A Literary Review of Articles on Industrial and Organic Farming

In a world with an ever increasing population that demands to be fed, how and where humans obtain their food is a question as important as ever. Not only that, but the ramifications of such mass production of food also need to be considered. The current system that the world’s agriculture runs on is monoculture crop, and pesticide and fertilizer heavy. So far, this method of growing produce has been working, but as humanity’s population increases and advances in anti-aging technology increase, the effectiveness of humanity’s methods in allocating and preserving resources in food production comes under question. Should a full transition to organic agriculture be pursued? Organic farmers will flourish if humanity decides yes, but monoculture crop farmers, which currently dominate the food production market, will not take kindly to the new policy. In addition, those eating the produce -- humans -- will also be affected should a change in the direction of its food production and its agriculture happen. Before a definite answer to this question is reached, ramifications of both monoculture and organic agriculture on the environment need to be considered, along with whether organic agriculture will be able to produce enough sustenance for a population of seven billion (and growing).

A 2016 article written by John Reganold from Washington State University agrees with a resounding yes. He argues that organic farming is the path to a sustainable future. Reganold opens his article by stating several contentions anti-organic agriculturalists have put forth in attacking organic farming, then proceeds to address each of these complaints. For example, in his rebuttal to the statement that organic farming is inefficient, Reganold points out that “[o]rganic agriculture occupies only 1% of global agricultural land”, yet “[c]onsumer appetite for organic foods reached $13.4bn in the US last year”. He does relent and agree that organic agriculture does produce less yield than monoculture crop, but states that the benefits of organic farming -- such as better soil quality, reduction of soil erosion, less air and water pollution -- greatly outweighs this fact. And for the money-oriented farmers, he points out that organic agriculture is more profitable by 22-35% for them because consumers will pay more for organically grown produce.

John Reganold is not incendiary, but he phrases his article so that there is a clear bad guy -- conventional agriculture. He paints organic agriculture as the good guy, only focusing on the positive aspects of organic farming and why it is superior to conventional agriculture. He introduces evidence that in a 2016 study, “researchers modeled 500 food production scenarios to see if we can feed an estimated world population of 9.6 billion people in 2050 without expanding the area of farmland we already use”. Then, he stated that the study found organic farming could produce enough food to sustain that amount of people -- but only if almost the whole of humanity became vegetarians, or ate a “more plant-based diet with lower meat consumption”, a very optimistic assumption when taking into account the sheer amount of meat (mostly comprised of beef and chicken) that Americans and Europeans consume yearly. It would difficult to convince the Western world to wean off meat. In addition, the study does not state that organic farming is the most ideal situation of the 500 that the study analyzed. In addition, he has an external goal beyond just relaying information out to the public: focusing on his second to last paragraph, his intended audience (or at least, his main one) is the private business sector. He wants them to invest in organic agriculture.

On the flip side are people like Mark Bittman, who wrote an article in the NYTimes Opinion section lauding the fruits of conventional agriculture. He makes his argument by going through his trip to a farm that uses conventional agriculture to yield its produce, Bruce Rominger’s farm. He extols the pros of these genetically modified, non-organic tomatoes: they’re “blocky in shape, the better to move along conveyor belts”, “bred for acidity, disease resistance, use, sweetness, wall thickness, ripening date and so on”; and contrasts their taste to the tomatoes he buys at the supermarkets: “they had a firm, pleasant texture and mild but real flavor, and were better than any tomatoes -- even so-called heirlooms -- sold in my supermarket”. Then, he details his visit to the cannery, and briefly describes conditions there and makes an argument for global unionization, an increase in minimum wage or both (his call to action for readers).

Mark Bittman’s focus when it comes to conventional agriculture is more focused on the employment side of the operation, not so much of the long-term implications of this particular agricultural method. However, he does make a comment about conventional monoculture agriculture contrasting it to organic agriculture in his beginning paragraph: “It costs $2 to $3 a pound to buy hard, tasteless, “fresh” plum tomatoes, but only half that for almost two pounds of canned tomatoes that taste much better”, and argues that industrial agriculture (that is, GMOs) are superior to organic ones. The information he provides is biased toward industrial agriculture, and for good reason: he is advocating for global unionization and/or increasing the minimum wage for workers working in the industrial food sector.

The Worldwatch Institute argues for locally sourced food, a niche within organic agriculture: consumers only ingest food that has been grown/produced within a hundred mile radius. This increases the local farmers and producers and decreases the amount of carbon emissions that would usually arise from ‘food-miles’ -- the total distance food travels from its source to your plate. There is a strong correlation between the total distance food travels and the amount of carbon emissions produced from the transportation used to carry the food. Organic agriculture is lauded for its minimal effect on the environment, and locally sourced agriculture is lauded for the minimal carbon emission transportation of food emits.

This article augments the argument that Reganold makes for a full transition to organic agriculture because of the statistics and hard data it gives the reader about the amount of carbon emissions produced from the production and transportation of meat and dairy products. “In Garnett's study, meat and dairy accounted for half of the U.K. food system's greenhouse gas emissions”, and “Weber and Matthews come to a similar conclusion: "No matter how it is measured, on average red meat is more GHG-intensive than all other forms of food," responsible for about 150 percent more emissions than chicken or fish. In their study the second-largest contributor to emissions was the dairy industry”. In addition, “A group of Swedish researchers has calculated that meat and dairy contribute 58 percent of the total food emissions from a typical Swedish diet. At a global level, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that livestock account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions-more even than all forms of fossil fuel-based transport combined”. Meat and dairy products take up a large amount of European and American diets, but the production and transportation behind it releases an unrivaled amount of carbon emissions. Just as Reganold stated in his article, “‘Broadly speaking, eating fewer meat and dairy products and consuming more plant foods in their place is probably the single most helpful behavioral shift one can make’ to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions”. This echoes Reganold’s line when he states that if humanity switched over to eating an entirely vegan or vegetarian diet, low-yield organic agriculture would be able to feed 9.5 billion people in 2050, and provides more compelling evidence for why humanity should start taking steps to being so.

After reading through these three articles, an agricultural style that is centered on locally sourced food is the best course of action for future generations in order to more efficiently allocate and preserve the resources Earth has. It would be best to prioritize mass propaganda to wean people off of meat and most dairy products, and then to slowly switch over to a locavore lifestyle. However, more research needs to be conducted on the implications of a locavore lifestyle and having the entire world adopt one. In theory, it sounds good but consider for example, regions of the world that it is not feasible to live on locally sourced agriculture because of the environment. In addition, the variety of food that people can enjoy will dramatically decrease as certain crops flourish more in certain areas than others.