[Wallace T.]

France has larger scale agriculture than Britain or Germany. That country was historically self-sufficient in food production, while Britain and Germany had to import food. The Germans suffered badly during World War I because of the Royal Navy blockade of the German ports. After the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, Britain became more reliant on food imports from the United States, Russia, and the British Empire. Since the Royal Navy ruled the seas, Britain had an advantage the Germans lacked.

The average size of a French farm is 170 acres, less than half the U.S. average of 464 acres. That size is comparable to those of farms in Ohio (171 acres) or Virginia (187 acres). French farms are larger than the average for England (123 acres), the Netherlands (79 acres) or Ireland (104 acres). France remains self-sufficient in food production, although the French farmers are plagued by the "green" regulations stemming from Paris and Brussels.

[sphinx]

150,000 large commercial farms, mostly family owned, produce over three quarters of the country’s agricultural produce. The big farmers do most of the production. The mid-size and smaller farmers are getting relentlessly squeezed; most of them actually get most of their family income from their jobs (or spouses’ jobs) in town. They are larger in number but only marginally significant in terms of food production. Then there are large numbers of hobby farms.

Neither your carburetor not Bossie the cow care if GMO corn is fed to them or processed into ethanol. Most sensible people don’t care either, but the Luddites have whipped up hysteria among the ill-informed.