Extension.org Goes Piggy

The RSS feed at extension.org has been going wild over the past few days; I'd guess 2-300 posts on hogs, mostly in a QandA format.  Here's their answer to the question:

Why have pork production units become larger and the industry become more vertically integrated?

from eXtension by Contributors

Economies of size resulting in higher profits ? through purchasing inputs cheaper and reducing marketing risk (through contractts), more efficient use of resources, greater access to capital, specialization of labor.

The same reasons can be used for the increase in average size of farms for many crops.