Speaking of local "farms" a friend says to me. They grow the hay and sell it just to cover cost of property tax, and to file as a farm. In other words just to own and sometimes buy more land. Growing a monopoly of unproductive land and also getting credit, subsidies, investments for being a smalltown "farmer". Neat trick.
It's absolutely true that
agriculture is practiced to take up massive amounts of land partially to justify the theft that this horrible country is founded on. My brother's in agriculture/soil management and talks about this all the time.
Timber plantations to.