricing out poorer people?
reply