Who Benefits the Most from Modern Agricultural Systems?

Who Benefits the Most from Modern Ag?

Attitude of Gratitude

Every living creature on this planet eats because it takes energy and raw materials to grow, maintain and reproduce themselves. Humans are no exception, but the way in which we feed ourselves is a massive exception. No other species on the planet has figured out a food system quite like ours. Yes, plants technically “farm” microbes near their roots and some ants “farm” fungi in underground cities, but nothing compares to the season-defying, intercontinental food system that most humans enjoy today. The ability for the world to produce the quantity of food that it does and transport it thousands of miles before spoiling is truly a modern marvel of science and engineering. Most people, especially those of us in the developed world, should have some sense of gratitude for the abundance produced by this behemoth food system. After all, we live in an unprecedented time in human history in which so few people ever wonder where their next meal is coming from. That’s something to be thankful for. And yet, serious questions exist concerning the ethics and sustainability of the current agricultural system.

The inconvenient truth is that producing, distributing and preparing food is big business, and schemers always appear wherever large quantities of money are to be had. This has certainly been true in other areas of the economy, like in the energy sector and the financial sector, so why would we expect the food sector to be any different? Maybe it’s because we all want our food coming from smiling farmers hand-delivering fresh vegetables, meat and dairy to their local communities. Or, thinking more broadly, it’s because feeding the world is an inherently altruistic endeavor. It makes sense, then, that individuals working in the space would be in it for the right reasons, right? There’s no doubt a large percentage of people working in the food sector do it for altruistic reasons, but it would be naive, and incorrect, to think that the current food system was designed, and is currently run, absent of schemers seeking personal gain from a basic human necessity. That’s a big claim that deserves big evidence. This article’s purpose is to provide such evidence by investigating how the industrialization of agriculture in the past couple centuries has affected various aspects within the modern food system. Namely, we will look at how the agricultural input industry, the producers and their communities, industries after the farm gate, the environment and public health have fared over that span of time. Particular attention will be given to the American agricultural system, but similarities can be found in other nations as they adopted industrial agricultural systems.

How Did We Get Here?

Before analyzing the last couple hundred years of ag, it’s necessary to take a brief journey through its complex and convoluted past to gain some all-important context. Most historians agree that modern agricultural practices began around the end of the last Ice Age (roughly 11,700 years ago) when various cultures across the planet began the process of domesticating plant and animal species.¹ Our ancient ancestors expressed their latent capacity to shape wild landscapes and, in the process, learned they were no longer completely reliant upon the whims of nature for nourishment. This shift allowed communities to transition away from the nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering by learning how to produce a concentrated amount of food in one area of land. Towns, as well as specializations in art, politics, military, technology and economics, emerged and expanded as a consequence. More importantly, humanity’s relationship with the land changed in a dramatic way. Nature, at least partially, was now subservient to the desires of human civilization. This nature-shaping ethos has remained constant over the millennia, even though the exact methods of food production and distribution have changed drastically. Right, wrong or indifferent, this is the direction humanity took, and it’s what led us to where we are today.

This article will focus primarily on the last few hundred years of the food system, so for anyone wanting to dive deeper into the early history of agriculture, the following are great resources. First is the “Origin of Agriculture“, an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and second is “The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History” written by Jeannie Whayne.

Innovations in technology and markets in the last 200 years or so are worth focusing on because they have advanced humanity’s ability to produce food and influence the landscape like no other time in history. Specifically, two revolutions are recognized during this period as providing the catalyst for global changes in agriculture. The first is the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that brought technology like Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper, John Deere’s steel plow and the steam engine. In addition, advances in chemical fertilizers, grain elevators and access to railways greatly increased productivity and access to markets, particularly in the U.S., Great Britain and Canada. This upward tick in efficiency allowed more rural citizens to migrate into cities as fewer farmers were needed to manage the same area of land. Not only that, rural communities produced surplus quantities to feed these burgeoning cities filled with promising industrial jobs. This resulted in a push and pull of rural citizens to urban areas. The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one is typically a slow process. In the case of the United States, it wasn’t until 1920 that more than 50 percent of the population lived in urban areas. Bear in mind that many people classified as “urban” at that time lived in towns with populations around 2,500-3,000!²

