Economy of scale is a huge factor. It is a lot cheaper per unit to make 1 million refrigerators than it is to make 100.

Relates to Israel's iron dome anti missle system.

Big farms can be done responsibly too. A lot of that is related to education and training (and caring) that someone managing a large farm with a long term vision may have but potentially the small scale borderline bankrupt farm might not.

Yea but the tech way one family can farm land that once needed 10s of family's.

In western Canada homesteaders were given a quarter section each to farm. That's 1 quarter of a square mile or 160 acres if it was all farmable which it seldom is due to ponds/creeks etc.

When I was growing up we visited the farm where my mom grew up and my uncle and grandfather still farmed. By that point they were farming 4-5 sections, so land that 20 families originally homesteaded 2500-3000 acres.

My uncles younger son still farm's there now, but with modern equipment and a big team seasonally he is cultivating over 15000 acres of wheat/canola/lentils which translates to land that originally over 100 families homesteaded.

Farms don't have to be THAT big to be economical but at least here you probably need to farm a few thousand acres to be able to to afford modern equipment.