Farms have indeed grew larger through consolidation (no one got expropriated - farming is now capital-intensive and economy of scale kicks in with larger farms - small owners either bought their neighbours and became big, sold or went bankrupt) but nearly all of them are still privately owned by people whose family history is in farming.
I find the nostalgia for small scale farming somewhat amusing personnaly. In my experience, it mostly comes from urban people doing white collar jobs. The reality of managing a small farm is not fun.
Livestock farming is the only activity which remains somewhat widespread on a small scale here and it's miserable. It's a buyer market. Farmers are being squeezed out as much as possible by their distributors.
Exactly, people removed from farming do not understand how predatory the market actually is towards them. And they go around tilting at windmills.
It's not the great leap forward, it's the small choking of those left behind.