Unsustainable Industrial Agriculture: The Industrialization of the United States Farming Model and the Threat It Poses to Future Food Security

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, American farms have become factories; agricultural production is primarily owned by mega wealthy multi-national corporations and managed by low-income contract farmers desperate to keep their once generational small-scale independent farms; which can no longer compete with the pricing and demand of large-scale operations. Farms have moved away from diversified models into specialized systems and because this new industrialized frontier lacks effective and appropriate regulation, agribusiness management employ wildly unsustainable techniques and methods for the sole purpose of cutting costs of production to increasing profit. Large factory farms producing livestock and produce have been most successful in reducing production costs by externalizing them onto neighboring communities and taxpayers. Our government subsidizes these large farms through regulations and amendments to the farm bill, a piece of legislations originally designed to lift small farms out of ecological desperation but now championed by corporate lobbyists and politicians who manipulate its intention for personal financial gain. Our natural resources are incredibly finite and must be protected as well as actively replenished through sustainable methods such reducing tillage, rotating crops and reducing pollution and pesticide use. Farming has become yet another over industrialized and now monopolized system of commodity production for profit. The safety of our food supply and our future ability to produce affordable food in that can continue to supply the ever increasing demand of a growing population, hangs in the balance.