While the U.S. and Great Britain had become industrial economies by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many nations still operated agrarian-based economies at that time. These nations were especially vulnerable to the four horsemen of disease, pestilence, drought and flooding. Unfortunately, this meant living with the constant threat of famine. One example, among many, was Mexico in the 1940’s, where many fields of wheat were failing due to a disease called rust. Expert predictions pointed toward mass starvation. To prevent this catastrophe from happening, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Cooperative Mexican Agricultural Program was launched and Norman Borlaug, a budding young agricultural scientist at the time, headed south of the border. Borlaug and a team of others worked tirelessly to develop a disease-resistant wheat variety with a shorter stem. A short stem was desired because chemical fertilizer applications were producing wheat plants with seed heads too heavy for their lanky stems. Broken stems and drooping seed heads made it near impossible for wheat plants to grow properly or for them to be harvested efficiently. Borlaug and his team soon developed “dwarf” varieties of wheat that could hold up the weight of the bigger seed head and better withstand microbial disease pressure. Dwarf varieties drastically increased wheat production to the point where the Mexican economy became a net exporter of wheat in less than 20 years.³ News of this success story quickly spread around the globe and governments took notice, particularly Indian and Pakistani governments, who were trying desperately to prevent famine caused by rapid population growth. This prompted the call to Borlaug and his team. Borlaug agreed and began breeding plants to fit their southeast Asian context. After many tireless years of plant breeding, wheat yields increased by 60% in both nations, providing a much-needed boost in the fight against famine.⁴

Producing more food on the same land can’t come out of thin air, though. Modern high-yielding varieties have large appetites for nutrients and the ability to protect themselves from broad spectrum disease and pest pressures is often unintentionally bred out. This necessitated a concurrent rise in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides as new varieties were adopted. Despite the increased need for inputs, these varieties and the chemicals required to grow them were welcomed with open arms into the nations that had access and could afford them. The implementation of improved plant genetics, increased mechanization and high use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides of the mid-20th century was so widespread and influential that it has become known as the Green Revolution, the second of the two revolutions that dramatically shaped modern agriculture. Opinion is divided as to whether the Green Revolution was a net positive or negative, but one can’t deny the incredible impact it has had on modern society. In fact, it’s often said that the global adoption of Green Revolution technology has saved over a billion lives due to the significant increase in calorie production per agricultural acre. Once again, that’s something to be thankful for, especially from those who personally remember when the fear of famine hung over them like a perpetual dark cloud.

Adoption of the Green Revolution eventually set the stage for more of the world to transition away from agrarian economies. China, for instance, was able to start the transition once a more open economy and a change in agricultural policy were adopted and paired with Green Revolution methodologies. This led to a massive increase in food production, which helped trigger a migration of workers to industrial centers, which then fueled its path to becoming a global industrial powerhouse in just 35 years.⁵ The near-miraculous transition of Brazil’s agricultural sector⁶ and India’s ongoing transition⁷ are also worth recognizing.

Interestingly, the industrial economy is only a stepping stone to the third and final transition of national economies, which occurs as jobs and GDP from the agricultural and manufacturing sectors are surpassed by the service industry. The United States economy from 1840 to 2015 is a classic example of this transition from an agrarian to a service economy. Thanks to this progress, only a little more than 1% of American jobs are in the agricultural sector, compared to 9% in Brazil, 25% in China, and 43% in India.⁸

Typically, this is the final message of any mainstream discourse on modern agriculture. Nature, and it’s pesky tendency to refuse bending to humanity’s will, has largely been tamed by modern science, technology and economics. When Nature steps out of line, we simply develop stronger methods to whip it back into shape. This progress, so the story goes, has consequently freed people from having to work in the primitive, depressing sector that is agriculture. Humanity has leveled-up and continues the march toward full separation from the natural order of this world. We are the master of our fate and the captain of our soul.

So we think.

Conventional Agriculture: Get Big or Get Out

To summarize the previous section, agriculture began nearly 12,000 years ago when humanity learned it could influence plants and animals in ways that allowed us to control food production. Modern agriculture is really the same old story, just on a much grander, industrialized stage. To illustrate this point, consider the words of Secretary of Ag William Jardine who said in 1927 that, “The United States has become great industrially largely through mass production, which facilitates elimination of waste and lowering of overhead costs. Large-scale organization in the business world has affected tremendous economies both in production and distribution, and has enabled manufacturers to supply consumers with what they want when they want it. It seems to me that in this matter agriculture must follow the example of industry. It must have a similar and larger scale development of its business organization managed by competent executives.”^9,10 Agricultural economist E.G. Nourse echoed these sentiments by claiming, “the essential features of economic organization which have brought efficiency into industrial pursuits must be incorporated into agriculture or else it must remain the slow and backward brother in the family group of our economic life.”⁹ Last but not least, agricultural engineer Raymond Olney announced that, “No one will object to calling a farm a factory. It is a factory. The soil and seed are the raw materials, and from these are manufactured a variety of finished products, through the agencies of sun, air, moisture, power, and implements. The finished products of the farm factory are cereal, forest, vegetable, and fruit crops, and livestock and livestock products, are they not?”⁹

