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[Sheb]

They create more employment and they have an higher productivity per hectare (as opposed to productivity per man-hour of work).

[Max White]

Why does everybody so prefer small farms to agrobusiness?

Question: How small is small, how big is big?
On a scale of community herb garden to Anna Creek station, how do you draw a line?

[GreatJustice]

GreatJustice, what was your manifesto like? To cause that bizarre set of results I mean.

Voted against everything except the business with Romanian and Bulgarian workers. Apparently that puts me beside the far right UK parties and the far left Mediterranean parties, for some reason.

[misko27]

Looks like a good party to me.

I mean, assuming all it's politicians are awesome and read that wikipedia top summary daily

Let's put it this way:

Nick Clegg appears to have done little more than hump David Cameron's leg.

But humping a leg is a show of dominance for a dog!

[Lagslayer]

Looks like a good party to me.

I mean, assuming all it's politicians are awesome and read that wikipedia top summary daily

Let's put it this way:

Nick Clegg appears to have done little more than hump David Cameron's leg.

But humping a leg is a show of dominance for a dog!

Protip: Nick Clegg is a human.

he's a dog trapped in a human body, you bigot!

[XXSockXX]

GreatJustice, what was your manifesto like? To cause that bizarre set of results I mean.

Voted against everything except the business with Romanian and Bulgarian workers. Apparently that puts me beside the far right UK parties and the far left Mediterranean parties, for some reason.

I got a similar result, by voting mostly no. I voted yes on the homosexuality question and didn't care about the maternity leave one. That resulted in me agreeing 80% with Geert Wilders party, followed by the far right UK parties.
I do think that test is pretty flawed tough, I apparently agree only 30%ish with the German parties I would actually consider voting for, which I think is a bit low, because I also get 20% with parties I'd never vote for. For the German elections we have a tool (the Wahl-O-Mat) that has 30 or 40 questions instead of only 15, and you can mark statements as important, so they count more. With that I get more accurate results, usually with the parties I end up voting for in the 60% range.

[Helgoland]

They create more employment and they have an higher productivity per hectare (as opposed to productivity per man-hour of work).

Huh, that's the first reasonable argument I've heard for small farms.
Not the employment one, the productivity one - as technology and society advance, increases in efficiency and the job losses that go with it are beneficial for society as a whole. The clothing we wear is machine-made, and nobody would try and change that now, for example.

Hey Owlbread, could you do the Wahl-O-Mat? Google Translate might be useful

2009 Bundestagswahl: https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2013/

2009 European elections (ENGLISH!): https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/europa2009/main_app.php?sprache=1&womeuropa2009=367f22c112fa61cf5aa5f5ba1cf15f1d&servername=www.wahl-o-mat.de

[Sheb]

Actually it's two faces of the same arguments. They create more employment because they are less efficient in term of productivity per man-hour, and they produce more per surface area in part because independent farmer are willing to put in more work per hectare (Including looking for new techniques and training) than a paid employee from an agribusiness firm will.

As for the increase in efficiency... Land is a limited resource, labor is not (Plus we need to free land for nature if we're serious about preserving biodiversity). Another argument I guess would be that more people working on farms means larger, nicer-to-live in rural communities, but then I'm in favor of cities over villages myself, so there is that.

But I'm not kidding myself, politicians support small farmers for the same reason they support small businesses: they just sound nicer than large corporation.

[Helgoland]

Not just politicians, but most idiots* as well.
What I meant was of course that ceteris paribus the destruction of jobs is a good thing. Or, putting it another way: In your example, the additional man-hours aren't wasted, but used to become more efficient. I seriously doubt that this is the case in all or even most places, though. Take pig farmers: Where's the difference between a thousand pigs in one stable and a thousand pigs split evenly between two?


*It's an etymology pun.

[Sheb]

Well, thos extra man-hours are used productively, but the average productivity per man-hour diminish. A single farmer will put in more hour than economically optimum if those hours had to be paid at a market wage.

I would also contend that the loss of jobs is a bad thing. Sure, overall, productivity gain are worth it because of the increased wealth. But the loss of jobs is still a bad side-effect. Especially in industrial agriculture, where we're using more of a scarce resource (land) to save on an abundant one (labour).

As for your pigs, the advantage of 500*2 pigs is that they don't all shit in the same place, thus lessening the bad side-effect of industrial pig raising (eutrophisation of the local environment). Again, a single hangar is more cost-efficient and more labour-efficient, but less environmentally-efficient.

[WarRoot]

Spoiler: stats to make Owlbread cry (click to show/hide)

Sinn Féin 46%
United Kingdom Independence Party 40%
Liberal Democrats Party 40%
Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland) 40%
British National Party 40%
Ulster Conservatives and Unionists-New Force 33%
Labour Party 33%
Green Party 33%
Conservative Party 33%
Scottish National Party 27%
Plaid Cymru - Party of Wales 27%

On EU level my best match (67%) was a Slovakian far-right party

[Helgoland]

As for your pigs, the advantage of 500*2 pigs is that they don't all shit in the same place, thus lessening the bad side-effect of industrial pig raising (eutrophisation of the local environment). Again, a single hangar is more cost-efficient and more labour-efficient, but less environmentally-efficient.

I meant, one stable as opposed to two stables right next to each other. Which is pretty much exactly what's being done.

And we have a good solution to get rid of all these effects: Cap and trade! Cap and trade on nitrogen emissions into the water, cap and trade on CO2, cap and trade on land - oh wait, the last one already is real
The thing is, we really have enough land, otherwise the prices would be higher. Or, putting it another way: We're already producing more than enough food, no need to squeeze the last bits out of each plot.

[andrea]

I think that squeezing the last bit from each plot is a good thing in that it lets you grow forests ( or whatever the natural environment is) in those lands you no longer need. Which is good for environment. Of course, this is assuming that" squeezing the last bit" isn't meant in a way that leaves the plot dry and lfieless, because that would be bad.

[Helgoland]

So buy the land you need to plant forests, driving up the prices of land and food, making the squeezing profitable!

[10ebbor10]

As for your pigs, the advantage of 500*2 pigs is that they don't all shit in the same place, thus lessening the bad side-effect of industrial pig raising (eutrophisation of the local environment). Again, a single hangar is more cost-efficient and more labour-efficient, but less environmentally-efficient.

I meant, one stable as opposed to two stables right next to each other. Which is pretty much exactly what's being done.

And we have a good solution to get rid of all these effects: Cap and trade! Cap and trade on nitrogen emissions into the water, cap and trade on CO2, cap and trade on land - oh wait, the last one already is real
The thing is, we really have enough land, otherwise the prices would be higher. Or, putting it another way: We're already producing more than enough food, no need to squeeze the last bits out of each plot.

There're caps on Co² and nitrogen emissions as well. Sadly, calculations for the quota didn't expect the economical crisis, hence they're going by dirt cheap. Price could rapidly increase.

But yeah, the Common agricultural policy is being changed, and for the better. It took up a disproportionate amount of the EU budget.

Edit: Fancy graphs.