I'm a chicken guy, so I've been following the fucking awful spread of avian influenza and the culling of millions of birds. This is one of the weird circumstances where the normal "economies of scale" reverse. The flu has hit large producers and small farmers alike, but with fewer birds, smaller firms have been more able to protect their birds from the flu and when they are infected and the birds have to be killed, a smaller flock is easier to build back up, so they're recovering faster.

Keep in mind that everything that is currently happening with chickens could absolutely happen with beef (it already did, during the pandemic), milk, corn, vegetables, wheat, nuts, or almost anything else. Large food producers can make things cheaper and cheaper but it always comes at a cost to resiliency. Smaller ag producers are the most resilient parts of any economy (any society, really) and while they may not always be cheap, they're what works when nothing else does.

Buying local isn't always cheap. But if there's one place where it really really matters, it's food. Local farms will only be there to support us when the big producers are falling apart if we support them the rest of the time.