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Are farmers ‘free people’?
‘It is the landlord who supplies and maintains the permanent equipment of the industry. He is the owner of the land. It is his duty to drain and fence it, to make and maintain the roads... to supply it with houses... to provide the building accomodation necessary for crops, livestock, machinery and the general purposes of the farm.’ CS Orwin ‘The Future of Farming’ 1930.
Productivity of a farm is limited by its infrastructure. A tenant farmer can only with difficulty change these, they are the domain of the owner.
The uncertainty of weather.
You can't close down for a week or two. Although small modern farms use less labor and instead use machines.
The crops are not generally interchangeable. Even if you could predict the market you can't just change what crop you will grop (regarding crop rotation).
The soil has no limits to its production, it was argued. Soil becomes more useful if you use it effectively.
Barriers to entry for farming as an actual business. 200 or 300 acres costs 2 or 4 million, and machinery costs hundreds of K.
Farmers can't unionize and can't strike. They're price takers.
Why farmers are not capitalists (youtube.com)
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