Industry Viewpoint
Small Family Farm
Diverse crops
Low capital debt
Crop rotation focus
Government Subsidies
Rewarded raw volume
Funded heavy machinery
Favored economies of scale
Industrial Monoculture
Single cash crop
Massive corporate land
Chemical intensive
This government funding structure triggered a dramatic cascade of changes across the rural landscape:
• Incentivized Monocropping: Subsidies guaranteed a financial safety net for specific commodities, convincing farmers to abandon sustainable crop rotations in favor of planting a single crop year after year.
• The Cost of Machinery: Monoculture farming required massive, highly specialized combines and tractors. Large operations could easily absorb these capital expenses by spreading the costs over thousands of acres.
• The Squeeze on Small Farms: Small family farms could not afford the expensive equipment or high-volume chemical inputs required to compete. Because the subsidized market flooded the globe with cheap grain, crop prices plummeted. Small farms, operating without economies of scale, became financially unviable.
As a direct result of these targeted post-war subsidies, millions of self-sufficient family farms collapsed, and their land was absorbed by large agribusinesses. Biodiverse rural landscapes were replaced by vast, industrial monocultures. This system provides cheap, abundant food, but it leaves behind a legacy of depleted soil, diminished biodiversity and heavily consolidated corporate control over the global food supply. The global food trade causes massive carbon dioxide emissions.
Policy To Improve the Situation
Ruralization and a return to traditional farming would, in many countries, mean a far greater agricultural output and therefore much less need for international trade and shipping. Federal governments concerned about carbon dioxide emissions could resurrect small farm subsidies to this end.
Globally, the most exported foods are fish, cereals( mainly wheat), soybeans, beef, chicken, rice, corn and palm oil. Much of this production could be done profitably by small-scale farmers, especially soybeans, beef and chicken.
Soy is the main source of protein in the global food supply. Whereas only 7 % of worldwide soy is used for human consumption, about 77 % is fed to livestock in China and Europe. Soy’ s production has doubled during the past two decades, causing vast deforestation in Brazil’ s Amazon rainforest and destroying the immense Brazilian Cerrado savannah. Restoring the small farms of the world would bring a halt to this massive assault on Brazil and the carbon dioxide devastation caused by deforestation and soy freighter shipments.
The top Western overall food importers( U. S., Canada, Germany, U. K.) import about 50 % of all their fresh fruit and vegetables, yet have enough agricultural land to become selfsufficient in these basic foods if a government policy-led revival of rural farms were to emerge and grow.
Elizabeth Woodworth provided this information and insights.
About the Author
Elizabeth Woodworth is highly engaged in climate change science and activism as co-author of the two books,“ Unprecedented Climate Mobilization,” and“ Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival,” which has a Foreword by Dr. James A. Hansen,“ the father of global warming.“ She was also coproducer of the COP21 video“ A Climate Revolution For All.”
Elizabeth is author of the popular handbook on nuclear weapons activism,“ What Can I Do?” and the novel,“ The November Deep.” For 25 years, she served as head medical / health sciences librarian for the British Columbia Government. She holds a BA from Queen’ s and a Library Sciences Degree from UBC, Vancouver, Canada.
July 2026 | www. FarmersHotLine. com | 33