File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 133


Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 10:55:55 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Capitalist Agriculture


WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE? 

Industrial agriculture views the farm as a factory with "inputs" (such as
pesticides, feed, fertilizer, and fuel) and "outputs" (corn, chickens, and
so forth). The goal is to increase yield (such as bushels per acre) and
decrease costs of production, usually by exploiting economies of scale. For
example, the cost per unit of growing 1000 chickens is generally less than
the unit cost of growing 10 chickens. The features of the agricultural
factory that produce these economies of scale include large farms, a focus
on a few commercial crops such as corn and cotton, use of only a few prized
varieties of those crops, and heavy reliance on chemical pesticides and
fertilizers.

The benefits of this industrial approach are well known: Food production
has increased fast enough to far outstrip population growth. In addition,
the United States has benefited commercially from its exports abroad. But
the social and environmental costs of this approach are considerable. And
it is not the only method of agriculture. A sustainable approach, based on
understanding agriculture as an ecosystem, promises sufficient produce
without sacrificing the environment, the farmer, or the rural communities
that support small and medium-sized farms. For sustainable agriculture to
thrive, the policies that foster industrial agriculture will need to be
refocused to foster the transition.

FEATURES OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE 

A key feature of industrial agriculture is its cultivation of a single
crop, a practice called monoculture. Monoculture results in economies of
scale that can reduce production costs and as a result the prices of
commodities in the marketplace. From this primary feature, others, such as
the reliance on pesticides, necessarily flow. Farms that grow one or two
crops inevitably invite pests and usually require heavy doses of
insecticides and herbicides to control them. Planting the same crops year
after year can deplete the soil, increasing the need for fertilizers. At
the same time, the large acreages under cultivation provide large markets
for pesticides, fertilizer, and farm vehicles (such as combines and
harvesters). Similarly, concentrated livestock operations put animals in
close proximity to one another, often under stressful conditions. As a
result, the animals may become more susceptible to disease, creating a
large market for antibiotics, medications, and vaccines. And the huge scale
becomes necessary to afford the great expense of developing medicines and
pesticides.

MONOCULTURE

Monoculture is the cultivation of one crop at a time in a field. The United
States grows all of its major commodity crops -- corn, wheat, soybeans, and
cotton -- in monoculture. Sometimes crops in monoculture are rotated: corn
often alternates with soybeans in a two-year rotation. Much corn, however,
is grown in continuous cultivation -- year after year in the same field. 

Although they vary from year to year, the acreages devoted to single crops
in the United States are enormous. US farmers plant on the order of 50-70
million acres each of corn, soybeans, wheat each year. But because so few
crops are grown in such large acreages, the opportunities for crop rotation
are also few.

FEW CROP VARIETIES

US agriculture rests on an a narrow genetic base. At the beginning of the
1990s, only six varieties of corn accounted for 46 percent of the crop,
nine varieties of wheat made up half of the wheat crop, and two types of
peas made up 96 percent of the pea crop. Reflecting the global success of
fast food, more than half the world's potato acreage is now planted with
one variety of potato: the Russet Burbank favored by McDonalds. 

Farmers and researchers have recognized for decades that the decline in
genetic diversity in agriculture is a problem, but it has, if anything,
gotten worse rather than better over that period of time. The pressures on
farmers to grow uniform varieties come from many sources: seed companies,
food processors, consumers, transporters, and the designers of farm machinery.

Decline in the genetic diversity in agriculture is important for a number
of reasons. Crops that are very similar to each other in yield and
appearance are also similar in their susceptibility to disease. Growing
thousands or even millions of acres of crop plants that are genetically
similar makes the food supply extraordinarily vulnerable to disease. In
1970, the Southern Corn Leaf Blight destroyed 60 percent of the US corn
crop in one summer, clearly demonstrating that a genetically uniform crop
base is a disaster waiting to happen. In addition, modern crop breeders
rely on the broad varieties of crops developed over the centuries as
sources of resistance traits. Plants that farmers or gardeners no longer
grow are sometimes lost forever, taking with them genes for pest
resistance, stress resistance, and flavor that future farmers may
desperately need. Finally, restricting the genetic variety in the food
supply means foregoing a cornucopia of tasty and nutritious foods. The
current enthusiasm for heirloom seeds is bringing back hundreds of
varieties of watermelons, squash, apples, and other foods that would
otherwise be on their way to oblivion. 

