Between 1960 and 2015, agricultural production more than tripled. This has encouraged lower prices and more widespread, though still inequitable, access to food. But the ‘green revolution’ – or rather ‘smoke gray,’ as it has already been written – has also poured a huge amount of poisons, pesticides first and foremost, into the environment. Endangering the present and future of food production itself.
The negative impact of the system based on industrial agriculture is described by UNEP, United Nation Environment Program, in 10 points.
1) Cost-benefit, a murky balance sheet.
In the budget for industrial agriculture, the benefits are there for all to see, but several cost items are not considered. Just think of the public expenditures on the cleanup of contaminated drinking water, or the health costs of treating diseases caused by pesticides (see UN report 24.1.17), to name a couple of examples. Costs that the Big 4 and their customers externalize onto the community, so much for the sake of the ‘polluter pays‘ principle.
Industrial agriculture has an estimated environmental cost of about US$3 trillion (billion) a year, considering only the pollution that harms water, air and wildlife.
2) Doors open to viruses?
Intensive breeding-according to UNEP-can undermine animals’ natural resistance to viruses and pathogens. And it could promote its spread to livestock farms, which could act as a bridge and make it easier for pathogens to jump species, from wild animals to farm animals and from farm animals to humans. It is worth noting in this regard that these factors are closely related to the hygienic and sanitary conditions of livestock farms.
It is imperative, we add, that the European Commission expeditiously move forward with the EU Animal Welfare Strategy instead announced for the Ides of March. And that it already strengthens audits of veterinary controls conducted in different member countries. Where-as already shared-livestock farming in Germany, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands in particular is often problematic.
3) A flywheel for zoonoses.
The destruction of forests to expand crops and livestock is an additional health risk factor. As a consequence of the extermination of wildlife and the bringing of agricultural activities closer to more densely populated areas, the natural barrier of health protection is lost.
The unsustainable intensification of production to the point of overproduction of surpluses also influences the emergence of zoonotic diseases, i.e., infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans (or vice versa), either directly (contact with skin, hair, eggs, blood or secretions) or indirectly (through other vector organisms or ingestion of infected food).
4) Antibiotic resistance
The excessive and inappropriate use of antibiotics to accelerate livestock growth, which is systematic in the Americas, is among the primary causes of antibiotic resistance. The development of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms is already now causing 700,000 deaths a year from drug-resistant infections.
The WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that by 2050 these diseases will reap more than cancer. Without reversing course-as has begun to be done in Italy with antibiotics-free livestock supply chains-nothing modern medicine can do. At the very real risk of death from even minor infections and injuries, WHO warns.
5) Venomous action of pesticides
To increase agricultural yields (and profits), huge amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are spilled. Residues of these molecules in food pose a serious threat to public health (not to mention occupational hazards to agricultural workers).
Some pesticides have been shown to act as endocrine disruptors, can affect reproductive function, increase the incidence of breast cancer, and result in developmental delay in children. As well as altering of immune function.
6) Contaminated water
‘Conventional’ agriculture plays a major role in water pollution, due to the release of large quantities of chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones (the latter of which, remember, are banned in the EU but not elsewhere). The damage involves aquatic ecosystems but also human health. The most common chemical contaminant in agriculture, nitrate, can cause ‘blue baby syndrome’ with even deadly effects, FAO reminds.
7) Obesity and chronic diseases
Industrial globalization aimed at lowering commodity costs has led to a drastic reduction in the variety of crops used as staple commodities, as noted.
Ultraprocessed foods have thus been spread to every population while causing malnutrition and obesity. The two factors underlying the
Global Syndemic
, along with the climate emergency. To the detriment of the consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes and other healthy foods that are inaccessible to most of humanity.
The effects of this phenomenon are manifested in the global epidemic of obesity, overweight and related diseases. The fateful Non-Communicable Diseases, NCDs, which are the leading causes of premature mortality planetwide. And so in Europe, and in Italy.
8) Inefficient land use
Insufficient global supply of legumes, fruits and vegetables is matched by increased land consumption for livestock farms. Between 1970 and 2011, livestock increased from 7.3 billion to 24.2 billion worldwide, with about 60 percent of all agricultural land used for grazing.
Land consumption in agriculture is increasingly linked to the production of feedstocks (GMO soybeans first and foremost) and unsustainable ‘biofuels’. Through intensive and extensive monocultures on huge tracts of land often robbed from local communities for this purpose (
land grabbing
) and deforested.
9) More inequality
Agricultural industrialization always penalizes the poor, whether producers or consumers, widening the gap of inequality andsocial injustice.
Small farms account for 72 percent of all businesses in the sector, but occupy only 8 percent of cultivated land. In contrast, large agricultural enterprises-which account for only 1 percent of farms-occupy 65 percent of the land. The result is disproportionate control in the hands of a few giants and little incentive for smaller ones to evolve technologically.
Less affluent consumers or those in obvious economic hardship are in turn diverted into the consumption of highly caloric and nutrient-poor processed foods. With deleterious effects on cognitive development, disease resistance and more generally in economic productivity.
10) An attack on environmental health
In the early 20th century, the Haber-Bosch process-which would transform modern agriculture-used very high temperatures and pressures to extract nitrogen from the air, combine it with hydrogen and produce ammonia, which today forms the basis of the chemical fertilizer industry.
The invasion of chemicals on agricultural soils has made nature’s fertilization process (sunshine, soils with healthy microbiota, crop rotation) obsolete. Today, ammonia production consumes 1 to 2 percent of the world’s energy supply and accounts for about 1.5 percent of global global carbon dioxide emissions.
‘Efficient agriculture is not just about production. It is also about environmental sustainability, public health and economic inclusion’, James Lomax, program manager of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). (1)
Marta Strinati and Dario Dongo
Notes
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
