There are ways around it and if you’re rural enough and consistent you can get down to “close to non-sale prices”.
But you can never beat the sale prices as they’re often literally subsidized.
Our former nanny came from a farm family. It was very interesting hearing her talk about various challenges of farm life - occasionally including high level costs/revenue.
Inspections were literally never mentioned. In fact, there was basically no talk of regulation. The only thing that came close was a business decision on the “standard” of product you raise. E.g. Free range captures higher dollar amount but has smaller throughput.
My impression is farming is extremely challenging for small farms because the margins are razor thin. Most meat products are essentially commodities and subject entirely to “market rates”. The only way to raise margins is to build a small, local brand.
The other big one is feed costs.
Small farms are basically impossible to be financially relevant unless subsidized by someone "with a real job" or deliberate things like CSA (community supported agriculture) and free child labor (small farm families still have lots of kids, which is a double benefit - free labor AND you can eat your own produce and "save" a ton that way).
meanwhile a local farm has to hire a local butcher.
If this is truly the case then there is a large reckoning coming for everyone who currently benefits from this. That includes consumers. It just seems impossible for the current arrangement to last.
That reckoning may yet come but nobody expects it any time soon.
That depends. If you're selling the meat openly, it has to go through a USDA inspected facility. Most local butchers are not USDA inspected. The alternative is the sell "the animal". This typically means the customer buys the animal, the farmer takes it to the butcher of your choice, then you pay the butcher.
The butchering is the expensive part no matter what, but the individual farms can't compete with the assembly line style processing of the the giants to sell the meat directly. So they're only competitive on the meat price with the customer using a local butcher. Local butchers don't have the scale to be cheap, so the customer has to do the work if they want to save any money.
All that said, there's still a cost issue. The small producers just don't have the scale. They often treat their animals better too. I can get local pork for $1.80 hanging weight, plus a $30 processing fee on a half or whole hog. That's close to store prices for the raw cuts (shoulder, loin, etc). You really only get into the money savings if you cure your own bacon, corn your own ham, make your own sausage, etc. But most people aren't willing to do that level of work to save almost nothing. I do it because it's usually a superior product, I'm supporting local, and I know how my meat was raised.