Americans are being subjected to an ongoing multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign designed to “increase confidence and trust in today’s agriculture.” Food Dialogues, just one example of this broader trend, is a campaign sponsored by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance—an industry organization whose funders and board members include Monsanto, DuPont, and John Deere. The campaign features the “faces of farming and ranching”—articulate, attractive young farmers, obviously chosen to put the best possible face on the increasingly ugly business of industrial agriculture, which dominates our food- production system.
Genetically engineered crops, inhumane treatment of farm animals, and routine feeding of antibiotics to confined animals—among many other problems—have eroded public trust in American agriculture. In response, the defenders of so-called modern agriculture have employed top public relations firms to try to clean up their tarnished public image. Their campaigns emphasize such issues as water quality, food safety, animal welfare, and “food prices and choices.”
Mounting public concerns in each of these areas are supported by a growing body of scientific evidence. For example, a 1998 EPA study found 35,000 miles of streams in 22 states polluted with biological wastes from concentrated animal feeding operations. The number of “impaired waters” in Iowa has tripled since the late 1980s, as industrial farming systems, such as factory farms, have replaced traditional family farms.
On food safety, a recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study reviewed dozens of studies linking routine feeding of antibiotics in concentrated livestock operations to people being infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA. “Use of antibiotics in food-producing animals allows antibiotic-resistant bacteria to thrive,” they concluded. “Resistant bacteria can be transmitted from food-producing animals to humans through the food supply.” The big agricultural corporations claim that they are committed to the humane treatment of animals—while advocating legislation to criminalize unauthorized photography in concentrated animal feeding operations. Numerous scientific studies over the past 50 years have documented inhumane treatment in these “animal factories.” The mistreatment is not only a result of inevitable overcrowding in confinement operations, but also results from routine management practices, transportation, and even in the genetic selection of animals for maximum productivity.
The Food Dialogues campaign claims to advocate consumer choice by supporting all types of farming. However, its language strongly suggests that industrial agriculture is essential to keeping food affordable. It considers organic agriculture and other sustainable faming alternatives to be no more than “niche markets.” In reality, the only clear “benefit” of industrial agriculture is that it requires fewer farmers. There is no indication that industrial agriculture has produced more food than could have been produced with more sustainable methods, only that it has employed far fewer farmers. Any production-cost advantage has been more than offset by higher margins, including profits, elsewhere within the corporate food supply chain. Over the past 20 years, an era of intensive agricultural industrialization, U.S. retail food prices have risen faster than overall inflation rates.
Agricultural industrialization has had a devastating effect on the quality of rural life. Industrial agriculture has replaced independent family farmers with a far smaller number of farm workers, most of whom are paid poorly. In 1960, farmers were still more than 8% of the U.S. workforce. They are less than 1% today. Rural communities have suffered both economically and socially from this loss of traditional farm families. More than 50 years of research demonstrates that communities supported by small to mid-size family farms are better places to live, both economically and socially, than are communities dependent on large farming enterprises.
Perhaps most important, industrial agriculture has failed in its most fundamental purpose: providing food security. The percentage of “food insecure” people in the United States is greater today than during the 1960s—early in the current phase of agricultural industrialization. (See Gerald Friedman, “Food Insecurity in Affluent America,” pp. 41-42) Furthermore, the industrial food system is linked to a new kind of food insecurity: unhealthy foods. A recent global report by 500 scientists from 50 countries suggested that “obesity is [now] a bigger health crisis than hunger.” There is growing evidence that America’s diet-related health problems are not limited to poor consumer food choices or processed “junk foods” but begin with a lack of essential nutrients in food crops produced on industrial farms. It’s high time for fundamental change in American agriculture. The growing litany of farm/food problems today cannot be solved by redesigning the USDA “food pyramid,” placing warning labels on junk foods, or imposing more stringent regulations on farmers. Today’s problems are deep and systemic. They are inherent in the worldview from which industrial agriculture emerged and upon which its evolution depends.
In economic terms, industrialization allows capital and technology to be substituted for workers and managers. In other words, it allows raw materials or natural resources to be transformed into more valuable products while employing fewer, lower-skilled workers—in both labor and management positions. In a world with an abundance of natural resources and a scarcity of workers, industrialization seemed a logical strategy for economic development. With increases in populations and depletion of natural resources, the economic benefits of industrialization have declined while the negative consequences for unemployment and envi-ronmental degradation have grown.
