You’re spot-on. Too many eastern farms are composed of smaller chunks of land.
With inflation since the 70’s, today’s farmer has to farm at least 2,000 acres of most row-crop commodities to support one family.
In the 60’s, the farm needed to be only about 400 to 600 acres to support a family.
To farm 2,000 acres or more, you need some huge machinery and big implements to reduce labor costs. Big machinery makes BIG noise. (I love the sound of howling diesels, but that’s just me, I’m a farmer).
Neighbors of farmers running equipment don’t like farmers. Or their equipment. Or the dust, spray rigs (or spray planes), etc, etc, etc.
Out here in the west, we have fewer idiot neighbors next to farms, as well as larger contiguous farms.
Why does a gallon of milk cost the consumer 40 to 50% more than a gallon of gasoline?