Grossing $350,000 on 1.5 Acres of High Intensity, No-Till Vegetable Production - Neversink Farm

One issue with agriculture is that it tends to be monocultural. That is where a single crop is farmed. In the prairies, vast fields of wheat or in the US midwest they have huge fields of corn. Having huge fields is more efficient but is not necessarily more effective. Consider the corners of a field. If you have a machine with a wide swath, you cannot get tight into the corners. This farm illustrates that labour intensity can maximize the productivity of a farm. As described at the first of the video this farm of 1.5 acres produces $350k while another farm at 15 acres produces $500k of produce. The difference is labour intensity. This smaller farm also is moving towards monoculture practices by limiting the number of varieties that it offers.

The thing about going toward a monoculture, it increase the risk of a disease wiping out production. Historically grapes and bananas have been almost destroyed the entire species. For grapes there was the Great French Wine Blight where an aphids destroyed over 40% of French grape vines and vineyards.

Practically every banana consumed in the western world is directly descended from a plant grown in a Derbyshire estate's hothouse 180 years ago.

Before this the most-exported and therefore most important banana in the world was the Gros Michel, but in the 1950s it was practically wiped out by the fungus known as Panama disease or banana wilt.

Now the fungus is attacking the Cavendish Banana.

As long as small farmers focus on unique varieties, there can be a movement away from monocultures and more effective farming practices.