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Jesse Freitas
Professor Kim Fortun
Word Count: 1738
November 6th 2012
Should the food system be deindustrialized?
The food industry has grown significantly in the past few years in what is now called the “Green
Revolution.” In order to accommodate the need to expand the food supply, biotechnologists have
genetically modified food to resist pests and after that, it is grown, covered in pesticides, and shipped to
our door. As a result, food access in the United States has become extremely easy where people can
purchase strawberries in January. By deindustrializing the food industry, stakeholders such as plantation
owners, local farm owners, supermarket owners, truck drivers, and biotechnology firms will be affected
because the world will stop mass-producing food and start getting food locally. Demand for plantations
and food truck deliveries will decrease and supermarkets will be dependent on locally grown food that
do not contain genetic modification. The major concerns involved with deindustrialization is food quality
after switching to organic alternatives, health of food when discontinuing synthetic pesticide use, and
lastly fertilizing the land organically to create sustainable food without compromising the quantity
produced.
The overall impact of switching from our current industrialized food system to an organic local
food system is minimal because the change in production per rotation cycle is small. The rational taken
by Catherine Badgley is that anything that can be done using synthetic chemicals can be produced using
comparable organic fertilizers and pesticides. The framework behind Badgley's rationale is that despite
the inability to compete with the growth rate synthetically grown food, organic food can be just as
healthy using natural pesticides and fertilizers. The change in production during the transition to local
organic food would be minimal because an agricultural environment based entirely on organic
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production can create enough food to meet humanities caloric needs (80 Badgley). "Published studies
suggest that nitrogen-fixing legumes used as green manures can provide enough biologically fixed
nitrogen to replace the entire amount of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer currently in use" (81 Badgley)
therefore food production is fairly comparable to production using synthetic fertilizer. Crop rotation is
important for producing food efficiently and opponents of organic deindustrialized food believe that
because organic food cannot be grown as quickly as genetically modified food, crop rotation does not
work. Contrarily, this is exaggerated because the only crop that affects crop rotation is corn. "The
reduction in caloric output from the lower average yield ratio for grains in the developed world results in
a change from 2641 to 2523 total kcal per person per day. Even with this time adjusted correction for
corn, [the model can] generate enough calories to feed the current population" (81 Badgely). Badgley's
framework in discussing the value of organic food production is to prove defensively that organic food
can be produced to meet population needs as easily as genetically modified food despite the possible
decrease in production.
Badgley defensively states many data points to support her point that organic food can meet the
demand of the population in the same way that synthetically growth food but does not mention any
reason why synthetic food production is unhealthy or not sustainable. Badgley does not show very much
initiative to begin transitioning to organic, locally grown food. Badgley also does a weak job of arguing
that organic food is better because when she describes the efficiency of organic production, she
acknowledges that synthetically grown food grows faster and attempts to mend it weakly with the fact
that it can meet the population need since the population currently overproduces food with the current
industrialized system. Badgley also strategically dodges the issues associated with growing organic food.
While food can be grown organically, producing organic fertilizers for growth is difficult on a large scale
because there is no enough cattle to produce it on a large scale to meet demand needs. Another issue to
consider is the health issues with using natural fertilizers. While effective, natural fertilizers have an
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increased rate of transmitting diseases, such as E. coli, which increases the rate of food recalls among
organic foods.
Despite the bad image that biotechnology and genetically modified plants have built up from
media exposition and the past, genetically modified food provides a safe way to grow food without the
use of natural pesticides and fertilizers. John Miller, an author, provides insight into the benefits of using
genetically modified food and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. His ideology is shaped on the emerging
technologies in the food industry that make growing food easier, while protecting the environment and
the people eating the food. The risks involved with using organic fertilizers and pesticides include
disease spread as well as left over carcinogenic byproducts left that remain, such as fumonisin, which
could possibly reach supermarkets if left unchecked (Miller). Because of biotechnology, genetically
grown food can have "a natural toxin that’s safe for every living creature to eat except caterpillars with
alkaline guts, such as the European corn borer, a moth larva that can ravage whole harvests" (Miller).
