Farming is an urban problem

Reading something last night by Wendel Berry helped work out a little conundrum in my mind about the relationship between farming and the push from the cities to change the way that farming is taking place.

Berry simplifies it simply: 

When the producers — the farmers — are going broke, it’s wrong to expect them to reform the system. In fact, there are too few actual farmers left to reform anything. So, as a practical matter, reform is going to have to come from consumers. Industrial agriculture is an urban invention, and if agriculture is going to be reinvented, it’s going to have to be reinvented by urban people. (italics mine)

This doesn't reduce the hostility that country folk might feel toward the urban tree-huggers who are 'telling em what to do', but it does explain why this is the way that large-scale change willmost likely happen.