Driven by the attitudes of Jardine, Nourse, Olney and many others, agriculture in the United States was transitioning into an industrial practice throughout the first half of the 20th century. This transition was happening at a fair pace, no doubt, but policy changes in the 1970’s sent the change into overdrive. Earl “Rusty” Butz , former secretary of agriculture in the Nixon and Ford administrations, is often attributed as the person most responsible for catalyzing the modern industrial mindset in American agriculture. Butz entered his position as secretary of ag at a time when the US government enforced caps on grain production for the purpose of mitigating the risk of overproduction, which would depress prices. Farmers were paid to leave land out of production when data showed there was a heightened risk of oversupply. Land would go back into production as supply dropped and prices rose. Butz did not support these production caps. His idea was to unchain the American farmer from obvious government overreach so they could achieve maximum output. To assuage the fear that lifting restrictions wouldn’t lead to Depression-era overproduction, low prices and farm foreclosures, Butz promised that the US government would broker deals with the global market to sell the surplus.¹¹ This solution persuaded enough politicians to jump on board, and the repeal of production caps was included in the Farm Bill of 1973. Butz announced the win by saying, “With the new Farm Act, we have experienced a 180-degree turn in the philosophy of our farm programs. We’ve abandoned the longtime philosophy of curtailment and cutback to the new philosophy of expansion. We’re going to see the most massive increase in production of farm products ever in the history of this country.”¹² Farmers were urged to partake in this new philosophy of expansion by “planting from fence row to fence row“, which would ensure every acre of farmland was given the chance to maximize production.

Butz and Nixon’s new agricultural policy led to an immediate drop in US grain supplies due in large part to mass exports of surplus to the Soviet Union. This had the effect of raising grain prices for the American farmer. As a result, millions of Midwestern farmers spent the 1970s “taking on debt to buy more land, bigger and more complicated machines, new seed varieties, more fertilizers and pesticides, and generally producing as much as they possibly could.”¹³ Unfortunately, the good times didn’t keep rolling. Soviet purchases of grain slowed down, and U.S. grain supplies increased as the decade came to a close. The 1980’s ushered in a period of depressed prices due to oversupply, as well as high interest rates on skyrocketing debt, leading to thousands upon thousands of farm foreclosures.¹⁴ “Get big or get out”, a phrase championed by Butz, was in full swing. Eventually, the Farm Bill of 1985 brought about policy to stop the bleeding, but serious damage had already been done to rural America. Those that had “gone big” lived on, while many of the rest were forced to “get out”.

The morality of such a system is up for debate, but one thing is for certain: “Economies of scale” was now the name of the game. Agriculture had become a race to the bottom to see who could produce the most at the lowest cost, just like any other industrial product. Oftentimes, the term “conventional agriculture” is used to describe this modern system of farming at scale. One insightful definition of conventional agriculture can be found in the Essentials of Environmental Science textbook. Author Kamala Drosner writes that, “Conventional farming systems vary from farm to farm and from country to country. However, they share many characteristics such as rapid technological innovation, large capital investments in equipment and technology, large-scale farms, single crops (a.k.a. monocultures); uniform high-yield hybrid crops, dependency on agribusiness, mechanization of farm work, and extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. In the case of livestock, most production comes from systems where animals are highly concentrated and confined.”¹⁵ For better or worse, the adoption of conventional agriculture has turned agriculture, traditionally diversified and region-specific, into an increasingly homogenized, globalized and industrialized process.

Now that a way-too-brief overview of the modern agricultural system is out of the way, it’s time to get to the meat and potatoes of the issue at hand. The following sections will detail which sectors of the agricultural economy have benefited the most during this shift from agriculture to agribusiness. The goal is not to demonize anyone or any system. After all, humanity has long searched for systems that could stave off starvation through ample food production. Modern science, technology and industry have done an incredible job of accomplishing this task to sufficiently feed the world’s population. This is worth acknowledging and praising, in my opinion, even if there have been so-called bad actors influencing the direction along the way. Rather, the goal of the following sections is to elucidate how various sectors and those within each sector have fared during the industrialization of agriculture. This includes 1) the agricultural input industry, 2) farmers and rural communities, 3) processors, handlers and sellers of agricultural products, 4) public health and 5) the environment.

