I buy locally when I can. Everything I consume is produced locally if practical for the time of year factory farming is not a good idea unless it's in a building.and IMO growing any kind of plant product to feed an automobiles gas tank is downright f** stupid.

My grandparents owned a dairy farm that died. That being said, working there as a kid was the worst jobs I ever had. I would much rather do what I am doing now, ( and it's more pay anyways ) than farm. On top of that, many small farms are much dirtier and rather inefficient when compared to the large corporate farms, which means lower food prices when bought from large farms, which is the major driving factor behind the dying of small family farms. It's a classic economy of scale problem driven by advances in farming technology and farm management techniques.

I have seen this first hand- during the great depression feed prices nearly tripled in just 2 years. In 2008 during the financial crisis I remember my grandpa and dad looking at records and realizing that they were almost paying between 3 and 4 times as much as they were spending in 1998, with only a small increase in livestock. The 2008 financial crisis was worse than the great depression in a lot of ways, but it didn't have the same lasting effects because the government did nothing and allowed the economy to stabilize.

The idea there, in that link, is that farming is a vocation and family run. While many small farms still exist and a large number of people make their livings doing so, the truth is that family owned small farms is dying. Corporate farming produces the vast majority of agricultural products here in the U.S. and in growing numbers worldwide- Canada and Brazil, etc. Yes, of course, we need to eat, etc, but do we need to thank the corporations that put profit over land use and conservation? Sure, I'll support the little guy, however, it is a growing false claim that "farmers" are everything. They are being exterminated by the corporations or are becoming corporations themselves by buying up and expanding. Trump's aid bill money mostly went to corporate farming and not the little guys.