PROBLEM 1: Use of Monoculture

Industrial agriculture relies on monoculture, the planting of one crop in mass amounts. This decreases biodiversity within the ecosystem within both plants and animals.

“Today as more and more farmers are integrated into international economies, imperatives to diversity disappear and monocultures are rewarded by economies of scale. In turn, lack of rotations and diversification take away key self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures into highly vulnerable agroecosystems dependent on high chemical inputs. The technologies allowing the shift toward monoculture were mechanization, the improvement of crop varieties, and the development of agrochemicals to fertilize crops and control weeds and pests. Government commodity policies these past several decades encouraged the acceptance and utilization of these technologies. As a result, farms today are fewer, larger, more specialized and more capital intensive. At the regional level, increases in monoculture farming meant that the whole agricultural support infrastructure (i.e. research, extension, suppliers, storage, transport, markets, etc.) has become more specialized” (Altieri, 2000).

Larger-scaled industrial farms have become so expanded that it is very difficult for there to exist natural links between the soil, the crops, and the animals of a farm. Therefore it has become difficult to farm without the interference of chemical aids (Altieri, 2000).
Though in mass-industrialized large scaled farms there is a plethora of resources available to make the farm self-sustainable, (i.e. there is plenty of animal waste to help the environment), the animal wastes do not have an economically viable way of recycling the nutrients back into the soil. This is because the production systems have due to the large spaced-out scale, become geographically isolated from other farming systems making it extremley difficult to recycle and cycle materials and nutrients within the larger farming system as a whole (Altieri, 2000).
Monocultures act as a specialized “attack zone”, as it can be called, for species of pesticides to attack. Because there is little to no diversity among monoculture farms there aren’t natural remedies for pests, in other words, there are no predatory species that can naturally elminate a pest species. In this sense monoculture is also very dangerous because if one invincible pest or disease attacks an area it can possibly destroy the whole land area leading to adverse effects adn great economical losses (Altieri, 2000).
The reason for the extensive need of fertilizers to maintain a monoculture farm is due to the fact that the crops are being taken out of their natural habitats. They are being stretched out of their biological niches and cannot be functional to their full extent sans external synthetic aids (Altieri, 2000).
Monoculture relies on one crop for a couple years, around 5-9 years and then the crop is no longer useful. This may be due to insects that have dominated or the crop is no longer efficient. And therefore a new variety must be developed and hence monoculture depends constantly on new developments in resistance and chemically varied crops. What happens when there is no new crop generated?(Altieri, 2000)
Monoculture also has made it okay for industrialized large-scale farms to pour fertilizers on their fields. This is because certain crops grown in large-scale monoculture are genetically modified to be resistant to a certain pest. So to kill the pest they just pour mass amounts of a pesticide on the fields. Though this doesn’t damage the crop, it does greatly damage the soil. And herein lies another major problem that gets overseen on a daily basis (Altieri, 2000).

SOLUTION 1: Use of Monoculture

Organic farming unlike industrial farming can be more diverse in terms of what can be grown on a given plot of land, “many kinds of farm products [can be] produced organically including: vegetables, fruit, herbs, grains, meat, dairy, eggs, fibers, and flowers” (Treadwell, Riddle, Barbercheck, Cavanaugh-Grant, & Zaborski, 2010). Therefore unlike industrial farming which focuses growing one or two crops in mass amounts on a plot of land using crop rotations, organic agriculture can grow multiple different crops that maintain the crop and ecosystem biodiversity within the farm.

PROBLEM 2: High Reliance on Artificial Pesticides/ Fertilizers

Industrial agriculture utilizes mass amounts of cheap synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to produce high yields. These pollutants greatly reduce the use of the land and causes topsoil degradation. This causes the extreme pollution of local rivers and water sources.

The loss of yields due to pests in many crops (reaching about 20-30% in most crops), despite the substantial increase in the use of pesticides (about 500 million kg of active ingredient worldwide) is a symptom of the environmental crisis affecting agriculture

Due to this lack of natural controls, an investment of about 40 billion dollars in pesticide control is incurred yearly by US farmers, which is estimated to save approximately $16 billion in US crop. (Altieri, 2000)

Image source: (Google, 2009)

SOLUTION 2: High Reliance on Artificial Pesticides/Fertilzers

Pesticides are not used to control weeds and pests. Pests and diseases result when crops are forced to grow in land that they are not naturally suited for. Organic farming involves the growth of crops in land that they grow best in. Furthermore, crop rotation and the introduction of predators to get rid of pests are methods that make for a clean and sustainable agriculture practice. “Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystems suggest that
leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen to replace the amount of synthetic fertilizer currently in use” (Badgley, 2006).

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a method that reduces the pest populations of a farm in a predominantly natural manner. It involves a series of simple yet effective steps that help maintain healthy levels of pests in a given area. Integrated pest management focuses on keeping insect populations low and not on completely killing off pest populations, as do most industrial pesticides. There are programs of IPM that are customized by region, by land, and by specific characteristics of the land. IPM establishes an “action threshold” that determines what level of population of pests is healthy and when, past a certain point of population levels, action must be taken depending on specific area. This helps prevent the pest population from becoming immune to a certain pesticide. This is greatly helpful because one of the reasons why industrial farming uses such high levels of pesticides is due to the fact that pests become immune to a certain type of mass pesticide, therefore another one must be applied, and then they become resistant again. So therefore there is a huge line of various pesticides that are added indefinitely as pests become more and more resilient to the previous one. And this destroys the soil (Panneton, Vincent, & Fleurat-Lessard, 2001).

