“At least once in your life you’ll need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher, but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer.” American consumers do not appreciate the work that farmers do to feed our nation, but we have many reasons to be thankful. People spread untruthful information to try to alienate them for making us sick, treating animals inhumanely, and injecting everything we eat with harmful chemicals just to make a buck. All of this information is taken out of context and used against the agricultural industry, but for what? The people making these accusations are not producing solutions to the problems, and instead encourage the continuation of the same “harmful practices” by demanding perfect foods all year round. …show more content…
Agriculture’s main responsibility is to produce food and other products to sustain and enhance human life. Our farmers are doing just that, and they are the best at it. According to the Global Food Security Index, the United States is ranked number one in the world for overall affordability, availability, and quality and safety of our food supply. This means that what we are eating has been evaluated, despite what some people believe, and is much safer to eat than food from other countries. The reason our nation is ranked so highly is because of the regulations the USDA and the FDA have in place and the integrity of our farmers to provide safe products to their consumers. The producers of the documentary Food Inc., Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, would disagree …show more content…
Agriculture connects to our lives in more ways than you think. The pajamas you wear to bed are probably made of cotton produced by a farmer, and the wood floor you step down on in the morning was cut from a tree a logger fell. The toothpaste in the bathroom has animal fats called glycerin in it, and the book you decide to read that day will be bound with glue from cattle and printed with ink made out of soybean oil. Agriculture is not only responsible for feeding the world, but also clothing, sheltering, and helping us travel from place to place. Food Inc. card stacked against the ag industry by not depicting the effects these companies have on the economy as a whole. They did not present any ways that the food industry tries to utilize all parts of the animals they process, and in doing so they have an impact on more than just the food industry. Companies can now produce 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn, and produced 13.3 billion gallons in 2012. If the corporations selling the corn to them did not exist, the market for biofuel wouldn’t either. Despite the fact that some might argue farmers only produce food, (like that is not a big enough reason to support them), the extent of the agriculture industry goes far beyond just cows, sows, and
In “Omnivore’s Delusion,” Blake Hurst, a veteran famer, calls attention to the “agri-intellectuals” who are critiquing farming when having no experience. First of all, the author wants “Agri-intellectuals” to take a walk in a farmer’s shoes. Throughout the article, Hurst throws jabs at the people criticizing choices a farmer makes, for example, he says, “It is important, though, that even people riding in airplanes know that there are environmental and food safety costs to whatever kind of farming we choose” (4). The author says this to show his anger and suggest to these critics they should know what they are talking about before they talk about it. Secondly, Hurst points out the food animal endangerment. The author tells his readers
...nergy from an acre of Iowa farmland. Unfortunately, for more than fifty years, farm policies is designed to encourage the overproduction of this crop and hardly any other. It simply because the government subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country. While the surgeon general is warning the epidemic of obesity, our government is still signing bills encouraging the river of cheap corn flowing. It is clearly shown that food production in America is partly a mixture of politic, economic and morality.
...struggling to earn any income at all and sometimes do not even get the opportunity to eat. Another issue that Raj Patel did not touch on is the lack of care consumers have for the farmers. It seems that consumers care about farmers about as much as the corporations do, which, in my opinion, is not a lot. When consumers only care about low prices and large corporations only care about making a profit, the farmers are left out to dry. Many consumers believe “food should be available at a bargain price, a belief that relies on labor exploitation and environmental exhaustion at multiple points along the commodity chain.” (Wright, 95) Corporations as well as consumers generally tend to be selfish and I think Raj Patel is afraid to mention this. If only these people cared a little bit more about each other I believe the hourglass of the food system will begin to even out.
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
This then brings up the issue of how our food is much worse than we had originally believed. Bryan Walsh, writer for TIME, wrote the article, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, “To stay and grow in such conditions, farm animals need pharmaceutical help, which can further damaging consequences for humans” (Walsh 34). From the chickens to the cows, animals are kept in “prison-like conditions” that causes them to become very sick (Walsh 34). To prevent animals from getting extremely sick to the point where they die before it’s their time, farmers feed them antibiotics. Not only are the animals eating corn and antibiotics, but so are we. We are eating so much more than we ever asked for. I’ve never asked to have antibiotics in my hamburger, and I’m sure many others haven’t either, however, that is the price we ought to pay for our cheap food. Not only must we ask ourselves if we are healthy, but now we must ask ourselves if what we are eating is also eating
“We take care of animals, and the animals take care of us.” (Rollin 212). The preceding phrase is a policy that American farmers in the old west lived their lives by. Modern farmers live do not live their lives anywhere near to this phrase because they own factory farms, and the whole reason for having a factory farm is to fit as many animals in a small space as possible in order to maximize profit. Factory Farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) first appeared in the 1920s, right after Vitamins A and D, because if animals are given these vitamins in their diets, exercise and sunlight are not necessities for the animals to grow anymore (In Defense of Animals 1). The growing number of factory farms is coupled with the decreasing population of rural areas, which means that many people are beginning to factory farm because it yields a higher profit (“Agricultural Sciences” 170). In the 1950s, the average number of chickens on a given egg farm in the United States was 100, but now the average number is a shocking 10,000 chickens (“Factory Farms” 4). The reason for the increase of chickens has to do with new and cheaper technology developed just after World War II. The new technology increased the number of chickens, while it had the opposite effect on dairy and meat cows, their numbers went in the other direction. The number of cows used for milk was cut by more than half between 1950 and 2000, because farmers discovered new and more efficient methods for milking cows (Weeks 4). Many activists for animals’ rights are concerned about the methods used by factory farmers because they confine their animals into tight spaces and since there are so many of them in a small ...