Agricultural Input Businesses

Farmers in centuries past typically worked on small-sized plots with team animals, a couple implements, seeds and livestock. Many of those inputs were produced and/or reared by the farmer. Now, a typical conventional row crop farmer needs to rent or purchase an enormous tract of land, a tractor or two, a combine harvester, various implements, a grain cart, tools to repair their equipment, a shop to work on their equipment, a mechanic to repair what they can’t, fertilizer, pesticides, seeds, irrigation systems, bins to hold their grain, trucks to haul the grain to the buyer and energy in the form of diesel and electricity to run their equipment. Much of the same goes for modern livestock producers, with the addition of pharmaceutical products, haying equipment, supplemental feed and facilities to hold, handle and milk livestock. Every single one of these inputs costs the farmer or rancher money, so it’s easy to see just how lucrative the agricultural input industry can be given the sheer quantity of stuff farmers are told they need to purchase in order to be successful.

One input worth investigating is the agricultural machinery industry. As is the case with most industries, market concentration has resulted in a few large corporations dominating this space. In 1921, there were 186 different companies vying for space in the tractor market and hundreds of others producing farm equipment. Now, barely a dozen major companies produce farm equipment for the United States market, with about 5 players dominating the space. (https://www.agdaily.com/lifestyle/evolution-of-farming-a-new-look-at-old-traditions/,https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-agricultural-tractor-machinery-market ) It’s hard to imagine given today’s omnipresence of tractors and combines, but only about 600 tractors were in use in 1907 in America. That number grew to almost 3.4 million by 1950. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/agriculture/Scientific-agriculture-the-20th-century) Today, there are an estimated 4.4 million tractors in use in America and over 25 million worldwide. (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.AGR.TRAC.NO)

As a result of this rise in demand, individual companies and their executives in this highly consolidated space are experiencing unprecedented financial success. For example, John Deere net income has increased from $2.8 Billion in 2011 to $10.1 Billion in 2023 (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DE/deere/net-income) These gains aren’t without their challenges, as John Deere has recently (July 2024) laid off employees in Illinois and Iowa and will move the production of skid steer loaders and compact track loaders from its Dubuque, Iowa facility to Mexico by the end of 2026 due to inflation and decreased demand. (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-deere-announces-mass-layoffs-172937300.html) Still, John Deere has done well enough for Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President at DEERE & CO, John C. May to make $26,285,804 in total compensation for the fiscal year 2023. Of this total $1,591,674 was received as a salary, $5,911,159 was received as a bonus, $5,733,640 was received in stock options, $12,446,367 was awarded as stock and $602,964 came from other types of compensation. (https://www1.salary.com/John-C-May-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-DEERE-and-CO.html) AGCO corporation, another American corporation, has seen annual net income skyrocket from $136 million in 2009 to $1.2 billion in 2023. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AGCO/agco/net-income) As Chairman, President & CEO at AGCO CORP, Eric P. Hansotia made $14,704,086 in total compensation. Of this total $1,316,667 was received as a salary, $3,732,750 was received as a bonus, $0 was received in stock options, $9,252,255 was awarded as stock and $402,414 came from other types of compensation. (https://www1.salary.com/Eric-P-Hansotia-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-AGCO-CORP.html) Internationally, CNH equpiment and services raised net profits from $677 million in 2013 to $2.3 billion in 2023. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CNH/cnh-industrial/net-income) German agricultural machinery company Claas reported profits of €347.1 million in 2023, up 259% from 2022. (https://annualreport.claas.com/2023/index_en.html) Many companies in this space bring in revenue from sources other than ag equipment, such as John Deere’s financial services offered to farmers and ranchers. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-farmers-turn-to-bank-of-john-deere-1500398960)

To ease fears that successful corporations have been cherry-picked to prove a biased agenda, let’s take a look at the ag equipment market as a whole. According to Mordor Intelligence, a market analyst group, the agricultural machinery market is reaching new heights of financial success. They report that, “The United States Agricultural Machinery Market size is estimated at USD 39.56 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 53.70 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 6.30% during the forecast period (2024-2029).”( https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-agricultural-machinery-market) Worldwide, the Agricultural Machinery Market size is estimated at USD 151.55 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 197.19 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 5.40% during the forecast period (2024-2029). Source: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/agricultural-machinery-market) Increased labor costs and increased average farm size make farmers adopt agricultural machinery in farming, fueling the market growth studied during the forecast period. (https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-agricultural-machinery-market)