Because of this, pesticide use has decreased among corn and other food products, which has
contributed to making food safer to eat. Organic foods cannot make the same promise in food security
because organic pesticides and fertilizers must be used to prevent diseases. Organic pesticides are not
biodegradable compared to synthetic pesticides and can leave carcinogenic residue even after the food
has been washed. These pesticides make organic farming unsustainable because the chemicals stay in
the soil, depleting its capacity for nutrients during the crop rotation cycle (Miller). Over time, exclusively
organically grown food will not be enough to accommodate the population and the quality of food will
be at risk.
Miller has focused on the biotechnological aspects of food production and attempts to instill the
ideology of “eating without fear” because we should be able to trust it. The problem with this is by
putting blind faith into the food we eat; society could run into health problems later on in the event of
an unforeseen epidemic. Miller also implants the idea of essentially controlling nature before it controls
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us. Miller states, “Modern farming techniques have enabled this limited supply to produce increasing
quantities of food” and implies that organic-food consumers are attempting to control the population
growth rate by limiting the amount of food we grow to maintain the current growth rate. Miller paints
organic-food consumers in a negative light stating, “They’re declaring themselves to be not only friends
of population control, but also enemies of environmental conservation,” because in his ideological
framework, the amount of food produced should accommodate the population growth rate and that by
using biotechnology to accommodate the growth rate, the human population can essentially control
nature. Miller also makes a point that food that is genetically modified or synthetically grown is cheaper
than organic foods making it a more economically viable solution. The problem with this mindset is that
while cheaper is nicer for the consumer, food prices will potentially deflate. Producers of food will need
to grow a lot of it to make a profit and by growing more; prices will go down, causing a downward
recessionary spiral. This negatively affects local food producers because they cannot compete with
lower food prices since they cannot produce as much. Society risks damaging the delicate economy of
the food industry if large farms are allowed to produce cheaper food through biotechnology.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) identifies key facts that Miller fails to mention in his
analysis. When growing crops such as corn, used fertilizers contain a lot of nitrogen and is washed away
into the water table when it rains. Because crops like corn are grown in monoculture systems, the soil
needs to be replenished with nitrogen or the crops will not grow successfully (Concerned Scientists).
Studies have shown, “complex crop rotations that include cover crops have been shown to take up
excess nitrogen in the soil, keeping it from passing into groundwater. When the cover crop is
incorporated into the soil in the spring, it makes this nitrogen available to the crops that follow”
(Concerned Scientists). Due to the remaining nitrogen, unless society reforms our agricultural processes
to rotate crops often, growing food using synthetic nitrogen based fertilizers is quite unsustainable. The
Union of Concerned Scientists also reveal that modern pesticides are no different from natural
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pesticides except for the way they are produced. Lastly, a major concern related to Miller’s comment
regarding controlling nature is pesticide resistance. As stated earlier, Miller alludes to controlling nature
and population growth with the innovations in biotechnology; however, evolution and nature have a
way of escaping man’s grasp and drastically affecting our health. The Union of Concerned Scientist raise
an important factor in biology: evolution. Evolution is a powerful force that can control many
components of an ecosystem. By using excessive amounts of pesticides, we no longer interact with
bacteria and pests and weaken our immune system. Pesticides also promote evolution of the pests
where they may eventually become immune to current technology.
After reviewing multiple aspects of the food industry, I am both thankful and disgusted at the
food I eat. I’m thankful that I can know that there are biodegradable solutions that can keep our food
safer, but at the same time, the cost of food security is our water table, our future health and the impact
of our heavy use of pesticides and herbicides. When looking at Monsanto, they need a more regulated
system for growing food including more crop rotation. The food industry should be deindustrialized
because it is currently set up for both environmental and economic failure. Economically, food prices for
processed food are unsustainably low because of the amount of money going into producing and
transporting the food. Environmentally, pests will evolve and we will not be able to create healthy food
due to the enormous amount of pesticides in our food.
Works Cited
Badgley, Catherine, et al. June 2007. Renewable Agriculture & Food Systems. "Organic Agriculture and
the Global Food Supply."
Miller, John. February 9, 2004. National Review. "The Organic Myth: A Food Movement Makes a Pest of
Itself."
Union of Concerned Scientists. "Industrial Agriculture." Citizens and Scientists for Environmental
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Solutions. N.p., 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2012.