Over the past few decades, small and medium sized farms have been taken over by large-scale factory farms. These farms house billions of animals used for consumption each year. The conditions on factory farms are filthy, overcrowded and disease ridden. Animals forced to live out their lives on these farms are subject to extremely harsh conditions, such as mutilation, confinement and living spaces piled high with feces. Not only do conditions on factory farms make life for livestock absolutely miserable, but factory farms are also negatively impacting human health and the environment. The production and sale of meat has become a billion-dollar industry based upon the bloodshed of other sentient beings. With this being the case, at the very least, factory farms need to be properly regulated and companies involved need to be held accountable for their abuse.
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
Current public concern is the result of a wide-ranging, well-financed propaganda campaign of negatives – negatives intended to strike fear in the hearts of countless consumers "over there" and now, over here. Government agricultural agencies of var...
Pictures of happy cows, chickens, and pigs grazing on luscious grasslands litter every grocery store and product in America. This illusion of natural food is the ingenious plan of large business’s advertising. With the loose description of organic available, companies throw it around as though it means nothing, but sadly when combined with the picture of a happy farmer, it is sold as the healthiest food on the market. “The organic label is a marketing tool…It is not a statement about food safety. Nor is ‘organic’ a value judgment about nutrition or quality” (Pollan 179). Pollan uses the example of Rosie the “free-range” chicken. Rosie is from a supposedly organic farm that raises thousands of chickens to be sold at Whole Foods Markets. Rosie’s life is spent in one small chicken house, where she is tightly packed in with several thousand other “Rosies”. Her “free-range” label is allowed because of one small trap door that allows chickens into a few square feet of grass – which is never utilized, by the time the door is opened the chickens are already several months old and do not know how to live outside the chicken coop. Yet the advertisement clearly reads that Rosie is a free range, completely natural chicken. When compared to a truly natural chicken, Rosie is just the same industrial product as any other feedlot
The film highlights the potential thoughts of previous food company CEO’s now being the political figures that decide their laws and regulations. There is no one governing their decisions that continue to allow the companies to function in unethical standards. The film also highlights the topics of patenting of seeds and how the financial benefits for the companies has destroyed America’s corn farmers. Our nation has become so dependent on cheap and fast food that we have allowed the government to turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of workers in the industry to keep our dollar menus. The film urges us to make smarter decisions about our food consumption which in turn will help bring down the cost of the smart foods we should be
As we stroll the aisles of our local supermarkets we see all kinds of food products, but does it ever occur to you how fresh or natural these products maybe. Organic farming prohibits any use of artificial chemicals, growth hormones, or antibiotics in the production of its crops and livestock. Organic farming has existed for centuries, but after the industrial revolution factory farming was arising. Organic farming does not allow the use of any pesticides in its crops or livestock production, but also helps sustain a good economic flow in rural communities. Although there are many benefits of organic farming, there is a lack of credibility some farmers provide within the distribution of their products and some argue that there’s no difference
Corn is a part of American farming. However, American farming has been changing drastically over the past century. With new technology and greater demands, agriculture has needed to modernize itself. This requires corn to fundamentally change in its structure and purpose. Not only does this change the quality of corn or its usage, but it also affects corn’s quantity. There is a yearly over-abundance of corn yet corn still keeps getting produced. The honesty of genuine farming has been lost over the years. Farming is not a way of life anymore. It’s a business that takes away from the farmers themselves and only focuses on their product.
Farmers are essentially the back-bone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production, (CSS statistics). Without farmers, there would be no food for us to consume. Big business picked up on this right away and began to control the farmers profits and products. When farmers buy their land, they take out a loan in order to pay for their land and farm house and for the livestock, crops, and machinery that are involved in the farming process. Today, the loans are paid off through contracts with big business corporations. Since big business has such a hold over the farmers, they take advantage of this and capitalize on their crops, commodities, and profits. Farmers are life-long slaves to these b...
Cruelty toward animals, huge economic problems, and major health concerns are just three reasons why factory farming should be banned worldwide. Many people argue that factory farming is the only way to meet growing demands for food in the world today. However, factory farming is just not necessary, especially when it comes down to killing innocent animals in order to feed people. A way to put an end to the factory farming system is by buying our food from smaller, sustainable farms. These businesses still aim to profit from their labor, but that’s not their only objective. (The Issues: Factory Farming, n.d.) They simply will not sacrifice the health of the land or the quality of food simply to make a few extra dollars.