Once the proper equipment has been acquired, the farmer or rancher can focus on agrochemical and seed inputs. What good is the equipment if it’s not being used to grow something? Beginning with agrochemicals, these industrial products are “any chemical used in agriculture, including chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. Most are mixtures of two or more chemicals; active ingredients provide the desired effects, and inert ingredients stabilize or preserve the active ingredients or aid in application.” (https://www.britannica.com/technology/agrochemical) Arguably the most influential agrochemical is the fertilizer. Farmers have been adding slow-release fertilizer to their fields for centuries in the forms of organic products like compost and manure. In fact, recycling human manure (a.k.a. night soil) back to agricultural fields was an integral cultural practice in many regions of the world that sustained thousands of successive generations on the same land, including China, Japan and Korea, as documented in the 1911 classic Farmers of Forty Centuries, written by F. H. King in 1911. Today, most fertilizers applied to farms and ranchers are synthetic, meaning they are processed and packaged in a factory in an inorganic form separate from any organic matter like manure or compost. Inorganic nitrogen fertilizer is the most produced and applied synthetic fertilizer by a wide margin. The reason, as many farmers and ranchers know, boils down to simple biology.

Proteins are among the most abundant molecules in the bodies of living organisms because they perform a near infinite amount of jobs. In fact, one cell may contain hundreds or thousands of proteins, each with a different job. These include proteins that support the structure of the cell, aid in cell movement, act as communication signal between cells or facilitate the building or breaking of other molecules, which is the job of a very special group of proteins called enzymes. All proteins, no matter their job, are made up of basic units called amino acids that are linked together. Every single amino acid contains a nitrogen (the symbol for simplicity’s sake is N), which is one reason why its demand in living organisms is so high. Anytime you see “amine” or “amino”, think N. Another reason N demand is so high in living organisms is that it is a key component of nucleic acids, the genetic compounds in living organisms. DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid) is a nucleic acid which contains the blueprint for the production of proteins that make up living organisms. RNA (RiboNucleic Acid) is another nucleic acid, but its job is to transport the information contained in DNA to sites that translate the information into amino acids that link to become proteins. Lastly, N can be an important constituent of molecules that don’t fall under the umbrella of carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids or fats. One such molecule is the photosynthesis powerhouse chlorophyll. Each green-reflecting chlorophyll molecule contains four N atoms, which is why plants often green-up with nitrogen fertilizer applications. More chlorophyll molecules are produced, which increases the amount of green light from sunlight reflected back to your eye. Basically, N is at the heart of almost every single process happening in living organisms. Without N, there are no proteins, no nucleic acids, no photosynthesis and no life.

The good news is that aboveground creatures are literally swimming in N, as the air is composed of around 78% N. The bad news is that the form on N in the air is unusable for living creatures. When two N atoms come together, they create an incredibly stable gas, N₂, which remains unreactive for decades. This is why the enormous quantity of N you take in with every breath has no effect on your body. N₂goes in the lungs, N₂goes out of the lungs. Due to its unreactive nature and high demand in living organisms, N is often the limiting factor for biological activity in ecosystems. Nitrogen nitrogen everywhere, not an atom to drink! So how does N become available for living organisms (a.k.a bioavailable)? Besides lightning and cycling N that’s already in bioavailable forms, a group of clever microbes are able to pick the lock holding N₂ together and bring more N into the realm of the living. The key they use is an enzyme called nitrogenase and the process is called nitrogen fixation. Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions to happen millions of times faster than they would occur on their own, such as the breaking apart of an N₂ molecule. It would be handy if every creature had nitrogenase in their chemical arsenal, but fungi, plants and animals don’t have the ability to produce it, so ecosystems have historically had to rely heavily on these tiny microbial miracle workers to unlock N from the air. That was until Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch stepped onto the pages of history. These two Germans, and a team of others, worked out a way to crack open N₂ by brute force. Sometimes canonized, oftentimes demonized, this synthetic nitrogen fixation innovation was discovered in 1909 by German chemist Haber and later engineered for mass production by his fellow countryman Bosch in 1913. In the factory, N₂ gas is heated up to 300 degrees Celsius and compressed in a chamber with 200-300 times normal atmospheric pressure. Only then will the two nitrogen atoms release their quantum grip. Then, the individual N atoms have three hydrogen (H) atoms slapped onto each of them, which makes ammonia (NH₃) gas. As you can see, the Haber-Bosch process is extremely energy intensive and makes up 10% of agricultural emissions worldwide, as well as taking up 1-2% of the world’s total energy use. (Menegat et al., 2022) (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG462) Incredibly, nitrogenase produced by single-celled microbes is able to fix N into bioavailable ammonia (NH₃) at moderate outdoor temperatures and normal atmospheric pressure. No giant factory or fossil fuels needed. Chemists still don’t fully understand how nitrogenase is able to separate N₂ so efficiently.

