The essential advantage to keeping things small is that we can work without a tractor. This gives us three main advantages; Spacing, proper soil management and fewer external inputs. Without a tractor, plants can be planted much closer together, as both the physical limitations of weeding and negative impact of soil compaction are avoided. By using sound minimal tillage, as apposed to plowing or rototilling, soil can be kept light and porous, without creating hard pans, destroying soil aggregates or disturbing worms and micro organisms. Essentially biological tillage over mechanical tillage is stressed, by disturbing the soil as little as possible and allowing the soil ecosystem to do its work. Roots can thus grow deeper and thus  compete less for horizontal space, allowing them to be grow closer together. This creates a natural canopy that shades out weeds, creates a micro climate for beneficial insects and protects the soil from the sun and rain. The cool moist soil thus becomes a perfect habitat for micro organisms that provide nutrients to the plants, keep pest populations in balance and sustains the structure of the soil. This approach has become generally known as the biointensive approach and has become the stable production system for small scale biological agriculture.