Lifting production in turn lifts profit, unless you ve reached the point where marginal cost outweighs marginal return, in which case you lift production without lifting on-farm profit. Barrie Ridler does a lot of work with farmers to help illustrate this. The additional production past this point provides economic benefits to the nation by farmers sending their money to towns for goods and services and shifting more exports. The negative is additional environmental pressure that is unnecessary with respect to the profitability of the farmer. Many of our highly intensive systems could drop production to some level without impacting profitability. People who already farm within environmental constraints probably have less room to move. This is fundamentally unfair for the obvious reason that reforms will impact them more financially than those who have created the need for reform.