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Today, this model of industrialagriculture is no longer fit for purpose. And it reduces the climate and environmental footprint of growing, processing, and transporting industrially farmed animal food. Moreover, they contribute to forest destruction, the displacement of communities, water pollution and soil degradation.
Growing vast monocultures of potatoes requires synthetic fertilizers whose production requires massive amounts of energy. Another 38 percent comes from retail consumption and waste; and the rest is from industrial inputs (like pesticides and fertilizer) and agriculture production.
And despite the proximity of wetlands to many communities in this country, few people truly understand either the value wetlands hold for our way of life or the threat they face from our industrialized system of agriculture. Wetlands in the United States are now even more vulnerable after the Supreme Courts 2023 decision in Sackett v.
These nitrogen-based compounds, common in agricultural runoff, are linked to multiple cancers and health issues for those exposed. and the reason comes down to one major source: Agricultural runoff. This “leaky system” refers to what is not absorbed by the crops on the field, most dangerously, in this case, fertilizer. “It’s
Our research project, “Reuniting the Three Sisters,” explores what it means to be a responsible caretaker of the land from the perspective of peoples who have been balancing agricultural production with sustainability for hundreds of years. Map from Milwaukee Public Museum ) Reviving Native Agriculture Today Native people all over the U.S.
This disaster should serve as a sobering reminder that policymakers and the agricultureindustry need to do more to adapt to our changing climate. Although most people don’t notice it, erosion and soil degradation caused by industrialagriculture are already a problem in farming regions across the country.
Powerful PR firms have worked overtime in recent years to craft a narrative that highlight farms’ potential role in mitigating climate change, but the truth is that agriculture consumes 6 percent of the world’s fossil fuel energy , and the oil and gas industries rely on industrialagriculture for one of its largest and most lucrative markets.
Before defining regenerative agriculture, it’s important to note what it isn’t. Regenerative agriculture offers a powerful solution to today’s interconnected crises, including the climate crisis, poverty, declining food security, and biodiversity loss. Industrialagriculture prioritizes profit over the health of the planet.
But if we do it right, it will have a positive ripple effect that will benefit everyone in California and will make the San Joaquin Valley a positive example around the world for agriculture, energy, and socioenvironmental justice. It is the opposite of sustainable agriculture. But how can we do things right?
The Lower Yakima Valley in Washington state has been home to large-scale animal agriculture for decades, but in 2008 when one dairy operation tried moving onto the Yakima Indian Reservation, the community balked at the proposition. Agriculture has become one of the most consolidated industries in the country.
Patrick Brown, who was named North Carolinas Small Farmer of the Year by North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University this year, grows almost 200 acres of industrial hemp for both oil and fiber, and 11 acres and several greenhouses of vegetablesbeets, kale, radishes, peppers, okra, and bok choy.
As we increasingly experience the damage inflicted by well over half a century of industrialagriculture – including devastating impacts upon public health, soil fertility and biodiversity – what is desperately needed is a cohesive and actionable long-term plan for agriculture, grounded in an agroecological approach.
And the agricultureindustry, which uses an outsize amount of California’s water and has literally changed the state’s landscape, needs to change and adapt, fast. Agriculture is the largest user of water in the western states. What can farmers do to avoid weather “whiplash”?
A month later, more than 100 advocacy and labor organizations sent a letter to the leaders of both the House and Senate agriculture committees recommending nearly three dozen provisions (called “marker bills”) for the farm bill that would make the US food and agriculture system more sustainable, resilient, and fair. million to Rep.
Catastrophe loomed everywhere I looked: in the dust bowls on the once-fertile plains of central Turkey, in the vanishing lakes of Mexico City, in the fetid cesspools outside the factory farms of North Carolina, in the disease-ravaged olive trees of Puglia, in the rapid wiping away of diverse food webs in every biome.
.” ” — Rattan Lal, professor of soil science + 2020 World Food Prize Laureate Conventional, or industrial, agriculture uses chemicals to defend crops from weeds, certain insect species, and diseases. Harsh chemical fertilizers disrupt natural soil networks made up of plants and fungi.
Fertile, productive, and biodiverse lands tend to be most at risk of being acquired. Expansion and encroachment are further contributing to the problem, as farmland is used for non-agricultural purposes, such as mining projects. The report highlights four drivers contributing to land consolidation globally.
Aidee Guzman, 30, grew up the daughter of immigrants in California’s Central Valley, among massive fields of monocrops that epitomize intense, industrialagriculture. And today, even when the soil stays on the ground, we’re actively destroying it through the use of pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, and more.
And despite the proximity of wetlands to many communities in this country, few people truly understand either the value wetlands hold for our way of life or the threat they face from our industrialized system of agriculture. Wetlands in the United States are now even more vulnerable after the Supreme Courts 2023 decision in Sackett v.
Agricultural producers have a greater impact on water quality than people in any other industry. Agriculture consumes and interacts with more total water than any industry, both in total usage and via the water interacting with the land under our control. Our management has a direct impact on all these things.
The Lower Yakima Valley in Washington state has been home to large-scale animal agriculture for decades, but in 2008 when one dairy operation tried moving onto the Yakima Indian Reservation, the community balked at the proposition. Agriculture has become one of the most consolidated industries in the country.
Many cancers are linked to nitrates , which are found in drinking water contaminated with manure or nitrogen fertilizer, and advocates are concerned about the link. And for good reason: Cattle is the top-ranked agricultural commodity in the U.S. So, when we try to farm at these very large scales.