Once ammonia is produced, whether in the factory or by microbes, there is still room for one more H to jump on board. This additional H atom transforms potent ammonia gas (NH₃) into the plant fertilizing compound ammonium (NH₄). Another form of N that plants readily take up is created by stripping all H atoms and replacing them with three oxygen (O) atoms to get nitrate (NO₃). Many fertilizers intended to make life proliferate contain ammonium and/or nitrate. Ironically, ammonium nitrate is also a key component of explosives whose intention is to bring death and destruction, like when Timothy McVeigh infamously detonated two tons of ammonium nitrate in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Oklahoma-City-bombing) Ammonium nitrate is also liable to detonate purely by accident during its production and storage. One example is the 1921 detonation of 4,500 tons in Oppau, Germany, killing more than 500 people. Another is the 1947 detonation of more than 2,000 tons, killing at least 587 people at a shipping port in Galveston Bay, Texas, making it the deadliest industrial accident in US history. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53664064) More recently, the 2020 explosion of 2,750 tons of stored ammonium nitrate in Beirut, Lebanon killed at least 218 people and left 300,000 temporarily homeless in a detonation estimated to be one-twentieth the strength of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-53664184) Until around 1939, the predominant use for American-made ammonium nitrate was intended for such explosive uses, as it was safer to handle than other choices of the time. A small percentage of Haber-Bosch N was used as fertilizer, although Europeans began using the compound for agricultural purposes soon after World War I.

With the start of World War II, the need for ammonium nitrate and other N-based products rose sharply, necessitating the construction of 10 new ammonia plants scattered across Middle America. By 1943, America was producing so much ammonia and ammonium nitrate that a surplus was distributed to farmers during the war. Farmers undoubtedly stood amazed at the greening effects and increase in yields that this miracle fertilizer brought to their crops. By 1945, American plants were pumping out 730,000 tons of ammonia per year and had the capacity to produce up to 1.6 million tons. (https://cropwatch.unl.edu/fertilizer-history-p3) Yet, as we know, the war came to a close in 1945 and politicians and private sectors business leaders needed to figure out what to do with these government-owned ammonia plants. (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed8000683) The decision was made to keep the factory lines open and pivot toward producing N-based fertilizers. Farmers have been adding prodigious amounts of synthetically produced nitrogen fertilizer to the soil ever since. One estimate using United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data indicates that N fertilizer consumption increased from 11.3 Tg N yr⁻¹ (0.9 g N m⁻² cropland yr⁻¹) in 1961 to 107.6 Tg N yr⁻¹ (7.4 g N m⁻² cropland yr⁻¹ on average) in 2013. (1 terragram = 1 billion kilograms.) Farmers in the U.S. and western Europe were the first to apply N fertilizer on a large scale after the war, but rates of application in these regions peaked in the 1960s. The hot spots of N fertilizer application slowly shifted to eastern Europe and eastern Asia throughout the 1980s and 1990s. South American farmers also rapidly adopted N fertilizer and increased its use, particularly in small Brazilian, with N consumption reaching US levels. At the moment, China currently ranks in the highest position for N fertilizer consumption in the world, going from a consumption level of 0.06 Tg N yr⁻¹ (0.05 g N m⁻² yr⁻¹) in 1952 to 28.31 Tg N yr⁻¹ (17.06 g N m⁻² yr⁻¹) in 2018. (https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/5179/2022/) Although cropland has expanded widely in Africa, its average N fertilizer use rate has increased slowly, with most areas still receiving less than 1.5 g N m⁻² yr⁻¹ in 2013. For comparison, some areas of eastern and southeastern China receive more than 30g N m⁻² yr⁻¹. Globally, FAO data indicate that N fertilizer consumption increased from 11.3 Tg N yr−1 (0.9 g N m⁻² cropland yr⁻¹) in 1961 to 107.6 Tg N yr−1 (7.4 g N m⁻² cropland yr⁻¹ on average) in 2013. (https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/9/181/2017/essd-9-181-2017.pdf)

N fertilizer has proven to be a key input in the fight to feed the growing population, as its application has aided more plant growth all across the globe. More plants means more food, whether by direct consumption or the consumption of animals that we eat that eat plants. But N is far being the only nutrient that plants and other living organisms require. In fact, only around 3% of a plant’s weight is N. Carbon (C), Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O) are in much higher demand, making up roughly 94% of the weight of living organisms. Fortunately, plants and microbes are able to bring in these essential nutrients nearly out of thin air. N is fixed by microbes from the air, while photosynthesis brings in C as CO₂ and H and O as water (H₂O). The final 3% of atoms that make up the weight of living organisms don’t originate from air and water. Rather, they come from rocks and minerals in the Earth’s crust. Abiotic (non-living) or biotic (living) factors chisel them away and make them available for uptake by a microbe, plant or animal. Once these atoms are set free from their rocky prison they cycle in and out of living organisms, get transported to locations via wind or water and eventually become rock or minerals again by combining with other atoms. This is generally how the remaining 13 essential nutrients cycle. Humans circumvent this slow cycling by thousands and millions of years through the mining of rich mineral veins and industrial processing. We’re kind of like enzymes in that respect when you think about it!

