Agriculture Is One of the Most Polluting and Dangerous Industries

via AlterNet:



Agriculture Is One of the Most Polluting and Dangerous Industries

By Will Allen, Chelsea Green Publishing. Posted May 11, 2009.

Industrial ag supplies most of our food, yet its lack of regulation may be more of a threat than Wall Street's.



The following is by Will Allen, author of The War on Bugs.


Taxpayers are demanding that government enforce existing regulations and create more stringent rules to limit the excess and greed in banking, insurance, housing, and on Wall Street. But, in the rush to regulate, we can't forget to oversee industrial agriculture. It is one of our most polluting and dangerous industries. Like the financial sectors, its practices have not been well regulated for the last thirty years. Let me run down a few of the major problems that have developed because of our poorly regulated U.S. agriculture.

Carbon Foot Print: The U.S. EPA estimated in 2007 that agriculture in the U.S. was responsible for about 18% of our carbon footprint, which is huge because the U.S. is the largest polluter in the world. This should include (but doesn't) the manufacture and use of pesticides and fertilizers, fuel and oil for tractors, equipment, trucking and shipping, electricity for lighting, cooling, and heating, and emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other green house gases. Unfortunately, the EPA estimate of 18% still doesn't include a large portion of the fuel, the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, some of the nitrous oxide, all of the CFCs and bromines, and most of the transport emissions. When they are counted, agriculture's share of the U.S. carbon footprint will be at least 25 to 30%.

Oftentimes we see all greenhouse gasses as being equivalent to carbon dioxide (CO2). But, methane emissions are 21 times and nitrous oxides 310 times more damaging as greenhouse gasses than CO2. Since agriculture is one of the largest producers of methane and nitrous oxide, the extent of the agricultural impact is staggering. Unless we change our bad habits of food production and long distance delivery, we will not be able to deal with climate change.

Fertilizer Pollution/Dead Zones: Factory farming is polluting the ground, river, and ocean water with high amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous, and other fertilizers. High levels of nitrates and nitrites were found in twenty-five thousand community wells that provided drinking water to two thirds of the nation's population. More than fifteen million people in two hundred eighty communities are drinking water with phosphorous or phosphates which mostly come from industrial farming operations. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/139962/agriculture_is_one_of_the_most_polluting_and_dangerous_industries/

Industrial agriculture does not say it all


And boy are the poison manufacturers up in arms over the Obamas having an organic garden!

It's Dan Quinn's phrase, and I always thought it captured a dimension of modern agriculture that even the adjective "corporate" did not.

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/Diminuendo_interview.shtml