I have often thought that a lot of the modern farming technology has benefitted the chemical and seed companies more than the farmer in general. Now I say that as one that benefitted greatly from it. So for me individually it was good. But our farming operation could never gotten as big as it did without the pesticides that when my dad started farming none existed. Same goes for big machinery and crop insurance. Our farm got way bigger than it ever could have without those technologies. So who benefitted??? Well the companies that developed them and sold them seemed to do ok. And I certainly did pretty good. But at the same time a lot of farmers went by the wayside as competition heated and margins narrowed. So did farming as a whole benefit or just a certain number of us that were early adopters??? I think in general the consumer benefitted by cheaper food products but the food industry has figured out a way to take the cheap commodities and value add to the point a lot of what is on the shelves at the grocery store is not really all that cheap. although anyplace I have traveled in the world the US is in the tops of having overall cheap food compared to income levels.

I am rambling. But I have often thought that a lot of the technology that we today consider essential, while helping my operation individually, I have questioned overall if it was all that beneficial to the farming community or more of just a great profit center for big ag business.

Musings mostly. I have no real answers. It is what it is and we deal with what is and not what we wish it to be.