When farmer Joshua Manske heard about the acquisition of an Iowa fertilizer plant by Koch Industries in December, he saw it as a “microcosm of what’s going on nationally.” That’s what’s going to help drive your fertilizer prices where they should be between supply and demand. billion fertilizer plant to Iowa.
The torrent overwhelmed dams, swelled rivers and crumbled levees, inundating entire farming communities, including Lerda-Goni and a dozen other ranches, and reawakening a long-dormant lake lying beneath the vast agricultural region. It was just an insane amount of water in such a short amount of time.”
We’ll offer havens of protection and nourishment to lead our culture into stable families, fertile soil, nourishing food, working faith, and overall health. Industrialagriculture is killing authentic farming and land stewardship as much as food processors and bureaucrats. Many families have already taken the plunge.
The chickens fertilized the trees, ate the grass, and laid eggs. This is such a basic symbiotic relationship, but it is not even part of the conversation in industrialagricultural orthodoxy. That meant he didn’t have to spray for anything. Not only did he eliminate chemical costs, but now he had eggs to sell.
In the years between pitches, Plantix had begun a journey toward becoming one of the world’s most successful digital tools for agriculture, serving more than 30 million farmers who upload some 50,000 images to the platform a day. A farmer uses the Plantix app to diagnose crop pests and disease. Photo courtesy of Plantix.
Unfortunately, in the years since the launch of the Heirs’ Property Relending Program, only a handful of recipients have been named—primarily through Akiptan , a Native American Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides loans and technical assistance to those in Indian agriculture.
However, industrialagriculture — characterized by the use of heavy tillage, intensive monocropping, and excessive grazing — has resulted in the degradation of the very soils that sustain our food supply. CONTENT SOURCED FROM LEARN LIBERTY Written by: Max Payne May 19, 2023 The connection between a farmer and their land is unmatched.
He believes that there is much to be learnt from how Wales was once farmed and that by using the right animals in the right places, increasing tree cover and farming in harmony with nature, agriculture can be an effective, culturally sensitive and socially just means of managing and restoring the Welsh landscape.
Alexander starts with the pea which developed widely across the globe beginning in the Fertile Crescent, where it dates back 8500 years to Neolithic settlements. Early warnings of the potentially damaging effects of industrialagriculture and food processing technologies upon planetary and human health provoked a vehement backlash.
Our first sustainable tip is the reason behind our work: Tip #1: Support regenerative agriculture Conventional, or industrial, agriculture heavily relies on chemicals to protect crops from weeds, specific insect species, and diseases. As a consumer (i.e. as someone who purchases food), you can support this necessary transition.
But just like industrialagriculture on land, such operations can harm the environment – and given the role kelp forests play in sequestering carbon, the climate. Seaweed is a “zero-input crop,” meaning it doesn’t need any additional food, fertilizer, or freshwater to grow. It’s also relatively cheap.
Mark Brooks, FMC VENTURES Mark Brooks, Managing Director, FMC VENTURES: “My supervillain is ScorchedFarm, who exposes the vulnerabilities of modern agriculture in the face of climate change. The last 10 years have also shown that, despite being a 15,000 year-old industry, agriculture is still vulnerable to fads and fashion.
And therein lies a big part of the Big Ag problem: mergers and acquisitions across the food and agricultureindustry have enabled big companies that touch every corner of our food system to keep getting bigger and more powerful. Big=bad when it comes to corporate power over food Big isn’t always bad.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) program, this amalgam of farming methods aims to keep the American agricultural juggernaut steaming ahead while slashing the sector’s immense greenhouse gas footprint. billion to hundreds of agriculture organizations, corporations, universities, and nonprofits for climate-smart projects.
Elizabeth Henderson , farmer and co-chair, Interstate Council policy committee of the Northeast Organic Farming Association I came to know Joan through my work as an organic farmer and as one of the first to organize a CSA [community supported agriculture system]. You described our industrial food system as insane and absurd.
Can they make laws to safeguard domestic agriculture, public health, the environment, and the genetic integrity of the national diet? More than a quarter-century later, there are still no rigorous animal studies and human trials required for agricultural biotech, as there are for new pharmaceuticals. million monthly web readers.
This frequency with which polluting industries are built in these communities is evidence of ongoing environmental injustice. Growing up i n Michigan, the rapid consolidation of dairy farms due to industrializedagriculture led her family to the very difficult decision to sell their dairy. Contact SRAP’s Help Hotline.
This frequency with which polluting industries are built in these communities is evidence of ongoing environmental injustice. Growing up i n Michigan, the rapid consolidation of dairy farms due to industrializedagriculture led her family to the very difficult decision to sell their dairy. Contact SRAP’s Help Hotline.
It was the annual field day at The Mill , a popular Mid-Atlantic retailer of agricultural products including seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides. ” Land O’Lakes’ Truterra is unique in some ways, but it also fits the mold of what agricultural carbon markets have come to look like across the country over the last few years.
But those laws primarily focused on the industrial sector, leaving agriculture largely alone. According to the EPA, it applies about a half million tons of pesticides, 12 million tons of nitrogen, and 4 million tons of phosphorus fertilizer to crops in the continental United States every year. Big Ag is a major polluter.
The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 recently passed by the House Agriculture Committee does not serve the new generation of farmers and ranchers in this country. Just before midnight on May 24, 2024, the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture voted on the bill. The committee considered the bill in a 13.5-hour
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stripping federal protections from countless wetlands and leaving these critical ecosystems exposed to devastating pollution and other damage from agriculture and other industries. The Sackett decision was a tremendous loss for everyone who depends on clean water—that is, for all of us.
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