Industrial Agriculture

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"a Change in the average US farm size and number of farms with time. b Conceptual schematic of the sources of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions and effects on algal blooms considered herein." Source: "Symbols and icons are from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Integration and Application Network (IAN) image library or from Vectorstock used under an expanded license"[1]

Industrial agriculture is a system of uniformity with no diversity: massive acres of land covered in identical nearly artificial plants; fed artificial nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus; sprayed with toxic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides. In Who Really Feeds The World, Dr. Vandana Shiva explains how “an ecologically destructive and nutritionally inefficient food system has become the dominant paradigm in our minds and the most touted practice on our lands, even though, in reality, small, biodiverse farms working with nature’s processes produce most of the food we eat.”

Indigenous Persons across Turtle Island have long utilized place-based regenerative agriculture techniques. Placed-based regenerative agriculture is predicated around the reality of humans being but one part in the web of life, and understanding our role as stewards to the environment.

Fully comprehending our stewardship role on Earth is vital to reversing the destructive effects of industrialized society and agriculture. Anything short of fully embracing this role (which we all must fulfill) will have long lasting devastating effects for us, future generations, and all other life on Earth.[2]

Mono-Cultures

The US Farm Bill, the major legislation that encompasses agriculture, conservation, and research and food assistance programs, has, over its various iterations and re-authorizations, incentivized monoculture production, primarily corn and soybean. Its major objective is to stabilize prices and incomes, not to protect environmental interests. This massively expensive legislation guides all aspects of the US food and farming systems, but is heavily influenced by special interests, and thus its policies have favored consolidated large-scale farms, and grains over fruits and vegetables, heavy use of chemical fertilizers, among other incentives to maximize profits over environmental stewardship.[3]


Because of these shifts and other policy- or economic-related factors, most of the grain grown in US is not used directly for food. It is fed to animals in feedlots (about 36%), used for biofuels (about 40%), exported (about 10%), and used in high-fructose corn syrup and other food products (a few %; Foley 2013; Barton and Clark 2014). Of the total acreage in corn, about 5%, or 2 million ha, is needed just to support the supply of chicken and pork sold at McDonalds and Walmart. Only ~ 1% of all corn grown is directly eaten by people as “sweet corn”. The mandate for ethanol production in the US, originally intended to support farmers and reduce foreign dependence on oil, has resulted in 12.5 million ha of corn dedicated to ethanol corn (equivalent to more than all the crop land in Iowa) and likely has contributed to an increase in N fertilizer use in the past 2 decades. In the 1990s, the US produced about 10 million MT of corn for biofuels; in 2018 it was ~ 140 million MT, about 12-fold more than that used for high fructose corn syrup.[4]

Corn

Soy

77 percent of Soy crops globally are produced for animal consumption and only 19.2 percent is produced for direct human food.[5]

Hunger

[6]

Industrial Agriculture produces massive amounts of mono-cultured food stocks, but there are still millions of people across the globe who go hungry everyday or die from starvation. According to the 'Food Security Information Network' in 2022 258 million people across 58 countries/ territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity which was an increase from the 193 million people in 2021.[7]

Because not all countries were included in these studies the number of people who go hungry is much higher; Between 702 and 828 million people go hungry every day according to the 2022 'State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World' report published by a joint collaboration under the United Nations.[8] World hunger rose further in 2021 after the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic:

... After remaining relatively unchanged since 2015, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) jumped from 8.0 to 9.3 percent from 2019 to 2020 and rose at a slower pace in 2021 to 9.8 percent.

It is estimated that between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. The number has grown by about 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic – 103 million more people between 2019 and 2020 and 46 million more in 2021, considering the middle of the projected range.

The further increase in global hunger in 2021 reflects exacerbated inequalities across and within countries due to an unequal pattern of economic recovery among countries and unrecovered income losses among those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, all in a context of diminishing social protection measures that had been implemented in 2020.[9]

Even more people were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021 with the number reaching 2.3 billion or nearly 30 percent of the global population, which is 350 million more people than 2019 or before the COVID-19 Pandemic began.[10]


Gender Inequality

The gender gap in food insecurity – which had grown in 2020 under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic – widened even further in 2021, driven largely by the widening differences in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Asia. In 2021, the gap reached 4.3 percentage points, with 31.9 percent of women in the world being moderately or severely food insecure compared to 27.6 percent of men.[11]


Solutions to Hunger

See: Food Sovereignty | Agroecology | Just Transition

CAFOS

Graphic showing how land-use change and pesticide use is integral to industrial agriculture and CAFOS specifically[12]

CAFOS are 'Confined Animal Feeding Operations' and have increased, in the US, by 10% between 2012 and 2020. Hog production increased by 13 percent during the same time frame. There are ~8.7 billion animals in CAFO operations- animals include: Cattle, Dairy Cows, Hogs, Broiler Chickens, and Turkeys. The areas where animals are farmed is concentrated regionally across the country.[13]

