He has identified critical factors that allow such farmers to confound the conventional wisdom of conventional agriculture. Many of the contrasting assumptions and practices that distinguish these farmers from their conventional brethren were noted earlier. But Ikerd emphasizes an additional, little understood distinction between conventional and sustainable agriculture. Conventional agriculture is usually a wholesale enterprise, while sustainable farming is typically a retail enterprise. And therein lies the key to economic success for small scale farming and the answer to economic skeptics.
Industrial agriculture produces generic commodities for mass markets and global trade.
Producer and consumer never see one another, know and care little about one and other. Conventional farmers receive approximately 20 cents from each dollar spent by American consumers for food, half of which covers production costs such as equipment, supplies, and labor. The remaining 80 cents goes to middlemen for transportation, storage, processing, distribution, advertising, and retailing. The economic success of farmers using sustainable methods rests in part on eliminating most of these middlemen. Farm Sizes and Enterprises Initiative farms will range in size from 10 acres or less, to 100 acres or more.