For agriculture, the benefits of industrialization have been fewer and the costs have been greater. The reality of agriculture is in conflict with the worldview that supports industrialization. Industrialization is rooted in a mechanistic worldview: the industrial world works like a big, complex machine that can be manipulated by humans to extract natural resources and use them to meet our needs and wants. In reality, the world is an extremely complex living ecosystem, of which we humans are a part. Our well-being ultimately depends on working and living in harmony with nature rather than conquering nature. We are currently seeing the disastrous consequences of treating living ecosystems as if they were inanimate mechanisms.
Thankfully, a new kind of agriculture is emerging to meet these ecological, social, and economic challenges. The new farmers may call their farms “organic,” “ecological,” “biological,” “holistic,” or “biodynamic.” Their farming methods may be called “agroecology,” “nature farming,” or “permaculture.” They all fit under the conceptual umbrella of sustainable agriculture. They are committed to meeting the food needs of all in the present without diminishing opportunities for those who will live in the future. The strength of this movement is most visible in the growth of the organic-foods market, although some types of “organic farms,” especially those mimicking industrial agriculture, may not be sustainable. Sales of organic foods grew by more than 20% per year during the 1990s and early 2000s, before leveling off at around 10%–12% annual growth following the recession of 2008. Organic foods now amount to around $35 billion in annual sales, something less than 5% of total food sales. The local food movement, as exemplified by farmers markets and “community supported agriculture,” has replaced organics as the most dynamic sector of the food market, although it is only about half as large in sales.
Some question whether organic or other sustainable farms can meet the food needs of a growing global population. A comprehensive review in the journal Nature compared organic and conventional crop yields in “developed” countries, concluding: “Under certain conditions—that is, with good management practices, particular crop types and growing conditions—organic systems can . . . nearly match conventional yields.” The challenge in the United States and the so-called developed world is to create a food system that will meet the basic food needs of all without degrading its natural and human resources. Ecological and social sustainability, not just yields, is the logical motivation for organic agriculture in the so-called developed world. Globally, industrial agriculture is not needed to “feed the world.” Small, diversified farms already provide food for least 70% of the world’s population and could double or triple yields without resorting to industrial production methods.
Everywhere we look, we can see the failure of the grand experiment of industrial agriculture. It’s time for fundamental change.
Rodster on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 9:56 am
The soil has been ruined and turned into a roundup junkie. The chemicals used by the behemoth agri-companies supposedly are killing bee colonies and toxic chemicals are in our food. Oh and they’ve found a way to pay off the politicians in Washington so most farmers have to go and buy crop seeds from them each and every time.
I say it’s a win/win for everyone !
/s
penury on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 9:56 am
Face the unpleasant truth, you can have industrial agriculture and feed your population, or you can have a fundamental change and a reduction in the ability to feed people. All the hyperbole about “small,diversified farms is not applicable to large urbanized areas of the world. Try producing dairy products on small farms that are equal to factory farms. Show me the math which will provide the products required from small diversified farms.
ghung on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 10:09 am
penury: “Show me the math which will provide the products required from small diversified farms.”
Of course, the math doesn’t work for long either way. Many of us have been saying that for a while now. That’s one reason I live in a backwater area that has fairly good farmland that hasn’t been ruined by industrial agriculture, that gets a surplus of rainfall, has a moderate climate (is one of the places projected to largely remain that way), and has a fairly low population density. It’s not perfect but better than most areas from a sustainability standpoint. There also aren’t other resources here (oil/gas/coal, etc.) that anyone’s interested in.
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 10:17 am
Hallo agin penury,
We seem destined to remain on opposite sides of the argument, eh? No harm. Makes for an interesting discussion.
UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World
penury on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 10:32 am
Before anyone can get the idea that I am in favor of factory farms or GMO foods I want to emphasise that I am not. I think that both are a real and constant threat to the health of the people. However, we are faced with “Hobson’s Choice” Do we kill you with GMOs or do we let you starve? In he U.S we no longer have a choice, you will use GMO or you will not be allowed to grow crops. But I still say that Organic Farming will not prove able to feed the millions of people in major cities. I would love to see the math that shows me wrong.
penury on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 11:15 am
TM I read the report that you referenced, and I am afraid that even if I agreed (which I do) the UN offers no advice or recommendations on how this would be implemented or possible to implement. It is like the UN stating that war is hazardous to the health of the participants. O.K Now what?
