Larger farms could be more mechanized, achieving greater efficiencies and output with less and less labor. Such optimization granted them the economic heft to demand better pricing for inputs. Instead of getting a few dozen bags of fertilizer and the odd hoe and such from the local store, large farms would contract directly with petrochemical firms and manufacturers for their needs. The very rationale for small towns eroded. Globalization didn’t simply empty the countryside; it also gutted the world’s smaller communities, forcing everyone into the major cities. And as true as this was in
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