[yorwba]

That's right, but it's not necessary to aggregate small farms into large ones to maximize machine utilization. It's also possible to separate the machine-owning part from the other aspects of farming and aggregate only that, by forming an association of farmers who share equipment. (Shared ownership of the means of production, so to speak.) In German, that's called a Maschinenring. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maschinenring Not sure whether the concept is unpopular in the English-speaking world, or just not considered noteworthy enough to warrant its own Wikipedia article.

[mywacaday]

In Ireland we have agricultural contractors who specialise in owning/operating big equipment that are only contracted in when needed but they are then very busy at certain times of the year an 18 hour days for a few weeks wouldn't be unusual. Literally making hay while the sun shines I guess.

[Retric]

The overhead of transporting this equipment between farms makes the process significantly less efficient. The difference between harvesting 2,000 acres a day and 1,700 might not seem like a lot, but add in transaction costs and you can be talking 5+% higher food costs ignoring subsidies.

[phpnode]

It's not just that, certain pieces of equipment (combines in particular) are needed at the exact same time in multiple different places, and a delay of a day or even a few hours can be ruinous (if you don't harvest wheat at exactly the right time it can be more or less destroyed by the weather)

[yorwba]

How do big farms cope with situations where their equipment is needed in multiple different places at the exact same time?

[Retric]

If you have 20,000 acres and equipment failure means you don’t harvest the last 1,000 acres before a rain that’s a problem. But for smaller farms it’s more binary where either 100% is on time or 0% is. You can bet people are more willing to let the first happen than the second.

[yorwba]

If you merge multiple small farms into a single big one, the overhead of transporting this equipment between farms turns into the overhead of transporting this equipment between different parts of the farm. The distance that needs to be covered remains the same. Sure, the hand-off between farmers needs to be scheduled, but is that going to make the difference between 2,000 acres a day and 1,700? Do tractor drivers on big farms never take a break?

[Retric]

Individual farms aren’t simply a single open field. So, you need to physically drive between locations, verify that this is the correct location, enter the correct settings, ensure each farms resources are separate etc.

[yorwba]

And which of these steps can be omitted on a big farm? Only "ensure each farms resources are separate", no? Isn't that just an accounting question?

[Retric]

I think you’re underestimating the overhead of talking to people. If your doing something worth X,000$ you want some signatures before and after the fact. Even the possibility of driving to the wrong location is meaningful.

But, it’s also little things like the distance a tractor travels before it needs to turn around. Picture painting a a wall with and without windows using those long rollers. The simpler the shape the faster you can go.

[eru]

There are transaction costs to these arrangements.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm for the broader question of why we have (big) companies at all instead of everything being organised on eg a project basis and people and equipment hired just as needed.