Intensive Agriculture - how intense can you get?
So why is corporate industrialised farming so powerful?
- someone else pays the true cost of
environmental damage, loss of biodiversity
and harm to human health
- a greater proportion of subsidies goes to the
largest farms
- many big farms belong to multinationals
which can operate at a loss because their real
profit comes from trading and processing the
farm produce. They also receive tax breaks
that smaller farmers do not
- government policy makers are the natural
allies of the large oil, chemical, pharmaceutical
and agricultural equipment lobbyists. So are
'industrial' farmers.
Consumers and taxpayers pay the price for lower quality food and a deteriorating environment. If the true cost of food were transparent, if polluters had to pay for the harm they caused and if soil was seen as an asset that had to be preserved for future generations, then industrial agriculture would end.
Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy
of Industrial Agriculture
Andrew Kimbrell (Ed)
Island Press 2002
