A read an article that the cost of massive machinery and related expenses to farm large plots of land actually eats into the profit so much that a farmer using traditional methods (horses to plow for example) was able to out-earn his neighbors with a much smaller plot of land. The article went on to say lots of farmers have been lured into the idea that more farmland and industrial equipment equals more profit, but that was really a marketing position. Perhaps someone with better google-fu can find the article for me. Knowing this, I think the American farmer has been sent on a journey to purchase oversized, automated machinery that they don't fully own, maintenance, seeds and pesticide from Monsanto, and take government loans to grow mountains of food that could go to waste, while traditional farmers own simpler tools, have the ability to service them on their own, and can repurpose what they can't sell by feeding their family and farm animals.