Industrial Farming: The Demon Behind Your Dinner

Posted by Zoe Kwasnicki in English 1 · Giknis · D Band on Friday, February 23, 2018 at 1:45 pm

Industrial farming is an issue I have known about for years, however it is only more recently that I have come to realize how devastatingly impactful the consequences of industrial farming are. As a vegetarian I have a more personal tie to industrial farming through the specific problem surrounding animal welfare in the practice. I have never eaten meat and it is my lifelong philosophy never to do so. However while I do personally attempt to refrain from eating any and all animal products, I will not boycott you for eating a burger. I have nothing against meat consumption - I just have a vehement hatred of the rate at which we are consuming meat as Americans and of the treatment of the animals who are our country’s main food source.

Oftentimes, adult female pigs spend the majority of their lives in these two-foot wide pens, without any room to turn around, her sole purpose is to produce and nourish more offspring.

But animal welfare isn’t the most depressing affair in the complicated monster that is industrial farming. Industrial farming is a “system of chemically intensive food production developed in the decades after World War II”. During the Technological Revolution in America, everything was being industrialized from clothes to machines and it seemed to be the most logical explanation to industrialize food production as well. Yet there are a few reprehensible consequences of industrial farming that need to be addressed.

First of all - monocultures. A monoculture is the cultivation of a single crop in a given area meaning that only one crop is grown in one place for a long period of time. In traditional farming techniques, the location of crops are rotated across the given land which allows the soil to replenish itself. Different crops give and take different nutrients to and from the soil. By only planting one crop, you cause a dearth of nutrients in the soil - and if the practice continues for long enough, the soil becomes virtually unusable.

Black-and-white photo of the remains of Iowa land after being used for industrial farming.

Now that all the healthy, usable soil on the land is gone, more forests are cleared for farmland - destroying habitats and a source of fresh, clean air for the world as well as making the entire area more susceptible to drought.

Farmland in Brazil that used to be part of the Amazonian Rain Forest.

Don’t forget about the pesticides. Used to drive away the insect pests and weeds from the monoculture fields they are commonly attracted to - pesticides sound amazing. You kill the bugs, you get the food. However what the supporters of the industry somehow continually forget to tell you is that the food you are receiving and eating is still covered in those harmful chemicals. Those harmful chemicals that can lead to an abominable collection of health issues and the destruction of the surrounding environment. Pesticides also run off into water sources, causing algae to grow and making the water virtually undrinkable.

The aforementioned phosphates are the result of this disturbing amount of algae growth

in Lake Erie which is affecting the water supply of Toledo.

All of this is to say that industrial farming is a practice with innumerable issues and I am excited to use this project as an opportunity to bring awareness and possible solutions to them.

Link to my annotated bibliography.

Comments (1)

Zachary Sanders

I noticed how much concern you had on the topic and how you were able to go into different subjects around the topic of industrial instead of just giving different reasons around one thing. I also liked the use of vocab you had in there as well. I hope to see more of what your research consists of