Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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A comprehensive view of ecological and social risks associated with
chemicals in our environment, with some attention toCorn Belt agriculture,
is found in
Living Downstream
(Steingraber 1997). In a reader-friendly style,
Steingraber unites ecological and health data to piece together a picture of
landscape and culture that reveals alarming news about cancer. She says
that researchers focus on genetic and lifestyle causes of cancer while ignor-
ing environmental exposures, but “lifestyle and the environment are not
independent categories that can be untwisted from each other” (266). “After
all, except for the original blueprint of our chromosomes, all the material
that is us - from bone to blood to breast tissue - has come to us from the
environment” (267). And indeed pollution of our air, land, and water are at
least partial causes of cancer. Industrial agriculture is clearly responsible for
some of this pollution.
It is so obvious that organic farming is better, yet society is caught in a
heated debate regarding the merits of conventional and organic agriculture.
Sadly, it is not a fair battle because there is somuchmoney riding on the con-
ventional, industrial side. Agribusiness corporations rely on the social accep-
tance of their synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. These businesses developed
fromWorldWar II companies that manufactured chemical weapons. When
this became unnecessary and socially unacceptable, they turned to warfare
on agricultural lands with the development of chemicals to kill bugs and
weeds. The infamous ones, like DDT and Agent Orange, clearly exemplify
the dangers of using technology before we know the full consequences.
There are others that have been banned, and there are probably many more
agrichemicals that will be banned in the future.
But there is big money to be lost by conventional agribusiness if Amer-
icans finally realize the full impact of the ecological and social destruction
wrought by the conventional agricultural system. It is killing our soil, pol-
luting our air and water, using up our fossil fuels and our clean water, and
harming our wildlife. At the same time, it is destroying our rural com-
munities, decimating small towns, taking away farmers' independence, and
pushing many family farmers into poverty. By focusing only on obtaining
high yield and ignoring economic profit margins (the bottom line is that
if farmers spent less on industrial inputs, they would have higher profits),
the industrial agricultural systemmaintains itself because not enough peo-
ple question it and seek change. We commonly hear the rallying call that
American farmers “feed the world,” but in fact they are feeding cows, pigs,
and chickens. Seventy percent of corn grown in the United States is fed to
livestock (USDA-NASS 2003). At the same time, we are told that we should
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