[Kbelicius]

> This statement feels like a farmer making a case for using their hands to tend the land instead of a tractor because it produces too many crops. Modern farming requires you to have an ecosystem of supporting tools to handle the scale and you need to learn new skills like being a diesel mechanic.

This to me looks like an analogy that would support what GP is saying. With modern farming practices you get problems like increased topsoil loss and decreased nutritional value of produce. It also leads to a loss of knowledge for those that practice those techniques of least resistance in short term.

This is not me saying big farming bad or something like that, just that your analogy, to me, seems perfectly in sync with what the GP is saying.

[Talanes]

And those trade-offs can only pay off if the extra food produced can be utilized. If the farm is producing more food than can be preserved and/or distributed, then the surplus is deadweight.