Modern Industrialized Farming Industry

Image courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica

Throughout the world, modern industrialized agriculture is dominated by large to very large farms that require enormous inputs of fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides resulting in degraded soil and polluted land and waterways.  Despite the well-documented deleterious effects of modern agriculture, people continue to glorify the success of this system and the incredible output it is capable of producing. Even more disturbing, this factory-run approach to growing our food is rapidly spreading to developing countries as corporations move their operations there to cut costs.  We continue to support this method of food production and the corporations that run things this way every time we buy food from them in a grocery store rather than getting it from a local farmer or growing it ourselves. 

Are the costs to our health and the environment worth the output and lowered prices that the corporations who employ them tout?  By supporting industrial agriculture, we are accepting and contributing to:

• Overuse of limited water supplies and natural energy
• Toxic herbicides and pesticides building up in our ground water, leaching into our water supplies and being consumed by our families
• Chemical runoff making its way into water sources and causing oxygen-depleting blooms of microorganisms that kill the last of our fish populations and alter the natural balance of the ecosystems living there
• Resistant pests becoming more and more powerful due to overuse of herbicides and insecticides, rendering them increasingly ineffective
• Increased health risks and diseases caused by the herbicides and pesticides

For the past several decades the agricultural trend has been massive consolidation of farms. For example, in 1980 there were 700,000 small hog farms in the United States, and by 2000 there were only 70,000 with more than 50% of hogs produced in mega farms with over 5,000 hogs per farm.[1] 

The trend towards consolidation precipitated from consumer demand for cheap food, and farmers wanting to maximize subsidy payments from the government.

The Problem With Agricultural Subsidies

The period between 1910-1914 was extremely profitable for farmers in the United States; during WWI the U.S. was supplying Europe with food and added 40 million acres of farmland over the course of the war.  However, in 1920 demand from Europe declined and by 1932 farmers were only getting 65% of the 1910-1914 prices.[3]  In an attempt to raise prices, President Roosevelt initiated the Agricultural Adjustment Act to curtail production of high volume crops.  However, after WWII the government began subsidizing farmers for every bushel of corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice they could grow, rather than focusing on curtailment and other such subsidy programs.[4]  In addition, governments all over the world started to implement subsidy programs in order to maintain vast food surpluses to ensure that there would never be a shortage of food.[5] 

Like many subsidy programs, the US governmental farm subsidy program was designed to insulate farmers from low crop prices. However, because the subsidy is paid for each unit of crop it has the effect of increasing overall production, thereby further lowering prices.[6]  Although the subsidy program is intended to help ailing farmers the majority of subsidies go to commercial farms with average incomes greater than $200,000 a year.[7]  “From 2003-2006 millionaire farmers got 49 million in subsidies even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such subsidies.”[8]  The situation is even worse when you factor in the billions of dollars in federal water subsidies that many farmers received.

Overall, subsidies have been shown to be costly, inefficient, and environmentally damaging.[9]  So why do many nations continue to subsidize farming?  Some proponents argue that it is the only way to maintain a stable, cheap food supply, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.  For example, nearly 20 years ago New Zealand cut all farm subsidies and after a brief adjustment period, farm profitability, land values, and commodity prices stabilized and began rising:[10]

Cultivating plants and animals is one of the underpinnings of humanity; it is therefore critical that we find a system that is environmentally and economically sustainable. Throughout the world, people have debated the solutions to the environmental, economic, and social problems that modern industrialized agricultural systems have created.  Whereas “hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest lasting lifestyle in human history… we're still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it's unclear whether we can solve it.”[11]  Our approach to growing  food to nourish us should focus on using methods that produce an abundance of food while simultaneously ensuring that the soil, groundwater, and air are not damaged or destroyed in the process.