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Three ways of agriculture as described by Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma 

Modern industrial agriculture, as practiced on Naylor’s farm, has several defining

characteristics. It focuses on the production of a single cash crop. For Naylor, in

Iowa, the crop is corn. The crop is hybridized and completely fungible. Corn raised

by Naylor is the same corn produced by other farms and can be traded on thefutures market in Chicago. There is no such thing as one farmer’s crop being

sweeter, tastier, or in any way superior to that produced by any other farmer. This is

not the corn we buy in the supermarket; it is the corn that is used for feed (whether

or not an animal is genetically adapted to thrive on it). It is the corn used to produce

a variety of biodegradable plastics. It is the corn that is converted into motor fuel.

Naylor claims that he is forced to produced more and more corn each year just to

stay afloat. This is an excuse and the so-called Naylor curve is a fiction. Naylor is

growing a subsidized crop that sells for less than the real cost of production. He

would be the first one to complain if that subsidy were removed. Suddenly he and

other farmers of his ilk would be forced to face reality and most would go out ofbusiness, bringing supplies down and raising prices to the equilibrium point.

Agricultural subsidies are just one aspect of the crony capitalism that in America,

pretends to be the free market. Companies like Monsanto have big budgets to buy

political influence and the victims are ordinary Americans who sacrifice their health

to the gods of industrial agriculture.

But even as industrial agriculture began its ascent, a countervailing movement was

launched that promoted the cultivation of vegetables and fruits free of chemical

pesticides and fertilizers. The organic farming movement was ignored for many

years. Most believed that scientific (ie industrial) agriculture would be the path tofeed the world and end poverty. But little by little, the organic idea took hold and

while most people were not prepared to pay premium prices for produce that

looked pretty much like what they had been eating and differed only in the organic

label, most people began to like the idea.

That led to what has been called “industrial organic.” The first step was to get the

government to define “organic.” After all, no one wanted the organic label plastered

on everything just to boost sales. But this was the big mistake. It should have been

obvious that the legal definition of organic would be dictated by those in a position

to pay high-priced Washington lobbyists. A definition that was anything like the

organic farming that had been practiced up to that point would have preventedmajor growers from profiting from it.

So what happened was the replacement of herbicides by heavy and frequent

mechanical cultivation, often side by side with the usual industrial farms, Poultry

could earn the organic label bu feeding birds with industrial organic corn and

leaving a door at each end of a building that offered access to a small patch of grass

to what otherwise was a wall-to-wall sea of chickens/ Most of the birds couldn’t get

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to the door if they tried and few tried. In other words the whole idea of industrial

organic food was largely a fraud,

Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm is a different story altogether. What Salatin has done

created a system of agriculture based on the way the wild ancestors of his poultry

and livestock once lived, Two hundred years ago, the Great Plains supported vastherds of bison. American Indian hunters culled these herds to feed, clothe, and

house their people. The bison were forced to move from place to place which was

ideal for the preservation of the environment. This is what Salatin does deliberately

with his poultry and livestock creating an environment that is best for crops,

animals, and the land itself.

The problem with Salatin’s approach is that it works only for a relatively small

number of people near his farms. He refuses to ship his products to other areas

believing that this produces a excessively large carbon footprint. This is a fallacy.

Salatin thinks nothing of loading produce into a car and bringing it to a restaurant a

few hours drive away. He fails to do the math. Moving goods by car is veryinefficient. Truck is not much better. But shipments by sea and rail are the most

efficient way to move goods anywhere. If Salatin were to compare the cost of

moving a hundred pounds a hundred miles by car with the cost of moving that same

hundred pounds as part of a boxcar load in a 100-car train across the country he

would likely have a big surprise,

The only way that a nation can be fed using Salatin’s methods is if agricultural

products can be cheaply moved from areas where they will grow to population

centers where they are needed.