The waste from hog and dairy operations is mainly held in open lagoons that contribute to NH3 and greenhouse gas (as CH4 and N2O) emissions. Emissions of NH3 from animal waste in 2019 were estimated at > 4,500,000 MT. Emissions of CH4 from manure management increased 66% from 1990 to 2017 (that from dairy increased 134%, cattle 9.6%, hogs 29% and poultry 3%), while those of N2O increased 34% over the same time period (dairy 15%, cattle 46%, hogs 58%, and poultry 14%).[14]

The numbers of animals in CAFOs differs widely, depending on the animal and regional permitting. CAFOs are categorized as small, medium, or large depending on the number and type of animal and the drainage system for their waste. Small CAFOs (those with small animal populations just under the definition of medium-sized) are often undercounted or un-permitted and are expanding in many regions where regulations apply only to larger facilities. By keeping animal operations to numbers that do not fall into the category for regulation, operators maintain more options—and more polluting options—for handling waste. Current permitting and legal differences between states makes it difficult to obtain an accurate count of the number of CAFOs in the US. Transparency of CAFO data, with respect to permit state, location, manure storage or type, and number of animals is low for almost every state; the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) does not have such data for about half of the CAFOs in its inventory of 2012. New algorithms are being applied to obtain better estimates and these approaches suggest that the number of CAFOs is actually more than 15% higher that which is routinely reported from manual enumerations.[15]

Over 70 billion land animals are raised for factory farms across the world with approximately 10 billion being raised in the US alone.[16]

Artificial Fertilizers

"Concentrations of total nitrogen were highest in agricultural streams, with a median concentration of about 4 mg/L (about 6 times greater than background levels), whereas concentrations of total phosphorus were similar in agricultural and urban streams, with a median concentration of about 0.25 mg/L (also about 6 times greater than background levels)."[17]

Commercial artificial fertilizers are ubiquitously used across the so-called United States- with nitrogen (N) exceeding 12 million metric tonnes (MT) and is increasing annually at a rate of 60 thousand MT per year. Phosphorus (P) has remained constant for the last decade being used at a rate of 1.8 million MT per year.[18] Nitrogen applied by fertilizer is about 3 times greater than manure Nitrogen inputs and manure Phosphorus inputs are about equivalent to artificial Phosphorus inputs.[19] Around 38% of all applied N to crops in the so-called united states is lost as environmental pollution contributing to Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico (41 percent of all N found in this dead zone is from the midwest,) and other watersheds.[20]

The possibility of mitigating the industrial corn-soy system’s loss of synthetic N fertilizer via within-system technological solutions is frequently promoted. However, reflecting the inherent, system-level flaws with an agricultural system based on synthetic N use, the potential of technologies to mitigate contributions to water pollution and N loss to the environmental overall are limited, with studies finding little to no reduction in agricultural N loss to waterways from their use. After their analysis of the impact of technological approaches in reducing N loss to waterway from midwestern corn-soy farms, Blesh and Drinkwater summarize: “Our results suggest that the dominant manage ment emphasis on adjusting the timing and placement of [synthetic] N inputs (i.e. within-system approaches) has biogeochemical limitations in terms of the degree to which N retention can be increased.” In other words, it is increasingly clear that significantly mitigating the issue of N water pollution requires agroecological approaches and eventual system transformation toward a much more ecological diverse approach to agriculture.[21]


Dead Zones

"The size and number of marine dead zones—areas where the deep water is so low in dissolved oxygen that sea creatures can’t survive—have grown explosively in the past half-century. Red circles on this map show the location and size of many of our planet’s dead zones. Black dots show where dead zones have been observed, but their size is unknown." Source: NASA[22]

"'Dead zone' is a more common term for hypoxia, which refers to a reduced level of oxygen in the water. ... Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a “dead zone” because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts. "[23]

The negative effects of hypoxia include loss of suitable and required habitat for many bottom-dwelling fishes and benthic fauna, habitat compression for pelagic fishes, direct mortality, increased predation, decreased food resources, altered trophic energy transfer, altered bioenergetics (physiological, development, growth, and reproductive abnormalities) and altered migration. These result in reduced fisheries, including valuable finfishes and crustaceans. Increasing nutrient loads that also change the nutrient ratios can affect the composition of the phytoplankton community and can shift trophic interactions. Hypoxia also alters or interrupts ecosystem functions and services such as nutrient cycling and bioturbation.[24]

Dead zones across the world increase with humanity's growing dependency on chemical fertilizers for crops. Additionally, Global climate collapse has a high likelihood of worsening existing hypoxia zones and facilitating its formation in additional waters.[25] In 1995 there were 195 documented areas of human-caused hypoxia and by 2008 Diaz and Rosenberg[26] documented over 400 cases of hypoxia in the world's coastal ocean which covered more than 245,000 km2 of sea bottom.[27]