Davy on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 11:28 am
Pen is right. Initially with such a high population we can only transition in a hybrid manner with production AG and permaculture. There are trade offs that are unavoidable when you cross the threshold of overshoot. These transition people’s want to avoid trade offs and claim this can be done without pain, death, and suffering. More cat piss just like the greenies, AltE’s, and transitionalist that preach hopium of change within BAUtopianism.
The consequences and unintended consequences of changing a agricultural economy are far to complex for any system to overcome. I have been in both production AG and now in permaculture. Neither together or alone is going to save us. Production AG can buy us time for some permaculture to catch on that is if we are lucky enough to have a drawn out collapse.
We have to look at this in a regional and local scenario. It won’t be long and we will see food nationalism and the end of globalized food as the primary force. They regions and locals in the worst overshoot like Asia are going to be the first to feel that pain. All areas have a big dose of reality coming. Gone are the specialty foods of today and in are the basics, seasonal, and local. Not such a bad thing but definitely a game changer.
vegeholic on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 2:22 pm
The author speaks of “legislation to criminalize unauthorized photography in concentrated animal feeding operations”. Right now the Indiana Legislature is trying to pass a “Freedom to Farm” bill which would criminalize all manner of activity aimed at acquiring or disseminating information about industrial agricultural practices. They really just want to checkmate you so have no choice but to buy their products. Waiting for enlightened leadership is an exercise in futility. The only thing to do is act individually or in small groups to grow and provide a larger share of the food you need. There really is no other choice.
sunweb on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 3:48 pm
It is called overshoot. Too much energy, too many individuals. Doesn’t matter the species. There is no saving. Look at the advent of fossil fuels and the growth in human population, they parallel. Of course, it is not just industrial agriculture, it is the brilliance of our medical innovations. Doesn’t matter, it is overshoot and there will be a correction.
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 5:42 pm
Well, at least one of us is willing to play devil’s advocate, eh?
Yes, I think there’s an excellent chance we’re toast. However, I think it’s still a good idea to continuously examine assumptions.
To the immediate point. With 7 billion people on the planet, I think it is generally accepted, at this point, that there is actually enough food to feed everyone.
It’s not an issue of raw capacity. It’s an issue of distribution. We, in all likelihood, throw away enough food in the US to feed all the starving masses out there.
None of which to say is we’re not in overshoot. It’s just that it’s still not apparent yet. The estimates of Earth’s carrying capacity are just that. Estimates.
By the above referenced report, a switch to an organic farming culture has the capacity to feed said world. I live in a subdivision in northern Illinois which a mere 20 years ago was sterile, industrial farmland.
It now supports a vibrant organic farm, farm development community, and a more prosaic American subdivision.
I live in one of the houses therein. My backyard is a prairie populated with native grasses, and I have to watch when I let the dog out at night that she doesn’t encounter the pack of coyotes that den a few hundred yards south.
As Teddy Roosevelt said. Speak softly, and carry a very large, heavy flashlight…
Davy on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 5:54 pm
Temp, I have native grasses outside my cabin. I will start burning some of the fields in a month. Sounds like you live in a nice area. I am sure your soils are deep and dark!
Temp, the issues is we are at the limits of food productivity growth with fossil fuels production likely entering descent yet the population continues to grow. Throw in a dying ocean and weird climate.
I am devil advocating back at ya. It don’t look good friend.
Yogi Greg on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 5:54 pm
PEN: Right now there is @ enough food on the planet to support 11B People…and even if that is off a billion or so, still a lot of coverage—the problem is Greed, Politics and Distribution…not what you said…New Org Farming Techniques are increasing yields far surpassing chemical driven, GE Monoculture production -as a matter of fact, due to the SUPERWEED SUPERPEST Problems not emerging, farmers in Iowa and Nebraska, in growing numbers< are laving Monsanto's and Dow's faulty farming paradigm and are returning to natural methods of conventional and organic farming….something the mainstream media hasn't really told you yet…
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 6:03 pm
Davy,
Yeah, I’ve admitted we are very, very likely gonna have a rough time of it.
I took the train in to work today. Yeah, a Saturday. But my job is play in many ways. I get to play with network toys, so I didn’t mind.
Today is (was) the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Chicago.
It seemed I was utterly overwhelmed with feisty, occasionally inebriated 18 year olds, all dressed in some shade of green and many sporting hairstyles which made it extremely difficult to differentiate one women from another. Ditto for the men.
It’s days like today that make me think it’s all over. There was even a late 20s dad with his young daughter on his lap directly in front of me.
