As earth’s population grows at breakneck pace over the next several decades, who will feed the world’s people? Agriculture has undergone an extensive expansion and transformation throughout the last few centuries beginning with the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s. New technology allowed for better and greater methods of production. The destructive nature of agriculture has recently shown its hand. While our supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants are filled with abundant food options, people forget to ask themselves where all this food comes from. Globalization has opened up economies of scale and has allowed people to tap into different types of products, whether that is food or clothing. But the availability of an increased …show more content…
The “Farm-to-Fork movement” as it is called in some circles aspires to have farmers produce and sell the food as they have for centuries – through natural processes that don’t negatively impact the environment. The result, say advocates, is a better earth, nourishing food and healthier people. The choice of natural and organic food is evidenced by the huge spike in sales by warehouse retailer Costco (Gonzalez). The Washington-based company recently surpassed Whole Foods Market as the number one purveyor of organic foods in the United States (Gonzalez). Costco is projected to make $4 billion in sales of organic products this year, representing more than 1 out of 10 dollars in the organic food sales market (Gonzalez). The Organic Trade Association, an industry group, estimates total organic-food sales in the U.S. to be around $36 billion (Gonzalez). These numbers indicate that the natural food movement cannot be ignored. With that in mind, how will the earth continue to feed itself? The answer is not an easy one. There will be many solutions, spewed by politicians, farmers, scientists and ordinary people. Whatever the answer, it is clear that the world’s people need to change course. Old habits need to be adjusted, from the voracious consumption of meat to the addiction to processed foods like soda. The world will need to find its way back to nature, back to the roots of the land that had sustained people for centuries
Moreover, this system of mass farming leads to single crop farms, which are ecologically unsafe, and the unnatural treatment of animals (Kingsolver 14). These facts are presented to force the reader to consider their own actions when purchasing their own food because of the huge economic impact that their purchases can have. Kingsolver demonstrates this impact by stating that “every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we
In recent years, it is not even necessary to turn on the news to hear about the bad reputation farming has been getting in recent years. With the media focusing on things like drugs in animals and Pink Slime, or Lean Finely Textured Beef, it is a wonder that people are eating “non-organic” foods. However, many pro-farming organizations have been trying to fight back against these slanders. Still, the battle is not without heavy competition, and a good portion of it comes from Chipotle, a fast food Mexican restaurant that claims to only use completely organic ingredients in their food. Chipotle is constantly introducing advertisements claiming to have the natural ingredients, while slandering the names of farmers everywhere.
Wendell Berry, an environmental activist, cultural critic and a farmer tells consumers to eat “responsibly”. That consumers should realize that eating is an agricultural act. An act that gives us freedom. Meaning that every time we make choices about what we eat and who we purchase from, we are deciding what direction our food system moves. Berry states that to make a change we need to make individual choices to live free. “We cannot be free if our food its sources are controlled by someone else” (2). Berry argues that the average consumer buys available food without any question. That we depend on commercial suppliers, we are influence by advertisements we see on TV and that interfere with our food choices. We buy what other people wants us to buy. We have been controlled by the food industry, and regard eating as just something required for our survival. Berry want consumers to realize we should get an enjoyment from eating and that can only
Today’s economy and the environment are hurting due to the lack of nurture we have been providing. Conventional farming rules the world of agriculture, but not without a fight from organic farming. Organic farming is seen as the way of farming that might potentially nurture our nature back to health along with the added benefit of improving our own health. With her piece “Organic farming healthier, more efficient than Status Quo,” published in the Kansas State Collegian on September 3, 2013, writer Anurag Muthyam brings forth the importance behind organic farming methods. Muthyam is a senior at Kansas State University working towards a degree in Management. This piece paints the picture of how organic farming methods
While the organic movement has increased the production and sale of organic food in the United States, something that should be noted is that the stock of Whole Foods Market, a grocery store is dedicated to the sale of organic food, has gone down 40% since October of 2013. Whole Foods Market’s success rates are slowly beginning to diminish and it may lose its dominance in the organic foods market (The Economist, 2014). While this may seem indicative of a decrease in public interest of organic food, it really indicates the opposite. After seeing the success of Whole Foods Market, new stores such as Trader Joe’s and Sprouts entered the organic market and became strong competition. The decline in Whole Foods Market’s success may be attributed
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,
Food production has many challenges to address: CO2 emissions, which are projected to increase by two-thirds in the next 20 years, as the global food production increases so does the number of people going hungry, with the number of urban hungry soaring. The environmental issues are not the only ones to face; politics and economic globalization take also the big part in the food world. These days agriculture and food politics has been going through many changes but mostly under the influence of its consumers; back in the days people wanted as little as safety, variety and low costs of food. Now consumers demanding way more – greater freshness, nutritional value, less synthetic chemicals, smaller carbon footprint and less harm to animals. And that’s the time when urban agriculture emerged quite rapidly delivering locally grown and healthy food. Within the political arena, there are a few still in charge of defending the conventional food industries and commercial farms to retain the upper level. Against the hopes of nutrition activists, farm animal welfare defenders, and organic food promoters, the food and agriculture sector is moving towards greater consolidation and better sustainability. Although in social and local terms, food-growing activists know their role is under attack. Caught two words in the middle, is it possible to satisfy both?
