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
>
>