It’s time like these that make me whisper
Good luck, kids. You’re gonna need it.
Jay Johnson on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 6:24 pm
Eating a high fiber, low fat, plant based diet is the best thing you can do for your health and the health of the planet.
Jay Johnson on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 6:26 pm
Eating a high fiber, low fat, diet is the best thing that you can do for your health and the health of the planet.
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 6:27 pm
And, okay. Moving past that.
The FAO has some updated stats:
Production Quantities by Country (Average 1993-2013)
The lines are a bit wobbly, but the overall trend still seems up.
At this point.
Jay Johnson on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 6:30 pm
Eating a high fiber, low fat, plant based diet is the best thing you can do for your health and for the health of the planet. According to T. Collin Campbell. Author of “The China Study” his research is pretty irrefutable.
Makati1 on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 8:43 pm
“Western corn rootworm is getting the EPA’s attention”
“Commercial turkeys in Arkansas test positive for bird flu”
“GMO and Monsanto Roundup: Glyphosate Weedkiller in our Food and Water?”
“Monsanto Is About to Escape All Regulation From the US Department of Agriculture”
“Chronic Kidney Failure 5 Times Higher in Glyphosate-Ridden (Monsanto Roundup) Areas, Study Confirms”
“75% of Air and Rain Samples Contain Monsanto’s RoundUp”
“Monsanto Glyphosate Roundup Herbicide Triggers Autism in Children. MIT Scientist”
“Lies and Fabrications: The Propaganda Campaign in Support of Genetically Modified Crops (GMO)”
“The Re-Colonization of Africa by Agribusiness”
“GMO and Europe’s “Bread Basket”. Monsanto’s Land Grab in Ukraine”
“GMO-Free Russia? Government Approves Bill that Would Ban GMO Cultivation, Breeding and Imports”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/theme/biotechnology-and-gmo
And the beat goes on …
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 9:42 pm
Mak,
I haven’t dug all that deep into the GMO deal yet. Though I do admit that when I do I seem to run into Christian Sarich quite a bit.
She seems a pretty hard core anti-vaccination spokesperson.
Gives me a bit of pause, I must say. But as I also say, I haven’t dug into it all that much yet.
Given it looks like some old school ag might be able to do the trick, I’m not so sure the monocrop and pesticide approach is really all that necessary.
I’ve gotten the idea about organic and rotational farming from some of the peer reviewed lit, but also from some of the farmers in our community. FWIW.
TemplarMyst on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 9:42 pm
That’s Christina Sarich. Damn thumbs.
Makati1 on Sat, 14th Mar 2015 9:49 pm
Templar, I am pretty sure that old methods of farming would feed the billions if we have not ruined the soil too much with the killer chems. But then, the Western diet would drastically change to more grain and veggies and little red meat. Obesity would go back to being a real genetically caused problem, not the result of too much too eat and too little exercise.
c.m. boyce on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 1:22 am
Cow manure is a sustainable, organic material and it is biodegradable. What is written here can be called the same. Too bad your comments are not biodegradable, too. Websites without correct names or proper attribution to statistics and opinions are worthless, like your effort here. It is too bad you can spread lies like these without being sued or called out in a court of law.
Davy on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 6:40 am
Temp, as I said earlier this will have to be a hybrid affair. Theoretically we could do it different but systematically we can’t. The consequences and unintended consequence of changing a global industrial agricultural sector are enormous. Time is likely short. It is like trying to change the financial system. Several anti-Americans here dream of the Brics breaking out of the western system and all that. The reason this is only happening around the edges is the systematic interconnectivity of the whole system does not allow big changes quickly. We have too big to fail banks because of this.
Ag is so large, so established, and so vital you just can’t change more than around the edges with niche changes. That said we needs the seeds of change. We need thousands of them in the vastly different locals that inhabit this world. We need niche alternatives throughout the system. All production AG farmers should be enticed by the AG system to practice some beneficial permaculture AG on their land. We have had conservation reserve programs for years why not alternative agriculture.
This needs to be in conjunction with AltE promotion per local sweet spot. Ag is energy intensive so AltE needs to be a part of it. For example Iowa farmers should be farming with ethanol where applicable. Ethanol’s eroi goes way down the square of the distance so to speak use it where it is produced. Cattle farmers around central MO need solar panels driving wells as a personal example. Wind power for the Wyoming cattle farmers.
