bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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- Mar 6, 2007
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The idea that 'indie farming' can be usefully compared to, and contrasted with, 'industrial-scale agriculture' appears to be an extension of the naturalistic fallacy; There is a very popular misconception that large corporations are morally reprehensible and that small family businesses are morally sound - which appears to have as its basis the feeling that big corporations are somehow more unnatural or artificial than small businesses.
Of course, neither size or type of farm is a feature of the natural world; and even if we were to accept the dubious premise that smaller enterprises are necessarily 'closer to nature' in some sense, there would still be no good reason to think that being closer to nature was a better thing than being farther away from it. Certainly in the case of 'organic' agriculture, which has been described as 'The art of taking land that could once only feed thousands, and using it to feed hundreds', it is very doubtful whether the (probably non-existent) health benefit of zero pesticide use is worth the significant cost of lower yields - exposure to tiny traces of weedkiller might cause health problems below our ability to clearly identify them, but it's a certainty that only producing enough food for a billion people in a world with a seven billion population would result in significantly more hardship than that.
Morality is largely orthogonal to the size of an enterprise - big companies can be good or bad, and so can small ones - and in my experience, what little correlation between size and morality exists tends to favour the larger players. Mom-and-pop businesses often break or ignore regulations, not because they are evil, but because they are unaware. With only a handful of employees, everyone in a small business is busy doing the core activity of the business, and keeping abreast of changes to the rules, and ensuring that the company complies with those rules, tends to be an afterthought (at least until an inspection occurs, and penalties are threatened or imposed). Large corporations often employ a person (or an entire department) whose sole focus is regulatory compliance.
Of course, there is the related risk that the regulations themselves will be written to favour the large corporations, who can afford to lobby for this to happen. But that is more a failing of government than it is a failing of corporations; If the 'small government' types in the electorate make the government so small that the foxes are put in charge of the hen-house for want of funding to pay for a guard dog, then that's going to be exploited by anyone who can take advantage.
Both small players and large want to do the cheap but wrong thing, rather than the expensive but right thing. The large players tend to obey what rules there are, better than the small players do; The rules tend to favour the desires of the large players over the desires of the small, if and when the government is too toothless to stand up for the people against the lobbyists.
And this applies to farming, just as much as to any other industry.
Of course, neither size or type of farm is a feature of the natural world; and even if we were to accept the dubious premise that smaller enterprises are necessarily 'closer to nature' in some sense, there would still be no good reason to think that being closer to nature was a better thing than being farther away from it. Certainly in the case of 'organic' agriculture, which has been described as 'The art of taking land that could once only feed thousands, and using it to feed hundreds', it is very doubtful whether the (probably non-existent) health benefit of zero pesticide use is worth the significant cost of lower yields - exposure to tiny traces of weedkiller might cause health problems below our ability to clearly identify them, but it's a certainty that only producing enough food for a billion people in a world with a seven billion population would result in significantly more hardship than that.
Morality is largely orthogonal to the size of an enterprise - big companies can be good or bad, and so can small ones - and in my experience, what little correlation between size and morality exists tends to favour the larger players. Mom-and-pop businesses often break or ignore regulations, not because they are evil, but because they are unaware. With only a handful of employees, everyone in a small business is busy doing the core activity of the business, and keeping abreast of changes to the rules, and ensuring that the company complies with those rules, tends to be an afterthought (at least until an inspection occurs, and penalties are threatened or imposed). Large corporations often employ a person (or an entire department) whose sole focus is regulatory compliance.
Of course, there is the related risk that the regulations themselves will be written to favour the large corporations, who can afford to lobby for this to happen. But that is more a failing of government than it is a failing of corporations; If the 'small government' types in the electorate make the government so small that the foxes are put in charge of the hen-house for want of funding to pay for a guard dog, then that's going to be exploited by anyone who can take advantage.
Both small players and large want to do the cheap but wrong thing, rather than the expensive but right thing. The large players tend to obey what rules there are, better than the small players do; The rules tend to favour the desires of the large players over the desires of the small, if and when the government is too toothless to stand up for the people against the lobbyists.
And this applies to farming, just as much as to any other industry.
