Naylor and other midwestern industrial farmers are going nearly broke because the price they get for corn doesn’t cover their costs — and it keeps declining as they get more productive (we’ll explain more about why later). Naylor’s farm, which has been in his family for generations, no longer financially supports the four people who live on it; his wife works off the farm and he depends on a federal subsidy. Why is industrial farming so bad for you and the environment? One in four Americans lived on a farm. Here’s how farming works today. Before Shortform, he co-founded PrepScholar, an online education company. George Naylor is a typical farmer, raising corn and soybeans in Greene County, Iowa. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. How is Industrial Organic food like at Whole Foods not much better than massive industrial farming? What’s Wrong with It? How does it produce food, and how is it different from normal farming? He has a passion for non-fiction books (having read 200+ and counting) and is on a mission to make the world's best ideas more accessible to everyone. What happens when you try to forage for your own food. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. In industrial farming, Naylor plants a hybrid corn variety developed by Monsanto, which yields 180 bushels per acre; in 1920 the average was about 120 bushels per acre. He reads broadly, covering a wide range of subjects including finance, management, health, and society. Beginning in the early 1900s and coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, industrial agriculture is the practice of intensive farming of animals and crops. Sign up for a free trial here. Today most of our food comes from corn-based industrial farms. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Required fields are marked *. Monoculture farms got bigger but required fewer people to operate. It has a stronger root system, stands up straight, and is amenable to mechanized harvesting. Current industrial agriculture practices are temporarily increasing the carrying capacity of the Earth for humans while slowly destroying the long termcarrying capacity of the earth for humans necessitating a shift to a sustainable … Your email address will not be published. Like this article? Industrial Farming, Today. But in the early 1900s, most farms started out as diverse operations, with corn, fruits/vegetables, oats, hay, chickens, and pigs. Naylor rotates the two crops. The plight of midwestern farmers is a direct result of years of farm policies designed to encourage overproduction to benefit the huge agribusinesses that buy corn, process and sell it, or feed animals on factory farms to produce and process meat. Factory Farming, How to Eat More to Lose Weight, the Right Way, Calcium for Bones: You Shouldn’t Get it From Dairy, Why Are Americans So Fat? It is characterized by large-scale monoculture, high levels of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. Shortform summary of "The Omnivore's Dilemma", What is the Environmental Impact of Agriculture? Here’s how farming works today. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and attended medical training at the MD/PhD program at Harvard and MIT. Beginning in the fifties and sixties the availability and cheap price of corn made it more profitable to fatten livestock on feedlots, and chickens in giant factories. What’s industrial farming? By the 1980s, diversified farms had basically disappeared in Iowa and a single crop or monoculture — corn —  dominated. (Soybeans have become the second crop supporting the industrial food system; like corn, they’re fed to livestock and are a component of a majority of processed foods.). 4 Reasons You Haven’t Considered, Does Milk Cause Cancer? The challenges and issues of industrial agriculture for global and local society, for the industrial agriculture industry, for the individual industrial agriculture farm, and for animal rights include the costs and benefits of both current practices and proposed changes to those practices. George Naylor is a typical farmer, raising corn and soybeans in Greene County, Iowa.

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