The corn-belt (mainly encompassing Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio) of the so-called United States uses more than 4.5 million metric tonnes (MT) of chemically manufactured Nitrogen and uses more than one million MT of manure produced Nitrogen. The Nitrogen is mainly used to fertilize soy bean and corn crops and is considered to be the main source of Nitrogen causing the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.[28][29]


Additional Reading:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212613914000373?via%3Dihub

https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/66/7/1528/656749

Pesticides and Insecticides

See: Bayer-Monsanto | Syngenta

[30]


The pesticide industry is valued to be over 60 billion dollars.[31] In 2018, a report[32] indicated, approximately 235 million pounds of pesticides were used to grow crops for farmed animals in the so-called United States.[33] The global pesticide market is controlled mostly by France, Germany, China, and the United States, together these countries account for 83 percent of sales (as of 2018.)[34]

The use of pesticides has increased many folds over the past few decades. According to an estimate, about 5.2 billion pounds of pesticides are used worldwide per year. The use of pesticides for pest mitigation has become a common practice all around the world. Their use is not only restricted to agricultural fields, but they are also employed in homes in the form of sprays, poisons and powders for controlling cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats, fleas, ticks and other harmful bugs. Due to this reason, pesticides are frequently found in our food commodities in addition to their presence in the air (Pesticides n.d.). Pesticides can be natural compounds or they can be synthetically produced. They may belong to any one of the several pesticide classes. Major classes include organochlorines, carbamates, organophosphates, pyrethroids and neonicitinoids to which most of the current and widely used pesticides belong (Pesticides 101-A Primer n.d. ). Pesticide formulations contain active ingredients along with inert substances, contaminants and occasionally impurities. Once released into the environment, pesticides break down into substances known as metabolites that are more toxic to active ingredients in some situations[35]

Brief History

In 1600s, a mixture of honey and arsenic was used for controlling ants. In late 1800s, farmers in the USA started using certain chemicals such as nicotine sulphate, calcium arsenate and sulphur for field related posts; however; their efforts were unfruitful because of the primitive methods of application. In 1867, an impure form of copper, arsenic was used to control the outbreak of Colorado potato beetle in the USA. The major breakthrough in pesticide development occurred in the period around and after World War-II, when several effective and inexpensive pesticides were synthesised and produced. This period is marked by the discovery of Aldrin, dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) in 1939, Dieldrin, β-Benzene Hexachloride (BHC), 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), Chlordane and Endrin...[36]

Fungicides, captan and glyodin and organophosphate insecticide Malathion were introduced between 1950 and 1955 followed by the discovery of triazine herbicides in the years 1955–1960. An experimental wartime herbicide named Agent Orange was developed by Monsanto in 1961–1971 and was used during the Vietnam War. Moreover, in 1961, the use of pesticides also reached its peak. However, after 1962, there was a marked decrease in the development of new pesticides as the public attention was drawn to the environmental hazards associated with indiscriminate pesticide use. In 1962, an American scientist Rachel Carson highlighted in her book, Silent Spring, that spraying DDT in the field causes sudden death of non-target organisms either by direct or indirect toxicity.[37]

Risks

Image describing the following steps of bioamplification: 1) "Small concentration of pesticide enters the bodies of animal that are in low level in the food chain such as grasshopper (primary consumer)." 2) "Shrews (secondary consumer) eat many grasshoppers and therefore the concentration of pesticide will increase in their bodies." 3) "When the high level predator such as owl eats shrews and other prey, the pesticide concentration eventually increases many folds in its body."[38]

Risks associated with pesticide use have surpassed their beneficial effects. Pesticides have drastic effects on non-target species and affect animal and plant biodiversity, aquatic as well as terrestrial food webs and ecosystems. According to Majewski and Capel (1995), about 80–90 % of the applied pesticides can volatilize within a few days of application. It is quite common and likely to take place while using sprayers. The volatilized pesticides evaporate into the air and subsequently may cause harm to non-target organism. A very good example of this is the use of herbicides, which volatilise off the treated plants and the vapours are sufficient to cause severe damage to other plants. Uncontrolled use of pesticides has resulted in reduction of several terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant species. They have also threatened the survival of some rare species such as the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and osprey. Additionally, air, water and soil bodies have also being contaminated with these chemicals to toxic levels.

