I didn't save my own message, Craig, so I can't refer back to it, but
that's essentially what I intended to say. The food security and ecological
functions of agriculture may be as well (or as poorly) served by mega-farms
as by smaller-scale family farms. Those functions relate to overall farm
management, which (in the case of ecological functions) is sometimes
dictated by forces outside the farm.
But the rural economic and social functions of agriculture, I still
maintain, is better served by small-scale operations than by large ones.
This question of land use--whether the attrition of farmers is followed by
the suburbanization or exurbanization of their land--is a whole 'nuther
ball of wax. My comments assumed that agricultural land would remain so.
Cass Peterson
www.flickerville.com
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail