From Envirowiki

Industrial agriculture, also commonly referred to as factory farming, earns its name for the similarities it has with mechanized industry. Characteristic features to this method of large-scale farming are monocultures, agrichemicals, hybrid seeds, genetically modified crops, and large-scale irrigation. Industrial agriculture implies an industrialized approach to farming in the production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. It treats the farm like a factory with the goal to maximize outputs and minimize inputs. Farmers use ideas from business and economics while often exploiting economies of scale.^[1]

Contents 1 History 2 Factory Farm 3 Inefficiencies of Livestock 3.1 Grain 3.2 Landuse 3.3 Fossil Fuels 4 References

[edit] 1 History

Agriculture has long been developed and used by cultures to produce food. Industrial agriculture is one of the newest innovations in this field and evolved in part due to the discovery of key chemicals to enhance plant and animal growth. Industrial agricultural principles closely resemble those that evolved during the 18th century’s Industrial Revolution ^[2]. Features such as mass production and mechanization were made possible by various scientific and technological discoveries. The realization of the roles that nitrogen and phosphorus play in plant growth enabled farmers to increase their yields. The invention of synthetic fertilizers created a new industry whose market is still booming today. Fertilizers enabled farmers to work even larger scale productions and led them towards more intensified methods of agriculture. The trend toward monocultures, or the growing of a single crop, evolved from the ease of applying these fertilizers. These resulted in a shift away from traditional farming methods of smaller scale integrated crops. Medical advancements in the 20th century gave rise to vitamin supplements for livestock. Nutrition could be supplied through a pill that greatly reduced the necessity for animals to graze outdoors. The discovery of antibiotics in the 1940’s allowed for animals to be raised in highly concentrated densities as threats from disease dropped ^[3].

Thus the indoor consolidation of livestock made managing larger productions possible. New knowledge from chemical development during World War II led to the invention of pesticides, furthering the convenience of monocultures in agriculture. Application of these chemicals in their appropriate dosages led to the homogenization of crops to make the process easier. High organization and separation made the use of large farm equipment a better investment than the previous human based labor.

Finally, innovations in massive transportation that came about mainly through the Industrial Revolution, like the steam engine, further advanced industrial agriculture by making extensive distribution and trade of goods possible.

[edit] 2 Factory Farm

The term “factory farm” has recently gained a negative connotation because of its reference to compartmentalized, large-scale, and generally unnatural modes of farming. The image it is able conjure, due to its wide spread use by many animal rights and environmental activist groups, are usually very disturbing. This term is commonly associated with cruel and exploitative practices in animal farming. The live animals are virtually treated as abiotic parts of a machine. The primary goal is toward the production of a certain economic commodity, which renders the intrinsic well being of the beast irrelevant ^[4].

[edit] 3 Inefficiencies of Livestock

Industrial agricultural methods in livestock farming have greatly altered traditional approaches to raising animals. Instead of small farms with integrated crop and livestock, industrial agriculture has led to the dominance of single output mass production. The major shifts have been in the size of farm production and the types of inputs applied to the animals. A heavy reliance on growth promoting antibiotics, hormones, and vitamin supplements has led to the resource intensive livestock industries that predominate in many developed countries.

Furthermore, the environmental impacts of industrial agriculture are often more pronounced when the output is meat ^[5]. This is because the amount of resource input and use is greater in animal than in plant agriculture. Although the industrial agriculture is associated with efficiency by means of specialization and exploiting economies of scale, this is only true of economic efficiency, and inefficiencies arise in the areas of feed, land, and fossil fuel usage.

[edit] 3.1 Grain

Feeding grain to animals results in an inefficient use of the food crop because the animal must use energy to convert this grain into body mass. Most of the potential energy stored in the grain (or other plant food) is lost to heat during the animal’s metabolism. This means that instead of feeding the grain directly to humans for energy it is fed to animals and then indirectly made available for human consumption. For example, cattle being the most inefficient in their energy conversion require 7 kg of grain to produce only 1 kg of beef. Pork yields a 4:1 ratio of efficiency while chicken is 2:1 ^[5].

[edit] 3.2 Landuse

The World Resources Institute reports that 66% of U.S. grain and 37% of the world’s grain is used to support the livestock industry ^[6]. Instead, the land used to produce this grain could be put towards the direct growing of plants to feed people. In regards to cereal crops, a conversion like this could lead up to a 2 to 10 times greater output of available protein for human consumption than that of meat production; for legumes it could be between 10 and 20 times greater according to the World Bank ^[5]. This increase in efficiency of land use is made even more important in light of the declining area of arable land available for agriculture. An alternative to industrial livestock production is the method of free-range cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that moderately grazed land (a single cow for every 16 acres) yields higher biodiversity than intensive of ungrazed land^[5]. This increase in biodiversity means more organisms in and on the soil to help process and turn over nutrients. Higher nutrient composition in the soil helps support more plant growth and aides in preventing erosion and desertification of the land. Both are major problems facing the agricultural industry today.

[edit] 3.3 Fossil Fuels

The resource inefficiency of industrial livestock practices is also present in fossil fuel consumption. In his book entitled "Food, Energy, and Society" by David Pimentel reports that the average U.S. farm uses 3 kcal of fossil fuel energy to for every 1 kcal of food produced ^[5]. The farming of meat, however, uses even more energy. Fossil fuel input for the average American feedlot is a staggering 35 kcal for every 1 kcal of beef that is produced . These estimates do not include the energy required to transport and process the food for the consumer. With these expenses taken into consideration, kcal of energy input compared to kcal output can reach upwards of 1,000:1.

[edit] 4 References

1. ↑ Union of Concerned Scientists, Industrial Agriculture, features and policy http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/sustainable_food/industrial-agriculture-features-and-policy.html
2. ↑ Entry: Industrial Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution
3. ↑ Entry: Industrial Agriculture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_agriculture.
4. ↑ FactoryFarming.com: http://www.factoryfarming.com/.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4} Horrigan et al. 2002. How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture. Environmental Health Perspectives. 110:5 445-456.
6. ↑ World Resources Institute. World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: Fraying the Web of Life. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2000.