THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER: Economies of scale in food production

First paragraph: Why do industrial agricultural operations continue to displace smaller family farms in spite of their continued pollution the natural environment and degradation rural communi­ties? Large-scale, specialized operations, such as concentrated animal feeding (or CAFOs), persist because they have an economic advantage over smaller, diversified farming opera­tions. They higher ecological social costs but lower costs. This advan­tage is commonly referred economies scale. In theory, there are two types Internal scale refer differences production associated with different sizes units. agriculture, “scale” refers number hogs, poultry, milk cows, or beef cattle a single operation unit. field crop pasture-based production, acres land External scale, on other hand, fertilizer feed, cost complying government regulations, for management Management units may include one more under man­agement control (Ross, 2022). A farm unit comprise multiple parcels land, that managed entity .