Yet, as the authors in this book show, intensive farming has enabled growth in food production at a rate greater than population growth, thereby ensuring that people are better fed than ever before, whilst simultaneously limiting the effect of farming on the environment. Pesticides are bad for the environment and bad for human health. In addition, the synthetic pesticides themselves are often less toxic than natural pesticides. Overall, synthetic pesticides present a net gain in health terms. Antibiotic resistance in animals is spreading to humans.
Nitrate fertilisers are a threat to human health.
Instances of food poisoning would be reduced if we had more regulations. Subsidies are needed in order to ensure that food and fish are produced in environmentally sound ways. Subsidies to fisheries and farming have caused widespread environmental degradation. Packaging and transporting food is environmentally unfriendly. Transporting food allows society to take advantage of different environmental and socio-economic conditions that exist in different places.