You can have both and it doesn't need to compete with industrial farming or meet some business model. It just needs to meet your needs and/or goals.

Gardening lets you grow the stuff you want how you want and eat it fresh without taking days and trucks on a highway to get it to you.

I'm thankful for the conveniences of modern agriculture but if gardening didn't have any positive impact why did they push victory gardens so much in WW2?

It feels good, teaches valuable skills, makes your neighborhood more resiliant and gives you healthy things you want to eat. It's more than simply therapeutic.

The quality and variety of what produce you can eat will be much higher, though. There's a lot of cultivars that don't make financial sense at scale but are wonderful to eat.

Sure, but I don't have to pay for the food they produce, just some seeds. Seeds are way cheaper than whatever is available from the local grocery.

It might yield a relatively small amount but I'm not feeding a city. I only need enough for me and my family.

If I can save a couple hundred bucks over the year, not buying produce at the shop, I'll fucking do it.

The economy isn't doing me any favors.

https://www.jacn.org/are-food-crops-in-the-usa-becoming-less-nutritious/

Also subsidized industrial agriculture: "lmao let's grow nothing but corn in a pool of roundup ready corrosive acid"

"Here's your high fructose heart attack, double dipped in glyphosates, in a can. enjoy lol"

This only true in places that aren't environmentally supportive of agriculture. My family never had to buy vegetables. Granted we had about 2 acres of farmable land. We didn't sell produce, we harvested and froze until we needed it

Edit: Initial start up is definitely not as cost effective as buying from the grocery, but once you're able to harvest your own seeds, it's not that expensive to sustain your production