Industrial Agriculture

Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock. It uses innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods like genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of sale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced using these methods of industrial agriculture.

Some benefits of this were that if you look at 30,000 years ago, hunter- gatherer behavior fed about six million people. About 3,000 years ago the primitive agriculture method fed 60 million people, and 300 years ago with the method of intensive agriculture only fed about 600 million people. Today with industrial agriculture, this method feeds about six billion people. A negative effect of industrial agriculture is that it uses huge amounts of water, energy, and industrial chemicals; increasing pollution in the arable land, useable water and atmosphere. Herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers, and animal waste products are accumulating in ground and surface waters. Many negative effects are remote from fields to farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. Other adverse effects are within the agricultural production systems, for example the rapidly developing resistance among pests is rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective.

A way to stop this is by using Organic farming methods. Organic farming methods combine some aspects of scientific knowledge and highly limited modern technology with traditional farming practices. It is accepting some of the methods of industrial agriculture while rejecting others. Organic methods rely on naturally occurring biological processes, which often take place over extended periods of time, and a holistic approach, while chemical-based farming focuses on immediate, isolated effects and reduction strategies.