Industrial Agriculture vs Sustainable Agriculture
One of the biggest misconceptions of our time is the distinction between industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture. The blanket phrase of “agriculture” is often thrown around nonchalantly, with the descriptions of “malicious,” “destructive,” and “to blame for essentially every issue that we face today as a society.” The hatred for agriculture, and especially animal farming, runs deep. However, this is where a lack of distinction and specification can be or dangerous. “Agriculture” has two main components: industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture. When the perilous effects of agriculture are discussed, it is normally industrial agriculture that is being described. However, what the media often fails to emphasize is the distinction between industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture, because there is quite a stark difference. Let’s break it down.
Industrial agriculture is highly concentrated and mechanized, characterized by large-scale monoculture, chemical inputs, and non-therapeutic antibiotics (“Sustainable Agriculture vs. Industrial Agriculture”). This form of agriculture focuses on maximizing yields of a few select crops. Surprisingly, the majority of the products of industrial agriculture do not end up on our plates, but rather as biofuel, animal feed, or as ingredients in processed foods and snacks (“The Hidden Costs”). Some of the common practices of industrial agriculture are Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), grain feed, tilling, monocropping, chemical herbicides and pesticides, and a surplus of antibiotics. The effects of these farming practices are a release of carbon dioxide from livestock, sick and bloated animals, soil degradation, nutrient-deficient produce, toxic water runoff, and adverse health effects on farmworkers and neighboring communities (“Sustainable Agriculture vs. Industrial Agriculture”). For such an “efficient” system, there are a multitude of unwanted effects.
Sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, is defined as a mode of farming that “produces its own inputs (fertilizer from animals, feed grown on the land) and manages its outputs (crop waste, manure) in a closed loop cycle” (“Sustainable Agriculture vs. Industrial Agriculture”). The practices that contribute to this closed loop are rotational and holistic grazing, pasture rotation, cover cropping, no tilling, crop diversity, microorganism interplay, human animal treatment, and biomimicking. These practices thus regenerate the ecosystem, protect the life in the soil, prioritize clean watersheds, draw down carbon dioxide, produce nutrient-dense produce, and improve human health (Hyman 2020). Where industrial agriculture creates problems, sustainable agriculture solves problems.