RELIANCE ON CHEMICAL AND OTHER "INPUTS"

Industrial agriculture relies heavily on pesticides: primarily herbicides,
of which atrazine and metolachlor are the most widely used, but also
insecticides and fungicides. According to the Environmental Protection
Agency, the total US pesticide usage in 1992 (excluding wood preservatives
and disinfectants) was 1.1 billion pounds of active ingredients. This
impressive figure does not taken into account the so-called inert
ingredients in pesticide formulations, which can be higher in concentration
and more toxic than the active ingredients. And it does not include
pesticides used outside agriculture in 69 million households, a not
inconsiderable usage amounting to a third of the quantity used in agriculture.

US agriculture also consumes enormous amounts of fertilizer. Total
consumption of nitrogen, phosphate, and potash increased dramatically
between 1960 and 1980, reaching a high of 23.7 million nutrient tons in
1981. Fertilizer use has fallen somewhat since then, amounting to 20.7
million tons in 1992.

LARGE FARMS

Industrial agriculture uses larger farms and fewer farmers. In 1959, the
United States had almost six million farms averaging 300 acres apiece. In
1992, there were two million farms averaging 500 acres. In 1996, fewer than
two percent of Americans still live on farms, and the number is more like
one percent, if small, part-time farm operations are left out. This is no
accident. One hundred and fifty years of US policy on the structure of
agriculture can be summed up in the admonition to farmers made famous by
former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, "Get big or get out."

The decline in the number of farms does not necessarily represent a decline
in the economic importance of agriculture. According the US Department of
Agriculture's Economic Research Service, modern agricultural activities,
including food and fiber processing, marketing, and retailing, account for
18 percent of US jobs.

SEPARATION OF ANIMAL AND PLANT AGRICULTURE

At one time, farmers raised crops and livestock on the same farm, an
approach that provided a diversity of agricultural products and byproducts
that could be recycled on the farm, reducing off-farm purchases. For
example, manure could be used as fertilizer, crops and crop byproducts
could be fed to animals. Animal operations also provided financial security
against the ups and downs of the more volatile crop markets.

Now animals -- cows, chicken, and pigs -- are increasingly grown in
concentrated livestock operations. These generate mountains of
water-polluting manure that has become a dangerous waste product rather
than a valuable input. Meanwhile, many midsize farmers have abandoned
animals and now grow only one or two crops. This trend is largely
attributable to the pursuit of the economies of scale inherent in mass
producing similar products.

THE COSTS OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE

Although the production gains attributed to industrial agriculture are
impressive, they have not come without costs to the environment, the
economy and our social fabric. 

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS

Agriculture impacts the environment in many ways. It uses huge amounts of
water, energy, and chemicals, often with little regard to long-term adverse
effects. But the environmental costs of agriculture are mounting.
Irrigation systems are pumping water from reservoirs faster than they are
being recharged. Herbicides and insecticides are accumulating in ground and
surface waters. Chemical fertilizers are running off the fields into water
systems where they encourage damaging blooms of microorganisms. Mountains
of waste and noxious odor are the hallmarks of poultry and livestock
operations.

Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture are remote from
fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel
down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.
But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production
systems -- for example, the rapidly developing resistance among pests is
rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective.

ECONOMIC COSTS

Estimating the economic costs of industrial agriculture is an immense and
difficult task. A full accounting would include not only the benefits of
relatively cheap prices consumers pay for food, the dividends paid to the
share holders of fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers, and the dollars
earned by exporting American goods abroad, but also the offsetting costs of
environmental pollution and degradation.

Such costs are difficult to assess for a number of reasons. In some
instances, such as water pollution and global warming, agriculture is only
one of several contributors. Another difficulty is our rudimentary
understanding of potential harms. A good example is the potential for
endocrine disruption that many pesticides appear to have. Endocrine
disrupters are molecules that appear able to mimic the actions of human and
animal hormones and disturb important hormone-dependent activities like
reproduction. More research is needed to determine the extent of the health
and environmental damage done by such compounds and the relative
contribution of agriculture and other sectors and activities. 

