Industrial Agriculture is Killing Earth
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Farming, Agriculture, Climate Change, Industrial Agriculture, Food

On one of those rare occasions when I get the rule of the TV remote and decide to spend an evening doing something besides writing or reading, I flipped through the Documentaries section of Netflix for something fun to watch. I’m a nerd like that.

It didn’t take me very long to settle on a title that caught my eye: Sustainable. A documentary by Hourglass Films produced in 2016.

The documentary validated a lot of the things I already believe in, but also opened my eyes to many other issues I’d have never even thought of on my own.

Food for thought

Society has come to think of food as a commodity. We’ve stopped wondering — or even caring — where it comes from, just as long as it tastes good and costs as little as possible. We’ve become disconnected.

The film opens up to chef Rick Bayless of the Frontera Grill in Chicago Illinois. He tells the story of how he grew up in the 50s and 60s, in an era when we began to divorce ourselves from our food sources.

He goes on to talk about how he went to Mexico and witnessed the amazing relationships people had with their food and its production. When he came back to the United States, he faced a challenge:

“How am I going to make great food if I don't have any connection to the people who are growing that food?”

Enter: Marty Travis, his wife Chris and son Will, and Spence Farm — ‘small farmers’ in Central Illinois.

This family is amazing. They do things a little differently, and it works!

From their 100 acre farm, they supply more than 200 restaurants in the Chicago area with fresh local — and somethings unique — produce every week, even doing all of the deliveries themselves. He smiles when he says that it’s largely become “less about the turnips and more about the relationships.”

We might have started out with good intentions when we launched ourselves into industrial agriculture — the goal back then, to feed more people in the most economical way. But what we’ve done is take the basic life-sustaining act of eating nutritious foods, and turn it into a money-making machine. The system is broken.

We ravage and plunder

“It’s [soil] the most undervalued yet invaluable resource humanity has.” — David Mongomery, Author — Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization

The most invaluable resource we have, and yet, we treat the soil like dirt.

“We’re exchanging short-term gain for long-term stability, and we want to feed people for thousands of years, not just fifty years.” — Jeff Moyer, The Rodale Institute

The Rodale Institute released a white paper a few years ago. Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change — A Down-To-Earth Solution to Global Warming. “Regenerative organic agriculture can sequester carbon and reverse climate change.”

The paper talks about how through research, they’ve been able to prove that it’s actually possible to reverse climate change. But we need to act fast, and all together. In fact, it may possibly already be too late, as this white paper is already a few years old.

But it’s my hope and belief that we always have a chance at redemption, just as long as we work together. The world has to be all-in.

I highly recommend reading it — it’s most definitely worth the 10 to 15 minutes of your time. I also recommend the documentary — although it’s been three years since filming, I honestly believe the relevance stands, if even more so today.

At the time of filming, agriculture was the number two culprit in climate change. As of this year, it’s gone down to number four, as the creator of 11.1% of global emissions. We can — and must — do better!

Back to the basics

We need to work together as a species — but even more-so, as communities — to go back to the basics. We need to repair our soil. Mend it from decades of being pillaged and depleted, over-farmed. poisoned and assaulted by untold amounts of chemicals used in an attempt at eliminating weeds and pests.

There are simple and natural ways to give back to the soil we’ve so greedily taken from for so long.

Matt Liebmann, a professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, says that by simply planting companion crops such as oats and alfalfa, or oats and red clover, in the regular corn and soy rotations, we could reduce our use of mineral nitrogen fertilizer by 90%, and our use of herbicides by more than 95%.

Doing that would not only help the soil but also save farmers thousands of dollars on destructive and deadly chemicals, and by default, give us much cleaner and safer foods to eat.

Sick soil, sick people

The entire world — not only North America, as media would like you to believe — is in the depths of an obesity crisis. It’s no longer just an epidemic.

We are mass-producing foods that aren’t good for us — and the foods that should be good for us are not what they used to be because the soil is so depleted of nutrients, that so is the food that grows in that soil. It’s making us sick — even slowly killing us.

In 1950, the percentage of obesity in adults in the United States was about 10%. By 2011–12, that number had more than tripled, at 35%. And as of the 2015–16 report by the CDC (Center for Disease Control), that number had reached nearly 40%. That’s over 93 million adults in the United States alone — not even counting the rising rate of childhood obesity, which is a story all its own! And this report is three years old. I couldn’t find a conclusive report for 2019, but I can’t imagine that number has gone down.

Basically, food is killing us instead of keeping us alive. We now have to rely on supplements to give us the nutrients our bodies need, and we all know how they’re typically filled with even more chemicals.

The other end of the spectrum

I grew up with very little. I know what it feels like to go for weeks eating plain spaghetti with a little margarine and salt for flavor- or maybe a can of tomato soup concentrate masquerading as sauce — because that’s all my mother could manage. There was never any waste — we couldn’t afford it!

Looking at statistics now, it hurts my heart. 40% of Americans aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from. That’s a staggering number! And here in Canada, 1 in 8 households are food-insecure. That’s over 4 million hungry people. What’s even crazier is that 58% of our food goes to waste, and over 40% of that is consumer waste! …wait, WHAT!?

There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

The facts are jaw-dropping.

And unacceptable.

How can we calmly sit back and justify this when so many are going hungry in our own backyard, while we throw 40% of the food we buy right into the trash?

we need a radical change.

It’s time we give ourselves a little shake. Or a big one. Time for a worldwide mindset overhaul. If we’re going to stand a chance at surviving on this planet — and giving the planet herself a chance to survive — then we have to stop looking at the bottom dollar.

My Little Urban Homestead

A few years ago, we were lucky to move from the city to the country. To a 34 acre farm. It was beautiful. The farm used to be a mass-chicken production farm (providing meat to Maple Lodge and KFC at different times) but was no longer active. Thank goodness, because I don’t think I could have handled seeing that kind of torture in my own backyard.

But living there flipped a switch in my head — I wanted to make a change. I started thinking about homesteading; going off-grid even. I created My Little Urban Homestead. It was a zero-follower blog, but I had big dreams. Dreams I allowed to die when it seemed I was the only one dreaming it.

But now my resolution has been revived, and I’m bringing back my vision.

We need to stop industrial agriculture and go back to small-scale farming. Backyard farming — like grandma and grandpa used to do.

Buy locally. Eat in-season. Don’t buy more than we need. Learn to preserve our food at home, safely, to enjoy it longer.

Diversify what we plant to keep our soil healthy. Compost! Learn the art of seed-saving (and money-saving!). We can host seed-exchanges, or even give away extra seeds. We’ll make friends, get to know our neighbors, and do our part for Mother Earth.

I dream that every neighborhood or community has garden plots available (for free!) for those who don’t have outdoor space at home.

I dream that people grow gardens instead of lawns.

I dream that good, healthy organic food is available to all, regardless of income; access to healthy food shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a right.

I dream of an Earth where fields are lush with bounty, and the soil rich in nutrients and a teaming, healthy underground eco-system.

My dreams are not impossible dreams. We just have to work together.

Because together, we can do anything.