I agree, eating is not marginal. But the bulk of the food we buy no longer comes from the small chicken
farmers of the world (think of that as a metaphor, obviously) but from large corporate agribusiness
concerns, some with oligolopistic market control at the various stages of food production, packaging,
and marketing. I forget the numbers, but if we bought our eggs directly from the chicken farmer they
would cost something like a 20th of what we actually pay for them.
If you drive to the countryside and buy eggs off the farm gate, you will pay more than 5% of the supermarket price.
The large economies of scale a large aggie operation has 'pays' for distribution, storage, etc, and markups along the distribution chain paying the wages of an awful lot of people. The industrial operation requires an industrial distribution chain
The small farmer selling off the farm gate near a city doesn't have those economies and charges more per unit than the industrial farmer. He doesn't require or use a big distribution chain.
Normally, in places where food production is not as industrialized, farmers bring their product to markets in villages, cities and towns, and meet the consumers there. In places where it's a bit more developed they sell the product to merchants who take it to various markets because it pays the farmer to do so.
Caution: I'm not arguing for a return to an economy of small farmers. I'm not eager to make the Saturday grocery trip a two day
venture into the hinterlands to buy eggs at one stop, some meats at another, vegetables at still another, etc..
It's a good thing you're not arguing that because, generally, folk never did that. It's a straw man.
I'm simply arguing
that metaphor doesn't work. I could also argue, if I were ready to spend a bit of time doing so, that the chicken farmer metaphor is
an ideological blinder.
Whether the farmer is a small one selling directly to ultimate consumer, is medium sized selling to a merchant, oligopolist or not, or a quasi monopoly like Tyson, there is an economic process to be described. And the description includes their comparitive advantages.
Comparative advantage is not a metaphor.
Duck all you like, but a description is not a metaphor.
I could argue with much more justification that economic description is anti ideological.
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