Among all the categories of pesticides, insecticides are considered to be most toxic whereas fungicides and herbicides are second and third on the toxicity list. Pesticides enter the natural ecosystems by two different means depending upon their solubility. Water soluble pesticides get dissolve in water and enter ground water, streams, rivers and lakes hence causing harm to untargeted species. On the other hand, fat soluble pesticides enter the bodies of animals by a process known as “bioamplification” ... They get absorbed in the fatty tissues of animals hence resulting in persistence of pesticide in food chains for extended periods of time.[39]

Aquatic Biodiversity

Pesticides enter the water via drift, by runoff, leaching through the soil or they may be applied directly into surface water in some cases such as for mosquitoes’ control. Pesticide-contaminated water poses a great threat to aquatic form of life. It can affect aquatic plants, decrease dissolved oxygen in the water and can cause physiological and behavioural changes in fish populations. In several studies, lawn care pesticides have been found in surface waters and water bodies such as ponds, streams and lakes. Pesticides which are applied to land drift to aquatic ecosystems and there they are toxic to fishes and non-target organisms. These pesticides are not only toxic themselves but also interact with stressors which include harmful algal blooms. With the overuse of pesticides, a decline in populations of different fish species is observed.

About 80 % of the dissolved oxygen is provided by the aquatic plants and it is necessary for the sustenance of aquatic life. Killing of aquatic plants by the herbicides results in drastically low O2 levels and ultimately leads to suffocation of fish and reduced fish productivity. Generally, levels of pesticides are much higher in surface waters than groundwater probably because of surface runoff from farmland and contamination by spray drift. However, pesticides reach underground through seepage of contaminated surface water, improper disposal and accidental spills and leakages.

Aquatic ecosystems are experiencing considerable damage due to drifting of pesticides into the lakes, ponds and rivers. Atrazine is toxic to some fish species and it also indirectly affects the immune system of some amphibians. Amphibians are chiefly affected by pesticides contaminated surface waters, in addition to overexploitation and habitat loss. Carbaryl has been found toxic for several amphibian species, whereas, herbicide glyphosate is known to cause high mortality of tadpoles and juvenile frogs. Small concentrations of malathion have been shown to change the abundance and composition of plankton and periphyton population that consequently affected the growth of frog tadpoles. Moreover, chlorpyrifos and endosulfan also cause serious damage to amphibians. Dr. Hayes discovered that 10 % of male frogs raised in atrazine-contaminated water developed into females. Male frogs that were genetically males phenotypically developed ovaries within their testes. They also developed the tendency to mate with other males and lay sustainable eggs. The reproductive potential of aquatic life forms also reduces due to herbicide spraying near weedy fish nurseries which eventually reduces the amount of shelter that is required by young fish to hide from predators.[40]

Terrestrial Biodiversity

Bees

Pesticides have not even spared the terrestrial animal populations. Populations of beneficial insects such as bees and beetles can significantly decline by the use of broad-spectrum insecticides such as carbamates, organophosphates and pyrethroids. Insect population has also been found to be greater on organic farms compared to non-organic ones. Synergistic effects of pyrethroids and triazole or imidazole fungicides are harmful to honey bees. Neonicotinoids insecticides such as clothianidin and imidacloprid are toxic to bees. Imidacloprid even at low doses negatively affects bee foraging behaviour in addition to reducing learning capacity. The greatest havoc wreaked by neonicotinoids was the sudden disappearing of honey bees at the very start of the twenty-first century. This was a major concern to the food industry as 1/3 of the food production depends on pollination by bees. Honey and wax obtained from commercial hives were reported to contain a mixture of pesticides of which neonicotinoids shared a significant portion. Since 2006, each year, honey bee populations have dropped by 29–36 %[41]

Birds

Since pre-agricultural times, 20–25 % of the bird populations have declined. One of the major causes of this massive decline is the use of pesticides which was not known before 1962. Pesticide accumulation in the tissues of bird species leads to their death. Bald eagle populations in the USA declined primarily because of exposure to DDT and its metabolites. Fungicides can indirectly reduce birds and mammal populations by killing earthworms on which they feed. Granular forms of pesticides are disguised as food grains by birds. Organophosphate insecticides are highly toxic to birds and they are known to have poisoned raptors in the fields. Sublethal quantities of pesticides can affect the nervous system, causing behavioural changes.[42]

Microbes

Pesticides can be applied as liquid sprays on the soil or crop plant, may be incorporated or injected into the soil or applied as granules or as a seed treatment. Once they have reached their target area, pesticides disappear via degradation, dispersion, volatilisation or leaching into surface water and groundwater; they may be taken up by plants or soil organisms or they may stay in the soil. The major concern of pesticide overuse is their leaching into the soil, which affects the microbes residing in it. Soil dwelling microbes help the plants in many different ways, such as nutrient uptake; breakdown of organic matter and increasing soil fertility. But indirectly they are also advantageous to humans as we heavily depend on plants. Unfortunately, pesticide overuse may have drastic consequences and a time may come when we would not have any more of these organisms and soil may degrade.