Of these remaining 13, the nutrient in highest demand by living organisms is phosphorus (P). P doesn’t always get the press time that N does, but it is instrumental in maintaining life on this planet. If you look at the previous image of DNA, you will notice that P is the central atom for one of the basic units of DNA. The same goes for RNA. In addition, P plays an integral role in a molecule called Adenosine Triphosphate (a.k.a. ATP), which is considered the energy currency for all of life. Whether we’re talking about microbes, plants, livestock or humans, being alive and staying alive requires a lot of energy. ATP molecules are like mobile energy stations that are transported to the site of an energy-intense process. They do this by cramming three negatively charged phosphate (PO₄^–) ion together. Just like with magnets or three teenagers in the back of a car on a long roadtrip, these negative charges don’t want to be next to each other, so it takes energy to cram them together. This energy gets released upon reaching the site of the process that needs it. Lastly, P is an important component of the cell membranes of organisms. The scientific term for cell membranes is actually the “phospholipid bilayer”. Cell membranes are essential for survival because they create a clear delineation of the cell from its surrounding environment, provide protection, and facilitate the transportation of items in and out of the cell, among many other jobs.

It doesn’t get more essential than genetic material, energy and the cell membrane, so the body of a living organism needs a lot of P. If that’s the case, P must be found in great abundance all over the Earth, right? Well, not so much. P is actually quite a finicky element to use in such a prominent place of importance for a couple of reasons. The first complication is that total P content is relatively low in in soil, ranging from 500 to 10,000 kg P in the upper 50 cm of 1 hectare of land. (Nature Property Soils, pg. 662) Not only that, the relatively few P atoms found in soil favorably turn into stony material like apatite that is unavailable for direct consumption by living organisms. For reference, the hard outer surface of bones and teeth are made of calcium phosphate, a type of apatite, which is just as hard as concrete and steel, so. (https://www.healthline.com/health/hardest-substance-in-the-human-body#enamel-strength) Energy- and time-intensive processes are required to wriggle the P out of stone and into forms that living organisms can use. In nature, fungi are especially adept at wrestling P away from rocks through mechanical and chemical weathering, meaning these microbes run the largest mining operation in the world right below our feet. (https://www.earthhaven.ca/blog/mycorrhizal-fungi-run-the-largest-mining-operation-in-the-world/174) But this process doesn’t happen as fast as P’s propensity to become stone, which explains why as little as 10–15% of the P in fertilizers and manures is taken up by plants in the year of application. (https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Properties-Soils-15th/dp/0133254488 (pg 644)) Traditionally, reincorporated livestock manure, night soil, and compost constituted the main source of P return to the soil, meaning that its transformation to stone and slow-release capped farm productivity. Not good enough for modern agriculture.

So how has society overcome the P problem and supercharged crop and livestock production in the past couple of centuries? By finding sources of P-rich material and flooding the soil with enough to overcome the inconvenient nature of P. Many societies knew that crushed bones and organic matter improved plant growth, but it wasn’t until the 19th century when English scientists learned how to extract and purify P from products like bone meal, coprolite (fossilized poo) and P-rich rocks to create superphosphate fertilizer. (https://ia803208.us.archive.org/19/items/food_resources/Food-Compost%26Fertilizer/History_of_Fertilizer-2016.pdf) Unfortunately for them, another up-and-coming poo-based fertilizer was hitting the market, which eventually pushed superphosphate to the side. In what’s become a cautionary tale for resource sustainability, the N- and P-rich fertilizer that was all the craze in mid-19th century Europe and America was… bird poo, a.k.a. guano. Wild bird manure off the coast of South America and other islands scattered across the Pacific and Atlantic, to be exact. Long before the construction of the Panama Canal, American ships traveling from the east coast were forced to sail around the tip of South America and up through the Pacific to reach the west coast and the gold treasure that await them in California. With the help of European geographers in South America, it soon became common knowledge that islands dotted across the Pacific were layered with nutrient-rich bird poop accumulating for millennia, some deposits reaching two hundred feet in depth. Barrels of guano were sent back to both European and American farmers, and they saw firsthand the tremendous crop response from its application. Edward Lloyd, former governor of Maryland from 1809-1811, declared guano “the most powerful manure he had ever seen applied to corn.” (https://reginajeffers.blog/2016/05/11/guano-fertile-fortune-of-the-19th-century/) The word was sent out and ships traversed the ocean blue in search of this precious poo. Industry quickly built up for this resource, businessmen became wealthy and workers became exploited. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano) So too was the resource itself, but why let future availability stop a money-making endeavor right now?

