Domination of Nature vs. Harmony with Nature

Within the past 50 years, industrial agriculture has been the dominance model for producing food instead of small, family-oriented farms raising a variety of crops and animals.

Industrial agriculture is a modern form of intensive farming where large-scale machinery and chemical-intensive farms specializing in a single animal product or hybrid high-yield crop are substituted for the labor of human beings and animals. Single-crop farming disregards the relationships between plant cultivation and animal conservation. The only goal is to increase yield and decrease costs of production. This method of agriculture is mostly used in the developed countries.

Sustainable Agriculture is the natural way of agriculture along with farming technique which makes maximum implementation of the environment without causing any form of harm, it’s an organic way of farming. All the elements of this method produce environmentally friendly products and are therefore healthier for the users to consume.

What about the pace of population growth in the future? Some say that growing population means equal hunger. Peter Rosset of Food First states, "We now have more food per person available on this planet than ever before in human history." If we have plenty of food to feed today's population and to support population growth for later on, why do 800 million people still go hungry every day?

The industrial system has taken over all the farm lands and forcing farmers off the land so they it can be utilized for growing high-priced export crops rather than diverse crops for local populations. Many of these farmers lose their lands, trade and the ability to grow their own food.

Starvation has grown and will continue to grow all over the world. Our population growth interacts with the resource consumption patterns.   

“The massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor.”
–Sir David King, science advisor to the UK government.

  

World hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops.

It is understandable that industrial agriculture is necessary to feed the world, to provide us with “safe, nutritious” cheap food, to produce food more efficiently, to offer us more choices, and, of all things, to “save” the environment. When such corporations are confronted with the indisputable environmental and health impacts of industrial agriculture, the industry immediately points to technological advances.

Industrial agriculture is threatening the sustainability of the biosphere. Its massive machinery, chemical and biological inputs cause widespread environmental destruction as well as human disease and death. It reduces the diversity of our plants and animals which results in reducing the species. The centralized corporate ownership destroys farm communities prominent to mass poverty and hunger. This is clearly unsustainable and is becoming a fatal harvest.

Word Count: 492

References:  

 "Industrial Agriculture". Stanley St Labs. March 8 2011

 < http://www.economywatch.com/agriculture/types/industrial.html>
"Industrial Agriculture v. Sustainable Agriculture". Benjamin Cohen. May 12 2009. March 8 2011
 <http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2009/05/industrial_agriculture_v_susta.php>
"The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture: Myth One". AkterNet. August 22 2002. March 8 2011
 <http://www.alternet.org/story/13900/>
"Population Growth". The Rewilding Institute. March 8 2011

            <http://rewilding.org/rewildit/our-programs/population-growth/>
 Photos:
<http://www.commoditypress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/population_growth.jpg>
<http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/env-factory.jpg>
<http://www.sustainabletable.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/veg-farm-300x225.jpg>
<http://www.fieldsofplenty.com/farms/garden_rows_greens_400w300h.jpg>
Video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Y_QH_c70s>

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