Several soil microbes are involved in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates. Chlorothalonil and dinitrophenyl fungicides have been shown to disrupt nitrification and de-nitrification bacteria dependent processes. The herbicide, triclopyr inhibits soil bacteria involved in the transformation of ammonia into nitrite. Glyphosate, a non-selective herbicide, reduces the growth and activity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil whereas, 2,4-D inhibits the transformation of ammonia into nitrates carried out by the soil bacteria.[43]


Fungi

Herbicides also cause considerable damage to fungal species in soil as pesticides trifluralin and oryzalin both are known to inhibit the growth of symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that help in nutrient uptake. Oxadiazon has been known to reduce the number of fungal spores whereas triclopyr is toxic to certain species of mycorrhizal fungi.[44]


Earthworms

Earthworms play a significant role in the soil ecosystem by acting as bio-indicators of soil contamination and as models for soil toxicity testing. Earthworms also contribute to soil fertility. Pesticides have not spared earthworms from their toxic effects and the later is exposed to the former mainly via contaminated soil pore water. Schreck et al. (2008) reported that insecticides and/or fungicides produce neurotoxic effects in earthworms and after a long term exposure they are physiologically damaged. Glyphosate and chlorpyrifos have deleterious effects on earthworms at the cellular level causing DNA damage. Glyphosates affect feeding activity and viability of earthworms. Goulson reviewed the harms of neonicotinoids on environment and animal life. He reported that as neonicotinoids have a tendency to accumulate in the soil, therefore, they can kill earthworms such as Eisenia foetida species.[45]

Bayer-Monsanto

Syngenta

Climate Collapse

The environmental degradation associated with the industrialization of agriculture goes hand in hand with the processes concentrating power in the agricultural sector and dispossessing many of their lands. The Green Revolution, spanning roughly the 1940s to the 1970s, fundamentally changed agricultural practices around the globe when agronomists from the United States popularized high-yielding grain varieties along with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and international development agencies promoted debt-inducing, large-scale irrigation infrastructure. Although input-intensive farming methods succeeded in greatly increasing food production globally, they are also widely critiqued for exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities, deepening the dependence of farmers on multinational corporations, shrinking agrobiodiversity, and upending ecologically suited agricultural practices. In the United States, Canada, and Europe, farmers found themselves on a “technological treadmill” that drove agricultural production so high that crop prices, and thus farm incomes, fell precipitously, driving the majority of farmers out of agriculture altogether. The treadmill that accelerated environmental impacts simultaneously deepened inequalities. From an agrarian change perspective, the mid-twentieth-century accelerations reflect a moment when control over the land quickly slipped away from its primary stewards, making the questions of who is responsible for environmental change more complex than simple geography.[46]

Land-Use Change

An enormous portion of our agricultural lands, roughly one-third, are used for mass-producing corn and soy, the vast majority of which is not for human consumption. Globally, roughly 67 – 77% of soy produced is used as feed for livestock , and 36 - 45% of the corn produced in the US is used as feed.

Not only are our existing agricultural lands heavily used to produce just these two crops, but worse, wildlands are continuing to be converted to cropland in order to grow more.

From 2018-2019 alone an estimated 2.6 million acres of grasslands in the US were plowed up and converted to row crop agriculture, with 70% of this conversion occurring for just three crops: corn (25%), soy (22%) and wheat (21%). For soy in particular, the “conversion of important grasslands and conservation lands to soybean production is one of the biggest issues” facing high conservation value native vegetation in the US. The massive scale of soy or corn cropping systems leads to loss of biodiversity and threatens thousands of endangered and threatened species. Foxes and bats, migratory birds, bumblebees, and prairie butterflies, are all imperiled by grassland conversion and industrial agriculture.

High levels of meat consumption are driving the decline in wild animal populations via the ever-increasing intensification of monoculture feed crop cultivation to feed the farmed animals raised in the factory farming systems that produce the majority of meat consumed in the US today.[47]

Water Usage

70 percent of the world's water is used for agriculture and 40 percent of this water is lost to the environment due to evaporation, poor irrigation systems and poor water management. Livestock requires 30 percent of the 70 percent of water to produce feed for the animals, water for drinking, and hygiene. One cow used for producing milk uses about 40 to 50 gallons of water a day.[48]


Colorado River

The Colorado River supplies water for 40 million Americans and is in a state of crisis do to over use. Roughly 1.9 trillion gallons of water are consumed within the Colorado River basin in a year. Of the almost 2 trillion gallons of water consumed 79 percent of it is utilized for agricultural purposes. 55 percent of the 79 percent of water is used to produce Livestock feed (Alfalfa, Hay, Grasses, and Corn Silage.) 11 percent of the 79 percent is used to produce Cotton, 3 percent is used for Wheat, 2 percent is used for Corn grain, 1 percent for Barley, and 7 percent for other crops.[49]

See a graph illustrating the usage of water here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html


