Agriculture is constantly changing, the methods used today is unlike the methods used in the past. According to Valerie Prax, a retired University of Minnesota professor, 90 percent of the American population took part in subsistence agriculture produced their own food rather than industrial agriculture. However, today only percent of the American population are farmers. The problem is not how many Americans are farmers, but whether subsistence agriculture or industrial agriculture is more environmentally sustainable. If we can determine which type of agriculture is more environmentally sustainable, we can better understand the history of agriculture but also plan for the future to avoid the same mistakes made in the past. My thesis is even though industrial agriculture is essential for mass food production, there should be more regulations in the field of agriculture because industrial agriculture is wasteful, cruel and not environmentally sustainable.
In order to understand this issue, it is essential to uncover the definition of environmentally sustainable. There are many definitions for it, but SmallBizConnect’ gives a great definition, which is “Environmentaly sustainable involves making decisions and taking action that are in the interests of protecting the natural world, with particular emphasis on preserving the capability of the environment to support human life.” In other words, for something to be environmentally sustainable, it must meet two criteria’s: 1) Safe for Mother Nature 2) Reassuring for Human Life. Simply knowing the definition of environmentally sustainable is not enough, it must also be understood. Understanding the significance of environmentally sustainable is important to see why there should be more regulations in the field of agriculture. If the environment isn’t protected, as it should be, there won’t be the same great environment for future generations. In fact, sustainability is so important that the United States Environmental Protection Agency, recently claimed that “Sustainability” is a key interest in their organization.
Continuing on, industrial agriculture is very successful at the rapid mass production of foods. Today, Costco, a retailer wholesale giant, provides extremely cheap whole pre-cooked barbeque chicken for only less than $5.00 as a result of industrial farming. As a matter of fact, the UN reported that every year approximately 3.9 billion tons of food is produced for human consumption. In anyone’s checkbook, the number 3.9 billion tons is an extremely high achievement, but this does not answer if it was a great achievement. Sadly, it was not a great achievement. Despite industrial agriculture’s ability to amplify food production numbers, recent research has shown some serious down sides, including the rise of food waste. Roberto Ferdman, a writer for The Washington Post, wrote the United States currently throws out or wastes “nearly three times what Americans” wasted in 1960 according to data supplied by the Environmental Protection Agency. The essence of Ferdman’s comment is that food waste is on the rise. In other words, the rise in the mass production of food by industrial agriculture is responsible for the rise in food waste. The worst part is there is about “48.1 million Americans” who are hungry, “including more than 15 million children” even though there is about 3.9 billion tonnes of food produced world-wide by industrial agriculture. This means industrial agriculture is not just broken, but broken to the core. To sum it up, the huge food waste wouldn’t have been possible without the source, industrial agriculture.
127 our experts are availableright now
Another important topic is the cruelty industrial agriculture presently require and promote toward domesticated animals, including: cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, etc. Calling what occurs to these animals as cruel is not sufficient, because it is also torture. A number of people argue that factory farm animals live in fear and torment 24/7 and a huge organization by the name of PETA” agrees. PETA’s states the following main reasons why they believe factory farm animals “endure constant fear and torment”: they are usually given barely any to sit down comfortably or look behind themselves, they are forced to take growth hormones to grow faster, and are given antibiotics to survive unhealthy conditions. This is a serious issue, because the misuse of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistant-bacteria, a dangerous to both the environment and human beings. In making these comments, PETA is urging to stop the use of factory farming, but this does not solve the crisis in which the human population is growing and that it need more food or there will be a decline. The real solution to this problem is a call for more regulations in the field of agriculture.
Moving on, many advocators for industrial or factory farming claim it is fast, efficient and crucial in modern society. When I was younger, I used to believe this too, but as I grew older I realized it wasn’t just fast or efficient. Now I know it was like a prescription drug with tons of harmful side effects. Factory farming was the wrong kind of fast and efficient, it was a “quick” band-aid” to the problem of feeding the quickly growing human population and efficient at destroying the environment. A key component of industrial agriculture is CAFOs or Confined Animal Feeding Operations, is also a key component in global warming. Even though there are other causes of global warming, the fact industrial agriculture plays a role in global warming should not be ignored. But first, global warming must be defined and it’s basic concept understood. Global warming is basically the gradual increase in temperature due to the rise of greenhouse gases including: CO2 (carbon dioxide), chloroflurocarbons, and other toxic gases.
The increase of temperature is important, because many organisms can only live in certain temperature ranges. If the temperature increases too much and too fast, many plants and animals won’t be able to adapt, and could effectively cause them to become extinct. For example, at 75 celcius DNA and RNA typically melt, essentially an increase in temperature may indirectly kill thousands of organism. CAFOs comes into this picture, because every animal produces the by- product CO2, one of the greenhouse gases that increase temperature. Therefore, the excessive amount of surplus of animals wasted through factory farming contributes to a huge amount in unintended extra temperature increase.
In conclusion, the significance in the history of agriculture types was invested. The findings of my research, have supported my thesis that industrial agriculture is less sustainable environmentally and thereby should have more regulations. However, the issue at hand isn’t as simple as choosing between the greater of two evils. It calls for an intelligent approach in which first we must recognize which is the more environmentally sustainable approach, industrial agriculture or subsistence agriculture. Then, come up with new questions and research further onto what kind of further regulations are needed in the future to make industrial agriculture more sustainable environmentally. Some questions could be: “Why the surplus in food hasn’t solved hunger world-wide or even just in a superpower country like America?”, “Is industrial farming really worth it?”, “How is industrial agriculture affecting the entire world ‘s environment?”, “Is industrial really efficient if the quality isn’t up to power?”, and “Who can make a difference to promote better agriculture practices?”.
