Reposted from Energy Bulletin. It's worth reading the whole article. The author describes how a small "garden farm" can be much more efficient than a factory farm, and how and why factory farmers are jealous of the Amish. An update mentions how the current high prices for corn ($7/bushel) make it even more profitable to have a very small farm.

From Gene Logsdon (1958):
With Addendum June 2008
Organic Garden and Small Farm Skills

Homeowners who seriously seek to provide some of their own food, and perhaps some of their clothing, tools, and shelter too, must first learn to view their enterprises within the proper economic framework, or perhaps I should say the proper noneconomic framework. They must understand that expanding their gardening to include some animal husbandry, forestry-orcharding, and home manufacturing is an extension of their gardening, not something new or different.

What they propose to do might rightfully be called garden farming as opposed to factory farming, which is different from gardening. If they make the error of proceeding into small farming or a cottage industry of any kind using the expertise of factory economics, then what they will have is mostly an expensive hobby.

The differences between garden farming and factory farming are at least these eight, although characteristics tend to overlap:

1. Garden farming is craft work; factory farming is assembly-line production.
2. Garden farming is extremely diversified in production; factory farming tends toward specialization.
3. Garden farming is essentially noncommercial, that is, free to operate outside the structures and strictures that bind factory farming to definite criteria of profitability.
4. Garden farming is primarily an avocation; factory farming is primarily a job.
5. Garden farming is low-volume, low-cost production; factory farming is high-volume, high-cost production.
6. Garden farming arises out of the activity of willing individuals in social groups, usually the family; the work environment is therefore usually happy and positive. Factory farming sets up a dichotomy of boss-worker relationships, and work therefore proceeds in an environment of latent hostility.
7. Garden farming is the search for quality; factory farming seeks quantity.
8. In garden farming, time spent is part of the profit; in factory farming, time is money.