THREAD:
I would call any farm that uses the methods of industrial production a "factory farm". If a farm takes advantage of scale, repetition, and automation to produce uniform commodity products, that's industrial production. 1/n
#fafdlstorm
I would call any farm that uses the methods of industrial production a "factory farm". If a farm takes advantage of scale, repetition, and automation to produce uniform commodity products, that's industrial production. 1/n
#fafdlstorm
2. The reason why it is seen as a derogatory term is because it's counterposed to either a sentimental fantasy or to niche farms that it really isn't in competition with because they serve different markets. 2/n
3. But there is a unrealistic belief that pastoral niche farms could replace industrial agriculture at scale. It can't and shouldn't.
4. HOWEVER, getting defensive about the terms "factory farm" and "industrial farm" and trying to evade them or deny them IMPLICITLY CONCEDES the argument. Never can win the argument running from those terms. It's an implicit admission of guilt to start prevaricating around it.
5. Lots of non-farm factories are owned by families (as is Walmart) so deflecting to ownership model (family) from production model isn't convincing. "Family farm" and "factory farm" aren't mutually exclusive terms.
6. I think it would be more strategic for agvocates to embrace and define industrial agriculture as modern, high tech, efficient, safe, and adaptable to different value systems. The question is not whether or not we are going to have an industrial food system. We are.
7. We are an industrial society, and only an industrial food system is going to meet our needs. The questions is: What kind of industrial food system do we want, and how do we get there (or for some people, we are already there).
8. I don't care if this is owned three Jesuit nuns. It's a factory farm. 
9. As is this family owned farm in the Netherlands.
10. This isn't just a factory farm, they actually have a rolling factory in the field. It's completely bad ass. You WISH your farm was this factoryfied.
11. And this is a corn factory in action. It's a wonder of efficiency!
12. The amount of money farmers spend industrializing their production and the amount of energy they spend denying it, rather than bragging about it is ridiculous, but more importantly, counter productive.
This photo is not of family owned farm. My bad. But the tech has been deployed to family farms.