IPM uses various methods of measurement to constantly monitor the amounts of bacteria or spores, as well as other pest levels. IPM involves a lot of hands on research and both quantitative and qualitative observations to work efficiently. Diseased crops are often removed to prevent pest populations from growing as well as other methods such as “simple hand-picking, erecting insect barriers, using traps, vacuuming, and tillage to disrupt breeding”. Also IPM relies on a variety of natural, biological controls, such as insects that feed on other pests as well as the use of certain microorganisms such as fungi to kill off other kinds of pests. And as a last resort, IPM may use chemical fertilizers to destroy certain pest populations, but in far less amounts than is used today (Panneton, Vincent, & Fleurat-Lessard, 2001). Therefore we can see how pesticides can be replaced by much healthier alternatives by switching to more organic methods.

PROBLEM 3: Poor Soil Quality

Industrial agriculture also leads to soil erosion, which has reached a dangerously high rate; soil is being degraded much faster than it is being replenished, which deprives the land of fertile soil and nutrient richness.There are several causes of land erosion. ” The soil is a vital component of our modern agricultural systems and with soil degrading at a faster rate than ever, we are losing arable land at a faster and faster rate every day. “During the last 40 years, nearly one-third of the world’s arable land has been lost by erosion and continues to be lost at a rate of more than 10 million hectares per year”. The greater the loss of soil, the smaller the productivity of the land; therefore soone nough the land will become virtually unproductive and infertile. This leads to more expansion and deforestation which again is very unsustainable. “Each year, 75 billion metric tons of soil are removed from the land by wind and water erosion, with most coming from agricultural land” (Pimentel, 1995).

This problem of erosion not only exists in croplands, that are about one-third of global agricultural land, but also in grazing land for livestock, which occupies the other two-thirds of global agricultural land. Croplands experience the highest rates of erosion due to poor farming practices. The “soil is repeatedly tilled and left without protective cover of vegetation” (Pimentel, 1995).

Soil erosion dramatically increases on a sloping surface due to water washing down and sweeing away at the soil. And because of modern agricultural practices, sloping surfaces for farming are becoming increasingly popular. The slopes are being converted from forests to agricultural land due to the rapidly increasing demand for food as a result of the ever-increasing human population. For example, to show the severity of sloped surfaces on soil erosion, “in Nigeria, cassava fields on steep slopes lost 221 tons per hectare per year” whereas cassava fields on flat land showed “an annual loss of 3 tons per hectare per year” (Pimentel, 1995). That is a dramatic difference.

Dead and alive plants wastes that accumulate on the surface of the soil are beneficial to prevent soil erosion. Yet on large-scale industrial farms this covering is being removed as a source for fuel to burn. And therefore erosion is increasing at an accelerate rate” (Pimentel, 1995). Erosion by water and wind adversely affect soil quality and productivity by reducing infiltration rates, water-holding capacity, nutrients, organic matter, soil biota, and soil depth” all of which affect agricultural productivity. And hence we have a problem.

SOLUTION 3: Poor Soil Quality

Organic Farming poses minimal risk to the environment because it involves the natural growth of produce. This method of farming involves crop rotation, soil surface mulching, and animal manures and recycled crop wastes as compost. Through the use of these natural nutrient recycling methods, organic farming makes soil more sustainable. Because there is no heavy dependence on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, soil salinity is decreased and as a result the soil is more fertile.

PROBLEM 4: Extreme Water Consumption and Pollution

Industrial agriculture consumes water very quickly and in mass amounts. This is highly unsustainable on a global account. Industrial agriculture also releases mass amounts of pollutants through it’s irrigation systems into nearly by lakes, rivers, and groundwater systems which causes major problems worldwide.
Since we have seen and identified these four major problems with organic farming, we can proceed to see how a more organic approach to industrial farming can help make large-scale modern farming practices more sustainable. There is a general organic solution for each of the four general problems posed above. And since it is impossible and impractical for one to expect a sudden change in global farming from majorly industrial and large-scale to organic, it is most efficient for us to consider a sort of hybrid between the two. Organic farming can be a healthy alternative not only for our bodies, but also for our planet as a whole if it joins forces with our modern industrial agriculture. “Organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture” (Badgley, 2006).

While large industrial farms are excellent at meeting high demand for food and other agricultural products, industrial methods, however, are harmful to the soil. The goal of organic farming is to reduce the disastrous effects of industrial chemicals and fertilizers on topsoil while helping “enhance soil fertility, prevent soil erosion, promote and enhance biological diversity, and minimize the risk to human and animal health and natural resources”(Treadwell, Riddle, Barbercheck, Cavanaugh-Grant, & Zaborski, 2010). We can then combine the two plans into our solution: organic industrial agriculture. Organic industrial agriculture aims to combine the production ability of large industrial farms with the sustainability of organic farms. Farmers would still rely on mechanized processes but would also use natural fertilizers and herbicides. The mechanized processes would still allow for mass production while the new fertilizers would be safer on the soil and the plants

The reason a hybridization is being proposed is because it is virtually impossible at this time, to completely convert all industrial practices into organic ones. The industrialized portion of modern agriculture has led to it’s speed in producing large quantities of food. The world would not only be in a dip of losses in terms of agricultural yields if all industrial farming was immediately converted into organic methods, but there would also be great debate and complaints from industrialized companies, as well as industrial farm workers.

SOLUTION 4: Extreme Water Consumption and Pollution

Since the farming practices for organic farming do not involve mass farming everything, water can be resourced and directed in a very efficient manner. Different plants require different watering systems and organic agriculture could accomodate for that. Instead of just pouring hundreds of gallons of water over a field, it is possible to direct x amount of gallons to a specific area, thereby greatly reducing the consumption of water resources. And because organic agriculture does not use synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, pollution of nearby water sources is much less than that caused by industrial farming.