Harry Truman proposed the answer over 50 years ago. Put simply, it is to enact a farm program that focuses farm support on family-scale agriculture and let the others fend for themselves. Before that can happen, though, we have to put aside a lot of myths. As many who have worked in large corporations can attest, size does not automatically produce efficiency. McDonalds took over a year to develop a salad for its chain, something Joe's Diner can do in about seven minutes.
Agriculture is much the same.
Michael Duffy, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University, has found that corn and soybean producers in that state reach the low point on the cost curve at between 300 and 500 acres. At the same time, the top 10 percent of pig producers, based on cost of production, averaged 164 sows. That's despite claims from so-called experts that corporate pig factories, with thousands of animals crammed together, represent the future. There are severe environmental consequences, for example, from turning farms into agri-factories. The stench from pig and chicken factories is horrendous, and the mountainous wastes tend to find their way into local waterways.