You are acting like big Big Ag is a handful of people. It's millions of people including whole university departments, research laboratories, and the state and the federal governments. Some agriculture and a lot of food production is conducted by multi-national corporations, and farmers share best practices and innovations internationally. They do an incredible job when a major health issue for the poor is obesity. Everyone can eat and drink whatever they want. You want soft cotton fabric? Here it is. When I was a kid there were like four kinds of beer, and now there are thousands. Ego helps people to do their best.

I've worked in multiple community gardens over the years, and have one going now at my workplace. In community gardens, everyone either has their own parcel, or one person is making the thing work because volunteers are completely unreliable. Someone has to have the ego to say, "I'm going to grow food here." and then do it with others helping as they wish.