There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...
With the world’s population continuing to increase, the demand for food is higher than ever. This increase in food demand also calls for more efficient ways of growing and providing the food. Two methods that are very controversial are the organic and conventional method. While many people support the organic method because of its known benefits, others feel that it is an over inflated industry that cheats consumers out of their money. But recently many studies have disproved those critics. These studies prove that Organic food is a better choice than conventional because it is better for the environment, avoids the use of chemicals, and is generally more beneficial.
In the past ten years the world population exceeded six billion people with most of the growth occurring in the poorest, least developed countries in the world. The rapidly increasing population and the quickly declining amount of land are relative and the rate at which hunger is increasing rises with each passing year. We cannot afford to continue to expand our world population at such an alarming rate, for already we are suffering the consequences. Hunger has been a problem for our world for thousands of years. But now that we have the technology and knowledge to stamp it out, time is running short.
As the global population continues to rise, the amount of food needed to feed the people will increase as well. Two types of agriculture systems have been the backbone for crop production for decades if not centuries: conventional and organic agriculture— both methods could not be any more different. Conventional agriculture, a method that uses synthetic chemical pesticides, technologies or additives, and practices that are unsustainable is the leading producer for our food. On the other side of spectrum, organic agriculture generally, performed in a much smaller scale, does not use synthetic chemicals and utilize methods that are environmentally sound. Most conventional
The growing world population is demanding more and different kinds of food. Rapid economic growth in many developing countries has pushed up consumers' purchasing power, generated rising demand for food, and shifted food demand away from traditional staples and toward higher-value foods like meat and milk.
U.S. Department of Agriculture “USDA.” Because of this, many assume that organic is the “healthier,” more nutritious, option. But is this assumption true? With the rise of health-related concerns in the United States, the demand for organic produce has grown rapidly. Organic products are sold in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and 3 of 4 grocery stores. More recently, chained grocery stores such as Walmart and Target have joined the trend and started selling organic options (Troller 8). Research suggests that consumers spent $7.8 billion on organic food in 2000. This has increased by about 25 percent annually since then, with fresh produce being the top selling organic category today. In addition, recent statistics show that organic sales account for 4 percent of all U.S. food sales (Lockeretz 10). Professionals in health care, including doctors and dietitians, commonly encourage patient...
One of the most complex issues in the world today concerns human population. The number of people living off the earth’s resources and stressing its ecosystem has doubled in just forty years. In 1960 there were 3 billion of us; today there are 6 billion. We have no idea what maximum number of people the earth will support. Therefore, the very first question that comes into people’s mind is that are there enough food for all of us in the future? There is no answer for that. Food shortage has become a serious problem among many countries around the world. There are many different reasons why people are starving all over the world. The lack of economic justice and water shortages are just merely two examples out of them all.
Around the halfway point of the century, the UN predicts there will be 9.6 billion people on Earth (UN 2013). From now until then, we will have to produce more food than what humanity has consumed in its entire existence (Weisman 2013). Most of this demand will come from developing countries. As their economies grow, not only will these countries be able to afford more food, their preferences will also shift towards more meat, dairy, and processed foods, all of which require disproportionately large inputs and the use of intense agricultural practices to produce (Trostle and Seeley 2013).