Not All Industrial Food is Evil

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Recommended: Thesis for organic farming vs. conventional farming

When I think of an industrial farm I think of a nasty, foul smelling plot of land. I also feel that the food produced from industrial farms is no good. After all, who would want to consume harmful chemicals from the very products that we are supposed to be getting nutrition from. Over the past few weeks I have been reading the book "Omnivore's Dilemma" and from reading it I have grown to hate the words "industrial farming". To me organic food seems like the ideal food choice. This article has challenged my original philosophy on industrial food.
Expecting the worst, the author of this article visited an industrial farm to see a tomato operation. The Bruce Rominger's farm was different than many other industrial farms. For instance it grows more than just corn and soybeans. Instead it grows 6,000 acres of tomatoes, wheat, sunflowers, safflower, onions, alfalfa, sheep, rice and more. So on this industrial farm there is a diversity of crops, crop rotation, cover crops (crops that are planted basically to maintain the soil), and (mostly) real food. The crops that are grown here are not meant to be junk food, animal feed, or biofuel. That's what crops should be grown for. Tomatoes cover the ground for hundreds of yards in every direction on an 82 acre field. Water and fertilizer are supplied equally to all of the plants through underground tubes, this reduces the amount of waste and run
Sanchez 2 off. It also makes sure that all of the tomatoes in the row get the water and fertilizer that it needs. In older forms of irrigation (furrow-irrigated fields). The tomatoes got their water and fertilizer from a central canal so the tomatoes that were at the end of the row didn't get the nutrients that they needed in or...

... middle of paper ...

...that isn't exactly the "ideal" family farm, but it
Sanchez 6 isn't smoggy and full of polluted air either. The point is that after reading this article I can see that industrial farms can be good, bad or a little bit of both.
While some industrial farms are bad most of them aren't. This article has changed my point of view on industrial farms completely. While I won't forget that these farms aren't exactly perfect, I will also remember that they could be much worse. Today progress is being made on industrial farms. Now there isn't nearly as much water and fertilizer being wasted as there was several decades ago. If we keep making more progress over the next few years we might be sustainable. If industrial farms were to achieve that goal, it would be a huge accomplishment and an economic relief for farmers around the globe.

Works Cited

markbittman.com

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