Urban permaculture farms are much needed drawing on the city dwellers to come out and have garden and small farm plots. Cities need to promote this. Small communities using a hybrid modern and adapted Amish practices are ideal. Maybe not all communities to start with but the ones agreeable to making the change. It will take BAU to transition out of BAU with agriculture.
We need to move away from long distance monocultures but this will not work quickly. The industrial food and food preservation system with all its energy intensity is problematic. So much fixed infrastructure in place so many people adapted to it. You just don’t change that overnight even though it must change because it is far to energy intensive and there are far too many empty calories in junk food.
Some things can be steered away from immediately and that is GMO but not all production AG. I am an ex production AG guy. I had a farm investment when I was a finance guy. I can tell you that broad acre farms with low labor input, high energy, with high industrial inputs can’t be reformed quickly. Is the broke government going to subsidize large movement of people to the land? These people have no clue how to farm so the government will have to subsidize training.
This is going to have to happen in the coming crisis and I fear it will be an awful transition. This transition will surely be a low success transition because of no time, no money, no training, and no proper experience. This is going to be a forced adhoc affair because it will come from desperation of the BAUtopians failure. BUAtopians will be in denial all the way to the very end. BAUtopians are bastards because of this denial and the resulting hunger in our future. Food insecurity and hunger will force this transition and that will be when it is too late for a good transition.
So any and all efforts at seeds and niches are welcome. I say this in the field of AltE also. Any and all effort even the big complex AltE are good. Anything is better than the poor lifestyles and attitudes we have everywhere now wasting precious resources needed for crisis management. Imagine if all the effort and money of the sports industry was devoted to permaculture. People just decide in mass to change attitude and lifestyles to something productive with a future. That would be progress.
Noel A Vandiver on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 6:46 am
The difficulty with those who say we will starve without “Industrialized Agriculture”, and “Roundup”, is the need to maintain your current lifestyle. Growing your own food requires time, effort and a fairly long term commitment, and if unwilling to follow that regimen, then yes you could starve, but alas better to starve trying , than to allow corporations to poison you for profit!!! There are many techniques to produce food, some requiring very small space and investment, but there is likely not enough backbone left in our “couch potato society” to rise up and face a challenge. So, if you feel overwhelmed, kick back with a soda and chips and watch “Zombie Apocopolypse”
beast on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 7:35 am
the assumption that big ag is in anyway concerned about keeping the populace well fed is a joke, their only true concern is profit , the bigger the better, thats the first thing everyone needs to understand
Davy on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 8:20 am
Come on Noel and Beast this in not about right are wrong it is about survival for 7BIL people. Production Ag is wrong. Everything about big AG is bad but quit your denial that there is an alternative for 7BIL people in the short term and probably never. We will have to live with production AG and its evils in a hybrid effort with good agriculture down over time in desperate hope of some kind of transition.
Production AG as integral to BAU has a shelf life of likely 10 years or less so it is on the way out. It is how we transition out that is critical to life or death for BILLIONS. That is unless you have no concern about maybe 3BIL people dying to get to your permaculture and localized organic farming quickly and dispose of Production AG. That strategy reminds me of Mao’s great leap forward when 30MIL people died for a fantasy of quick industrialization. Same thing different day. If you think permaculture and local organic food will save us within a shiny happy BAU with 7BIL people and growing then you have been at the punch bowl too long.
John on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 4:19 pm
People are working on the transition to competitive, distributed organic agriculture. Agbotic is one new technology venture building robotics for organic agriculture to empower communities with restorative processes that make quality food at commodity prices.
Daddio7 on Sun, 15th Mar 2015 4:58 pm
Well, hello. Mostly good arguments with only a few evil Monsanto ranters. I was once a small farmer. My grandfather hit big as a sharecropper in the late 30’s and bought a 120 acre farm. My dad and then also my brother and I farmed together until we lost it all in 95. Lack of salesmanship and personal conflict was the problem. The current owner is very successful.
There is no organized evil to poison and suppress people, just men trying to make a profit. Large corporations can make big messes so government oversight is needed. There are “feel good” laws such as the one that mandated cage size for chickens. This just increases the ranchers and egg lovers cost.
There is little profit in permaculture and very few who will willingly do the work. Why do backbreaking work in the hot sun when you can get a degree and work in a nice air-conditioned office, right? Until things get much worse the socialism needed to force people back to the land will not be tolerated. It still wont make a profit and will be run as a government program. Sounds like fun times. I guess the mule barn I tore down when I moved onto my piece of land will have to be rebuilt. I wonder where they will get more old growth cypress?