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It can and is being done.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoon&q=jean-martin+forier&iax=images&ia=images

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Martin_Fortier

1.5 of the farm’s 10 acres are kept in biologically intensive production. The farm produces variety of organic vegetables, as well as some herbs and fruits. The farm direct markets its products at the Knowlton and St.-Lambert farmers’ markets in Montreal, to restaurants and stores, and through 140 community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares.[2] In the farm’s fourth season, when sales first topped $100,000, the business won a farming competition prize for its outstanding economic performance.[2] The farm now grosses about $140,000 in sales in a typical year.[5] Fortier and Desroches employ paid staff and host interns.[6] They also host on-farm events and tours to help promote sustainable farming.[6]

He even invented his own greens harvesting tool powered by a cordless drill.

Most aren’t anywhere near that successful of course but as a whole, they’re coming up with new techniques. Most of them are modern day hippies but some are real entrepreneurs.

If they can take a bite out of big ag, Cargill, Monsanto, Tyson etc., I’m all for it. And the food is a LOT healthier. They don’t choose varieties for their shipping and long storage qualities.

One thing they’re doing is relearning a lot of the old techniques that were all but forgotten.

Another one is Joe Salatin although he does it on a larger scale, 550 acres and mostly famous for growing chickens profitably without the overcrowded Tyson type chicken housing. No antibiotics etc. IIRC he charges $4-5 per bird.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Salatin

In all cases, you have to be near a populated area and they’re not selling to people in da hood but it’s a start.

There’s another guy in Vermont that produces 100k eggs per year with no feed costs. He runs a compost operation. He collects scraps from restaurants, yard waste etc. The birds turn the compost and get fed at the same time. He has input finishing the compost but the birds cut his labor input in half.

This is really great stuff, but not fully sustainable.

>>Fortier and Desroches employ paid staff and host interns.

Just as lotteries are a tax on people who don’t know math, internships are a tax on people who have education, but forgot to learn skills.

>>He collects scraps from restaurants, yard waste etc.

I used to work at a power plant that ran on Petcoke, a by-product of petroleum cracking. It was free. All we paid was shipping, and sometimes, the refinery would pick up part of the tab on that. Then, other power plants wanted the free Petcoke. Then power plants got built that require Petcoke. Now, Petcoke costs more than coal and we have to ship it from South America.

When your business model includes “and that will be supplied for the cost of shipping”, you are not sustainable.

These small, but productive, farms can supply some needs but they can’t feed the world. But what they do accomplish is making the snowflake generation believe that the world can be fed by small boutique “local” growers. If that was possible, we would not have the corporate monopoly on food production.

They will create their own lobby groups, aided by Hollywood, and will get their own corporate welfare to make them economically viable—as long as the taxpayer money keeps funding them.