Interesting piece though it confuses productivity and efficiency. Why
is it small farms in France are vanishing despite pro-active government
policies- presumably they produce better quality products and may well
be more productive per hectare but they simply don't produce enough
profit to buy that widescreen tv and send the kids to to the mountains
unlike the mega agri farms with thousands of hectares. Peasant farms
presumably have enormous problems with access to the market, access to
credit as well as debt- hence the importance of co-operatives and
fairtrade agreements.
> A little off-topic, maybe (not to mention political), but I was thinking
> about what the implications for some of the large-scale Roman latifundia or
> Plantations in the antebellum American south:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/10/food.globaleconomy
>
>