Why are farms so small?

Despite increases in average size, farms remain much smaller than industrial enterprises. This paper examines the experiences of five extremely large-scale, 'industrialized' agricultural operations undertaken in developing countries since WWII. These projects have a poor performance record, one which is shared by other forms of very large-scale agricultural production. The failure of large-scale agriculture in the developing world is attributed to a failure to allow relative factor prices to guide efficient and effective investment. Diseconomies of scale in production also suggest that there are limits to farm-size growth worldwide.