A Rational Agriculture Is Incompatible with Capitalism

The author would like to focus on a well-known passage from the third volume of Marx's Capital: a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system (although the latter promotes technical improvements in agriculture), and needs either the hand of the small farmer living by his own labour or the control of associated producers. The US food system can be thought of as being composed of a number of parts before the food reaches the public. 'Farming' is the actual process of raising plants and animals for human food, animal feed, conversion to industrial chemicals and fuels for vehicles, and fiber (such as cotton). But there are 'upstream' inputs required by farmers such as commercial fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, equipment, animal hormones, antibiotics, mineral feed supplements, fuel to run the equipment, and dry some crops. 'Downstream' from the farm, its products are first purchased and then processed and manufactured by one or more corporations. Adapted from the source document.