Chain restaurants are predicated on standardization. This is critical to their business model. It makes sense — their brand depends on the idea that a customer can go into any of their locations, and get the same exact food. It has to taste the same, look the same, follow the exact same recipe from one place to the next, 365 days a year.

This is the opposite of the small farm model. To survive, small farms must diversify, grow specialty items that will fetch top dollar, and take advantage of seasonality.

Small farms — even if they aggregate their produce — can’t conform to the standardization model of chain restaurants. No matter how much chains like Chipotle try to co-opt the “local food” movement in their advertising, the reality is that they must procure from farms that fit the scale of their business model. That means they will go to the massive, industrial farms, wherever they may be.