"In America, the big get bigger and the small go out," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said this week during a trip to Wisconsin. If this message sounds eerily familiar, that's because it is. In the 1970's, President Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz infamously told farmers to "get big or get out."
As secretary, Butz prioritized increasing production and decreasing commodity prices over all else — including farmers' livelihoods, the prosperity of rural communities, the health of consumers and environmental sustainability. He eliminated supply management policies that had previously stabilized food prices, encouraged farmers to "plant fence row to fence row" and relied on export markets to get rid of the inevitable surplus.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/464856-we-must-reject-the-go-big-or-go-home-mentality-of-modern-agriculture?