Here's an argument for crunchy agrarianism I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to. Subsidized American agriculture hurts developing nations. Agriculture is one of the few things that poor, semi-literate societies can do pretty well — especially with some help from NGOs. Our industrialized agriculture makes foreign farms uncompetitive in the world marketplace. If we killed subsidies entirely, some sectors would do just fine — fruit growers try to keep the government out of their business, for example. Others would probably fizzle out. This would help oursource American agriculture to the global market where it makes economic sense to do so. In the process some American farmland would revert back to its natural state (as has already happened in much of the northeast). Some of it would go to boutiquey vanity agriculture of the sort bobos and crunchies prefer. The added value wouldn't be quantity but quality. American farming would become more like Starbucks, less like Wal-Mart. Our environment would improve, poor countries would get richer faster — which is the only way to get them to care about their environments and democracy.
Of course, this would require American politicians (particularly Senators) to abandon the often absurd arguments about family farming in the US, which are often simply cover for agribusiness. It would also accelerate the ruralification (assuming that's a word) of much of Red America and destroy many of the communities crunchies revere most. But, there is no free lunch, even when it's organic.
