HERE IS A TERRIBLE FACT WE HAVE KNOWN SINCE THE 1960s.

Output per hectare is higher on smaller farms than larger ones.

That may sound anodyne, but the implications are appalling.  What’s more, it is true all over the world and in highly diverse economic and environmental conditions.  Amartya Sen wrote about it over fifty years ago, and his results have been replicated a great many times since.  The order of  magnitude is also extraordinary, some studies showing smaller farms are more than ten times more productive. 

So what if output per hectare is higher the smaller the farm size?  Small farms tend to be less capital intensive, with more of the cultivating done by hand.  There is no consensus about why this occurs, although it does seems to highlight the benefits of husbandry over mechanised farming.  However a labour intensive farming with little demand for capital is of no use to capitalism if it places agriculture beyond its reach.  Even so, communities that are productive and self-reliant are likely to be stronger, and are much closer to the model of the market than the high concentration capitalism seems to favour. 

Unfortunately, applying capital to agriculture can make it more profitable.  So farmers are bought out and their land is merged and the processes are mechanised, but they grow less food and employ fewer people.  If you are poor, food and a job really matter; and once people have migrated to the cities, the process is very hard to reverse.  So capitalism is locking us into a future with less food and fewer jobs.