To put it in perspective, it could take more than 38 gallons of water, by some estimates, to produce one quarter-pound beef patty. That includes the water to grow all the feed like alfalfa and hay that the cattle themselves eat. In comparison, you need about five gallons of water to get the same amount of protein from tofu. Dairy products like milk and cheese are even more water-intensive per gram of protein than beef because dairy cows require more energy to produce milk. They’re often fed alfalfa, in part because it’s higher in calories and protein. Some tree nuts like almonds can use a relatively large amount of water as well.[50]

Alfalfa

Thirty-seven percent of the water used in the Colorado River basin goes toward growing alfalfa and hay used largely to feed dairy cattle. That’s triple the water that residents in the region use to water lawns, take showers and wash clothes. Alfalfa is a thirsty crop, in part because of its lengthy growing season that allows for multiple harvests per year. It’s an export, too. Researchers estimated in the 2020 study that 10 to 12 percent of the irrigated cattle-feed crops grown in the United States are exported, and about 10 percent of beef is exported.[51]

World Trade Organization

The WTO, established at the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1995, greatly expanded the traditional scope and power over agriculture. The predecessor to the WTO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), had a very narrow mandate: to set quotas and tariffs for agriculture products. Other matters remained under the purview of national governments. Though not without flaws, the GATT system allowed countries more flexibility to protect domestic markets from predatory “dumping” of subsidized items from foreign countries, and price gouging by a handful of corporate commodity traders. The creation of the WTO changed all that.[52]

Agreement On Agriculture

The preamble of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) states that the agreement’s intent is to establish a more pure market-based agriculture. According to Martin Khor of the Third World Network, “The WTO has stamped a new paradigm for national economic and social policies worldwide, and a new framework of international economic relations.”

The AoA focuses on these four areas:

  • Market access: Countries are required to open national and local economies to foreign commodities, and to import a certain minimum level of agricultural products (referred to as “minimum access” rules).
  • Reduced “trade barriers”: Countries are required to convert import quotas (or “non-tariff” controls) into tariffs (taxes), which must then be reduced and/or eliminated over time.
  • Domestic supports: Countries are required to diminish production subsidies and other supports that national governments traditionally extended to domestic farmers.
  • Export competition: Countries are required to bind their level of export subsidies to WTO rules, and then reduce subsidies over time.[53]

Dumping

Related to subsidies is the issue dumping, i.e., the practice of selling a product at a price below the actual cost of production. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), U.S. grain companies that dominate the global market are engaged in widespread dumping. In 2003, wheat was exported at 28 percent below its cost of production, soybeans were dumped at 10 percent below cost, corn was dumped at 10 percent below cost, cotton was dumped at 47 percent and rice at 26 percent below cost. This practice has devastated many developing countries’ economies.

Two main factors contribute to dumping: 1) Large-scale farms and agribusiness have been allowed to maintain, and even increase, subsidies for many export crops; and, concurrently, 2) WTO rules require developing countries to open their markets to imports, yet have stripped away traditional mechanisms such as quantitative import restrictions that could help safeguard against dumping.

As a result, the practice of dumping on poor developing countries continues to destroy self-reliant food economies and farmer livelihoods. For example: Haitian and Honduran rice farmers lost their farm incomes when those countries were forced to reduce their tariffs, according to the rules of the WTO and the IMF. They were suddenly faced with an influx of subsidized U.S. rice. Jamaican dairy farmers cannot compete with cheap subsidized milk powder from Europe. And subsidized cotton from the U.S. has also wiped out the cotton market in many African countries, particularly Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso, which have lost twice as much from the drop in cotton prices as they receive in U.S. foreign aid.

Technically, the WTO prohibits dumping and gives countries the right to impose special anti-dumping duties against offending countries. However, the rules require that countries must prove that they have been harmed by dumping, which is a complicated, challenging and expensive process, particularly for smaller countries. Few small countries can afford to challenge powerful economic players like the United States.[54]

Summary

In sum, the rules of AoA are strongly biased in favor of the rich countries and giant agribusiness interests, which are effectively allowed to subsidize export commodities that are then dumped in poorer countries. Meanwhile, developing countries have been stripped of their few mechanisms, such as quantitative restrictions, to safeguard their food base and rural livelihoods.

Finally, subsidies that enable dumping also contribute to the steady erosion of independent and small-scale producers in the North. Such subsidies contribute to declining prices paid to farmers, making farmers even more dependent on subsidies. The increasing need to earn income off-farm, and declining net farm incomes indicate failed policies that facilitate the sale of commodities at less than the cost of production prices.[55]

SPS

SPS or the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards.


TRIPs

TRIPs or the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights

Prior to the WTO, all patenting and intellectual property rules were under the purview of national governments. Most developing countries favored a sui generis community-based patent system which often exempted agriculture, medicine, and other essential products and processes from control by national patent laws. Such policies aimed to acknowledge generations-old traditional local knowledge and ensure that basic necessities of life remained available to all, as a “commons,” in the public domain. Thus, sui generis systems promoted local seed saving, seed research, and seed exchange. ...

