[hamlsandwich]

Local, small-scale food production used to be the only way food was produced - people didn't eat better then, and there were many, many fewer people to feed.

There's huge variability in what can be grown where, especially if you want to reduce the amount and number of inputs that are imported from further afield. There are places that can support all the crops and livestock that provide a healthy, balanced, and sustainable human diet, but not everywhere can. What if you want to eat flour in a place where grain crops aren't tenable, or butter where cows, sheep and goats don't do well?

Producing food this way also means that we need to build houses on fertile land that's good for growing things. That happens a _lot_ where I live, and I hate the site of previously productive soil disappearing under concrete house-slabs.

[tastyfreeze]

You can have both large scale production and small scale production at the same time. It is actually required for survival on a large scale long term. Technologies enabling small scale farms to be more efficient are as great an enabler as the advent of industrial farming.

If you want to see less fertile land covered up make it easier for people to make money growing on their own land.