The Modern Food Industry

Before the settling of hunter-gathers food was not regular and extended periods of fasting were common if the prey was not caught. Eventually, people began to become more stationary and agriculture started to develop. However, the food was still very hit and miss and consisted mainly of subsistent farming, farmers would have a very small herd of animals and any extra produce would be traded for other essential items. 2000 years later we now have huge monocultural and industrial farming systems which help feed the 7 billion people on planet Earth. With such a large population farming technique have been drastically changed with many systems becoming automated, cows no longer eat grass they consume food pellets and growth hormones to speed up the development process, so they can be brought to slaughter.

Fertilizers consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium have allowed us to have two harvests a year, while pesticides have made the yield very efficient as insects are no longer able to wipe out crops. This use of chemicals was introduced to allow our huge population to eat, the overuse of chemicals has had huge bioaccumulation issues within the food chain with the species most at risk being humans because we are at the very top of the system (1).

There are many environmental issues that surround the food industry but perhaps the most relevant is soil degradation. Without soils life on earth would not exist, the nutrient rich part of the soil is the upper two layers, the O layer (organic matter layer) and the A layer (topsoil), the overuse of our soils and bad farming techniques has created soil degradation making it susceptible to soil erosion from aeolian processes. Bad farming techniques like non contour ploughing lead to high levels of surface runoff, this washes the fertilisers into nearby rivers which eventually leads to the sea, over time this excess nutrients causes eutrophication. Eutrophication is the bloom of algae caused by over nutrient waters, this algae then uses up all the oxygen in the water killing all life and also any fauna on the sea floor, the Gulf of Mexico experiences bad levels of eutrophication due to the Mississippi river and its inability to flush out into the ocean(2).

Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species, variety, or breed in a field or farming system at a time, although this has helped us support our exponentially increasing population and till now prove wrong the Malthus theory is has also created many problems. In order to produce such high yields plant species are grouped together making them easy to harvest, similar or the same strains of wheat are grown for hundreds of miles at a time because, the demand for a product is far greater than what the other less common strains of wheat produce. This means they have similar genetic makeups which leads them susceptible to diseases wiping out millions of acres of food. This could lead to a similar situation as played out in the movie Interstellar.

However it's not the farmer's fault, it's down to human culture and over consumption. Capitalist businesses such as fast food giant MacDonald’s and human lifestyle has created this need for such intensive agriculture and 99% of this issue is down to the global north where only 20% if the world's population lives. 10% of our world population is classed as undernourished (3) while 30% are classed as obese(4) this huge variation in calorie intake needs to be sorted as there is no point in reducing our food production when people still go to bed hungry in the world.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have allowed food production to prosper in climates where they were previously unable to, however, there are pros and cons to this amazing invention. The pros are obvious, the ability to feed millions if not billions of people on earth. One of the many cons is that GM seeds are patterned meaning that the farmers that grow the crops are not allowed to keep the seeds for themselves, this has resulted in huge profits in companies and the loss of livelihood in many small farms due to debt or cross contamination of seeds.

What is shocking is after all this progression in the food market there are hundreds of food deserts in the US, a food desert is defined as parts of the country scarce of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas this leads to undernourishment and obesity. Another huge issue is the collateral damage from pesticides sprayed on crops. The numbers of bees have dropped by around 30% (5) its said by scientists that without bees we would have only 4 years remaining on earth due to the lack of pollination, things need to change and quickly monocultural farming (predominantly in the US and the great plains of Europe because of the huge extent of land available to farm) needs to be reconsidered and pesticides need to be controlled.

References

(1)   Colborn, T., Vom Saal, F.S. and Soto, A.M., 1993. Developmental effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in wildlife and humans. Environmental health perspectives, 101(5), p.378.

(2)   Rabalais, N.N., Turner, R.E., Gupta, B.K.S., Platon, E. and Parsons, M.L., 2007. Sediments tell the history of eutrophication and hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Ecological Applications, 17(sp5), pp.S129-S143.

(3)   Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2018) - "Hunger and Undernourishment". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment' [Online Resource]

(4)   Bleich, S.N., Cutler, D., Murray, C. and Adams, A., 2008. Why is the developed world obese?. Annu. Rev. Public Health, 29, pp.273-295.

(5)   Goulson, D., Nicholls, E., Botías, C. and Rotheray, E.L., 2015. Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers. Science, 347(6229), p.1255957.