The Need for Sustainable Food Production Systems - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 6

FIGURE 1.2 Broadcast spraying to control codling moth in an apple orchard in the Pajaro Valley, California.

of their nonhybrid cousins. In addition, hybrid plants
cannot produce seeds with the same genome as their
parents, making farmers dependent on commercial seed
producers.
More recently, breakthroughs in genetic engineering
have allowed the customized production of plant and ani-
mal varieties through the ability to splice genes from a
variety of organisms into the target genome. The resulting
organisms are referred to as transgenic , genetically modified
(GM), or genetically engineered (GE).
Only a few animal species used for food have been
genetically engineered as yet — these include pigs with
spinach genes that produce lower-fat bacon and cows
that produce milk with higher casein levels — but trans-
genic crop plants are now widespread and important in
agricultural production. Between 1996 and 2003, the
area planted to genetically engineered crops worldwide
increased almost 40-fold, from 1.7 million ha to 67.7
million ha (James, 2003). The U.S., Argentina, Canada,
Brazil, China, South Africa, Australia, and India
all planted at least 100,000 ha to transgenic crops
in 2003. Of the world's soybean crop, 55% was trans-
genic in 2003, as was 21% of the world's cotton crop
(James, 2003).

Although genetically engineered organisms hold
many promises — reducing the use of pesticides and
irrigation, allowing agriculture on soils too saline for
normal crops, and increasing the nutritional value of
some crops — there are many concerns about the spread
of this and related biotechnologies. The main source of
concern is the potential for the migration of modified
genes into other populations, both wild and domestic.
This could result, for example, in more aggressive
weeds or the introduction of toxins into crop plants.
Increased use of transgenic crops may also diminish
biodiversity, as traditional cultivars are abandoned, and
increase the dependence of farmers on the transnational
corporations owning the patents on the new organisms.

F ACTORY F ARMING OF A NIMALS

If you live in a developed country, a large portion of the
meat, eggs, and milk that you eat probably comes from
large-scale, industrialized operations driven by the goal of
bringing these food products to market at the lowest pos-
sible unit cost. The animals in these “confined animal
feeding operations” (CAFOs) are typically crowded so
tightly they can barely move, given antibiotics to prevent