TRIPs, however, allows seeds, plants, and other life forms (e.g., “micro organisms”) to be patented by global corporations located far outside the community or nation. Through the WTO, sui generis systems are being undermined and abandoned, and countries are forced to convert to a western-style system of intellectual property rights, which means that nothing is exempt from patent laws, unless explicitly exempted in TRIPs.

The basic framework for the TRIPs system was conceived and shaped by the Intellectual Property Committee (IPC) of the United States, and by industry associations of Japan and Europe. The IPC coalition represented thirteen major U.S. corporations including Bristol Myers, Dupont, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Monsanto, Pfizer, Rockwell and Warmer. This body provided the major impetus for internationalizing intellectual property rights within the WTO. The control of local community innovation, once considered an inherent right of communities, has now become a statutory right of corporations.[56]

Corporations

See: Bayer-Monsanto | Syngenta | General Mills | Silicon Ranch Corporation

Over the course of the twentieth century, the profits earned in agriculture have increasingly been diverted away from farmers, accruing instead to both the “upstream” agricultural input businesses that sell seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, and machinery to farmers and the “downstream” food processors, distributors, and retailers that buy farm output. The search for profits in agri-food supply chains thus incentivizes agribusinesses to sell farmers technologies that have contributed to water pollution, climate change, and biodiversity decline. Farmers’ dependence on these inputs has driven up their costs (and reliance on debts) while producing high yields that ultimately drive down the prices they receive for their goods, a “cost–price squeeze” that has devastated smaller or otherwise marginalized farmers. At the inter- national level, differential power relations are at the core of “food regime theory,” which interprets agri-food system dynamics and their environmental implications historically as a product of colonial legacies and geopolitical struggle. In short, for critical scholars of agrarian change, the planetary impact of agriculture—the monocropped landscapes, the greenhouse gas emissions, the nitrogen pollution—is the outcome of highly unequal distributions of profit and power. It is the struggle between human groups—not humanity as a whole—that explains the ecological crises of modern-day agriculture.[57]

Product Dumping

The dumping problem also stems from the built-in bias of most global rules toward giant agriculture corporations. These corporations have been able to concentrate their domination over many of the world’s agricultural commodities and control global prices and supply. A handful of companies now trade virtually all the world’s corn, cotton, wheat, and soybeans, with trade in coffee, sugar, and other tropical specialty crops also highly concentrated. For example, in 2002, the largest six grain-handling companies controlled three quarters of the world’s cereal commodity market. Similar oligarchic conditions exist in both farm supplies (seeds, chemicals) and in food processing and distribution. This leaves small farmers in both rich and poor countries subject to the whims of corporations, commodity brokers, and the market, and generally unable to get fair prices for their products. The ultimate control over farm livelihoods is now the domain of a handful of corporations.[58]

Alternatives

See: Food Sovereignty | Free Breakfast For Children | Agroecology | Permaculture

Small Farm Food Production

Around 70% of the world is fed by small-scale farmers and other peasants.[59] The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) estimated that small producers provide 80% of food in large parts of the developing world. [60] A paper published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2021 made the claim that small farms only feed about one third of the world’s population.[61] In response:

Eight organisations with long experience working on food and farming issues, including ETC Group and GRAIN, have now written to FAO Director General QU Dongyu, sharply criticizing the UN food agency for spreading confusing data. The open letter calls upon FAO to examine its methodology, clarify itself and to reaffirm that peasants (including small farmers, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, hunters and gatherers, and urban producers) not only provide more food with fewer resources but are the primary source of nourishment for at least 70% of the world population.[62]

Dr.Vandana Shiva speaks on the myth of small farms and small scale-farmers having lower rates of production:

We have seen, small, biodiverse farms are more ecologically efficient than large industrial monocultures. When one recognizes that small farms across the world produce greater and more diverse outputs of nutritious crops, it becomes clear that industrial breeding has actually reduced food security. Industrial farming has created hunger and poverty; yet large industrial farms are justified as necessary in order to produce more food....

...Small farms produce more food than large industrial farms because small-scale farmers give more care to the soil, plants, and animals, and they intensify biodiversity, not external chemical inputs. As farms increase in size, they replace labor with fossil fuels for farm machinery, the caring work of farmers with toxic chemicals, and the intelligence of nature and farmers with careless technologies.

...What is growing on large farms is not food; it is commodities. For example, only 10 percent of the corn and soy taking over world agriculture is eaten. Ninety percent goes to drive cars as biofuel, or to feed animals being tortured in factory farms.[63]

Barriers to Transition

In a study conducted by Houser et el[64] 154 farmers were interviewed about industrial agriculture's contribution to Nitrogen polluting watersheds. The majority of the farmers interviewed either believed that the issue of Nitrogen leakage was over blown or that market mechanisms (read capitalism) either prevent the over use of Nitrogen or that it would eventually lower the amount of Nitrogen used on crops.

