New Research Shows Factory Farms are NOT the Way to Feed the World
May 23, 2011
Conventional opinion is that feeding the world by 2050 will necessitate a massive, global ramp-up of industrial-scale, corporate-led agriculture. But this is not always the opinion of scientists whose work takes them out of the laboratory and into farm fields and ecosystems, such as soil experts, ecologists, and development specialists.
One recently published scientific paper urges a fundamental rethinking of the U.S. agricultural-research system, which it calls "narrowly focused on productivity and efficiency" at the expense of public health and ecological resilience. It also calls for a revamping of the Farm Bill, which it argues uses subsidies to "mask market, social, and environmental factors associated with conventional production systems."
According to Grist:
"While conventional wisdom holds that scientists who study agriculture think only lots of GMOs and agrichemicals can feed us going forward, [this research] team has quite a different set of recommendations in mind: 'organic farming, alternative livestock production (e.g., grass-fed), mixed crop and livestock systems, and perennial grains.' They are by no means the only high-level researchers to reach such conclusions."