Among the many environmental costs that need to be considered in a full
cost accounting of industrial agriculture are 

--the damage to fisheries from oxygen-depleting microorganisms fed by
fertilizer runoff
--the cleanup of surface and groundwater polluted with animal waste
--the increased health risks borne by agricultural workers and farmers
exposed to pesticides 

In addition there are enormous indirect costs implicit in the high energy
requirements of modern agriculture. Agriculture requires energy at many
points: fuel to run huge combines and harvesters, energy to produce and
transport pesticides and fertilizers, and fuel to refrigerate and transport
perishable produce cross country and around the world. The use of fossil
fuels contributes to ozone pollution and global warming, which could exact
a high price through increased violent weather events and rising oceans.

The full costs of industrial agriculture call into question the notion of
cheap food.

SOCIAL COSTS

Industrial agriculture also has complex social ramifications in terms of
where and how people live. One effect of decreasing the number of farmers
is to deprive rural America of its population and base of economic
activity. As farmers leave the farm, rural towns and cities lose ancillary
services like cafes, equipment manufacturers, gasoline stations and car
dealerships. Currently, the Great Plains states are facing rapidly
declining populations as a result of changes in agriculture.

Another effect of industrial agriculture has been to create a new class of
farmers highly dependent on large corporations. One of the best examples is
poultry farming. No longer are most chickens grown by independent farmers
who choose which kinds of chickens to grow and sell them wherever they can.
Now chicken farmers contract with corporations who supply the eggs and
specify the conditions under which they are grown. As corporations grow in
size and market power, individual farmers are in ever weaker positions when
it comes time to negotiate the price to be paid for growing chickens or to
decide who will bear the cost of disposing of the mountains of chicken waste.

Overall, the share of the food profits going to farmers rather than to the
agricultural input and food-processing and marketing sectors has been
steadily declining. For many farmers with small and medium-sized farms it
means that they will be unable to stay in business if they only produce
food. To participate in the more profitable part of the food system, many
farmers are expanding into processing and retailing food, either singly or
in cooperatives. 

The fact that food processors and fertilizer and pesticide suppliers are
increasing their share of food profits, of course, has an economic upside
for those who hold shares or jobs in chemical or retailing companies. But
the loss of farmers means more than simply shifting jobs to other sectors.
Farming has in the past been representative of the American ethos. Farmers
and their families were seen as testaments to the virtues of independence,
hard work, and community that Americans have considered vital to civic
democracy. In addition, farmers have been the basis of rural economy and
communities. Finally, millions of independent farmers meant a decentralized
food supply beyond the control of narrow interests. The social and economic
ramifications of the drastic decline in farm populations is just beginning
to be felt.

Perhaps the reduction of the number of farmers has gone too far. There
seems little advantage in further reductions. The goals of the last century
have been met. It might be time to set a reverse course and adopt policies
that would stabilize the farming population at 1 or 2 percent of the total
population.

SOURCES

Economic Research Service, Pesticide and Fertilizer Use and Trends in US
Agriculture. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Economic
Report No. 717 (1995).

Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1992
and 1993 Market Estimates, 2, 1994.

P. Raeburn, The Last Harvest, Simon and Schuster, 1995.

(FROM UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS WEB PAGE)

*****************

KARL MARX:

"Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centres, and
causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one
hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other
hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i.e.,
prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form
of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to
lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time
the health of the town labourer and the intellectual life of the rural
labourer. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the
maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its
restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and
under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In
agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the
sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer;
the instrument of labour becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and
impoverishing the labourer; the social combination and organisation of
labour-processes is turned into an organised mode of crushing out the
workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion of
the rural labourers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance
while concentration increases that of the town operatives. In modern
agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and
quantity of the labour set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste
and consuming by disease labour-power itself. Moreover, all progress in
capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the
labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility
of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting
sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on the
foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the
more rapid is this process of destruction. Capitalist production,
therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various
processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all
wealth-the soil and the labourer."

Louis Proyect



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