Agri-industrial complex is on the way out, activist says

Americans are becoming disenchanted with industrial agriculture and turning more to farmers markets and locally produced food, said author and activist Bill McKibben.

He gave the keynote address at the annual conference of the Northeast Organic Farming Association at Hampshire College. The conference, which attracted 1,350 people last weekend, focuses on everything from biodiesel to cheesemaking to worm composting.


“Farmers markets are the fastest growing part of our food economy, growing at 12 to 15 percent a year,” said McKibben. “They’re growing a lot faster than Wal-Mart.”

He compared industrial agriculture to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. “It’s rotting from within, relying on subsidies from a central government and waiting for a shove to collapse,” he said. “It can’t continue to rely on cheap fossil fuels.”

Amherst Bulletin