Industrial agriculture refers to the mass production of food and other animal and vegetable products through mechanized, centralized farms. It is often associated with the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, patented and genetically modified seeds, and complex technology. These strategies make it possible to produce huge amounts of products at a low cost to the consumer, while agricultural corporations turn a profit. The majority of meat, eggs, dairy, and produce available in supermarkets are produced through industrial agriculture.
Industrial agriculture has a number of drawbacks. It relies heavily on underpaid, often seasonal labor, especially labor performed by undocumented immigrants. These immigrants are often victims of wage theft, and women workers are at high risk of sexual harassment. Additional criticism of industrial agriculture comes from animal rights activists, who point to the ways it reduces animals to products by not only raising them for slaughter, but giving them extremely limited freedom, and often keeping them indoors for their whole lives. Finally, industrial agriculture is often very damaging to the environment. By growing “monocultures,” or fields of only one crop, industrial agriculture reduces biodiversity and often makes it impossible for native creatures to coexist with farms. It also often relies on polluting pesticides and fertilizers, which can enter the water system and harm ecosystems far away from farms.
There are many alternatives to industrial agriculture. Best known are organic farms, which reduce use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and antibiotics. However, these farms are often owned by the same mega-corporations that control other industrial farms, and they may rely on similarly underpaid labor. More radical alternatives include a return to small local farms. For example, the poet and writer Wendell Berry has spent years advocating for a return to traditional farming methods that nourish the soil and allow for more biodiverse farms. Another example is the Indigenous food sovereignty movement in the United States, which has fought for farms owned and operated by indigenous people using traditional methods, in order to provide fresh food for often-underserved reservations while restoring the land and increasing indigenous independence from American industrial capitalism.