... we find that many farmers believe there is a problem with water pollution, yet the cause or nature of the problem is not perceived as related to farmers’ actions or their responsibility. Ideologies that focus on the role of urban polluters (agrarianism), conceal the significant role of agricultural N loss. In terms of the best way of solving N pollution, farmers largely believed that technological changes could reduce pollution (techno-optimism). While some suggested that markets had already or were the best way to solve problems (market-fundamentalism), none pro- posed an increase in fertilizer price or a fertilizer tax as a solution—although this solution has been effective where adopted—nor did they consider other policies that would at least encourage a reduction in total N use. Solutions proposed do not represent a significant transition towards ecological practices but justify maintaining the current system.[65]

The few farmers who acknowledged that industrial agriculture is the primary source of Nitrogen pollution had a hard time imagining another system outside of the dominant status quo:

The limited number of farmers who felt like system-change was necessary to address industrial agriculture’s contributions to N loss often concluded their statements with comments indicating their uncertainty of what the actual change could be (13 of the 154 farmers). As one respondent stated, “Well I think, the [nutrient] erosion situation needs to be addressed.[…] the corn-soybean rotation is not the best way […]. But I’m…not quite sure what the answer [is]”. Similarly, the inability to see another type of system, a more wholistic society, and agrarian system, is illustrated by another comment from the above linear-system farmer, who felt that this is the only form an agricultural system can take: “As long as we bury people in cemeteries, as long as we have septic tanks and public sewer systems and all of those things we will never have sustainable agriculture. It’s impossible!”. Lastly, one respondent explained that to address environmental problems the only solution is to “quit farming. Which isn’t going to happen, people need to eat”. Even when problems are acknowledged, there was no recognition of alternative ways to produce food with less pollution. Farmers overlook that another system is possible, one where society-environment relations are remodeled in a way to enable a more fully incorporated and regenerative agriculture system.[66]

Belief in no alternative

...we can see how these ideological positions serve to prevent social transformation and maintain the current system, a finding that reflects prior work examining the role of agrarian ideologies as forces of social reproduction in the face of environmental changes (Dentzman 2018). In our case, a widespread belief that another way to produce food, with far less pollution, is not possible prevents farmers from engaging in transformative projects, be it agricultural or political. Whether large corporations selling seed, fertilizer, and other key components to the industrial system are propagating narratives that “there is no alternative” is beyond the scope of this paper, but others have identified that seed and fertilizer companies use information, marketing strategies and personal contact with farmers to encourage the use of their products, as well as the belief that “high yield” is the ultimate production goal, despite evidence of persistently low prices due to over-production. Given this evidence, it can be reasonably suggested that input giants strategically promote industrial and technological pathways that preserve the current system and at the same time ignore or refute the possibility of transformation toward an agroecological system. Regardless of the role of input companies, we find that farmers adopt ideological positions that rationalize their role in the current system and serve to maintain this system and fail to envision or consider agroecological alternatives that may more effectively reduce environmental degradation.[67]

Tackling the Barriers

Just Transition | Food Sovereignty | Climate Revolution | The Red Nation

A lack of belief that another system is possible represents a considerable barrier to transforming the agricultural system to address environmental impacts. As Therborn (1980) explains, if one cannot see that there is a real possibility for change it will not occur. While technological fixes can reduce nitrogen loss, nitrogen loss is a system issue and agro-ecological transition is required to adequately address it. Given our findings, increasing awareness about agroecological practices and visions and policies for an agroecological system is a paramount first step in supporting efforts toward pursuing this transition.[68]


... we recognize agroecological practices do not shift every dimension of the current agri-food system. The productivist values that are foundational to the industrial system can accord with and even justify the adoption of agroecological approaches, as has been shown with other “sustainable” approaches to agriculture (Guthman 2004; Jaffee and Howard 2010). Relatedly, agro-ecological transformation of the industrial agriculture system will not address other key flaws in the global agro-food system, such as the unequal distribution of food, power, and profits. Addressing these issues likely requires more widespread efforts to reform (or replace) the broader political economy of capitalist production in which the food system is embedded. Our findings suggest that it is unlikely many US row-crop farmers are interested in calling for these more radical transformations yet. But, given the accelerating economic and environmental contradictions of industrial agriculture, farmers’ critique of not only the industrial method of production but the structural economic context it is embedded within, may emerge more forcefully. Future studies should build on our analysis by examining if these dynamics are giving rise to farmers’ interest in more transformative critiques of and visions for the agro-food system.[69]

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  2. ↑ https://branchoutnow.org/growing-sovereignty-turtle-island-and-the-future-of-food/
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