From 1841-1857, the United Kingdom imported over two million tons of guano fertilizer for their farmers, despite some expressing fears that, “the enormous crops realized under its stimulus might exhaust the land of its productive elements.” (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano) These cries fell on deaf ears and the mining marched on. Anxiety over who would control the supply soon spread, which prompted President Millard Fillmore to address the guano issue in his first State of the Union Address in 1850. He said, “guano has become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price. Nothing will be omitted on my part toward accomplishing this desirable end.” (http://presidentialrhetoric.com/historicspeeches/fillmore/stateoftheunion1850.html) The Guano Islands Act of 1856 was eventually enacted by Fillmore’s successor, Franklin Pierce, which allowed any United States citizen to claim any unoccupied island or rock that was not under the jurisdiction of any other government. Hundreds of islands and groups of island became U.S. territories under American federal laws. Some guano islands still remain as U.S. territories, including Midway Atoll, side of the major World War II battle, the Battle of Midway. Paul Johnston, curator of the exhibition, “The Norie Atlas and The Guano Trade,” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, claims that this hunger for fertilizer was essentially, “the start of American imperialism.” (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-gold-rush-led-real-riches-bird-poop-180957970/)

The good times began to wane late in the 19th century as industry exhausted the most abundant and easily extractable sources of guano. In addition, sea bird population dipped as ships scared them away and as the fishing industry depleted sardines, an important source of food that eventually became more guano. By the turn of the 20th century, the vast majority of accessible guano had been mined. This crushed the industry and took down the Peruvian economy with it, as around 60% of the Peruvian economy was tied to the stuff.

The story of guano is important to highlight because it encapsulates repeated themes in the history of mankind’s use of natural resources. First, a resource is discovered to have some kind of use for society (and potentially make someone a lot of money). “Discovered” is used loosely because oftentimes indigenous peoples had been utilizing the resource for a very long time prior. In the case of guano, the Inca people of South America had known about its fertilizing effects for centuries. Second, a new industry is created around it or an already existing industry shifts to accommodate the new resource in demand. This is can be done through capitalistic ingenuity, but is often heavily influenced by government intervention, as was the case with the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Fraud and condescending marketing are also rife during this time as companies attempt to take the lead in this new space. Upon discovering guano on Ichaboe Island off the coast of Namibia in Africa, Liverpool businessman J. H. Sheppard set up a mining operation and quickly dispersed a pamphlet to farmers in which they, “may look forward with pleasure to a certain supply of genuine guano early next spring.” (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=niAVUjAzspQC&pg=PP4&lpg=PP4&dq=Ichaboe+Island+guano&source=bl&ots=DI2PffDlVW&sig=N2Ph2b3iPso98yNNbi2Y8vJLNQI&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Ichaboe%20Island%20guano&f=false) Not that dumb old South American bird poo everyone else is getting. No sir! Third, conflict may arise as groups fight for control of the resource. The Spanish-Peruvian war for the Chincha Islands and the War of the Pacific between Chile, Bolivia and Peru come to mind. (https://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/07/10/a-shitty-little-war-peru-fights-spain-over-animal-turds/) Fourth, winners of military or legal battle become extravagantly wealthy from the processing and selling of the resource. Often, the winners are those in positions of political power and a few businesspeople. Workers may also benefit from new job opportunities and society at large may benefit from the usefulness of the resource. That is, the society that gets to use the resource and the workers that are treated fairly. In the guano industry, Peruvian, British, and American companies, for all intents and purposes, enslaved Chinese and indigenous Pacific Island peoples to mine the white gold in less than ideal conditions. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano) Fifth, a combination of greed and the Tragedy of the Commons leads to the eventual depletion of the finite resource and a collapse of the industry. In the case of Namibia’s Ichaboe Island, 450 ships carried away guano in 1844. By May of the next year, the island was deserted and 25 feet shorter to boot. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano) Talk about a land grab.

Mine, cash in, exhaust, desert. This linear chain of events repeated itself island and island, leaving farmers with fewer and fewer barrels of guano to utilize. In a prescient article titled “The Guano Crisis” from an 1857 edition of The Farmer’s Magazine, one British farmer predicted not only the guano bust, but the rise in synthetically produced fertilizer like Haber-Bosch ammonia. The author writes, “We are just now at the very height of our guano difficulty. That is to say, this is the season – a most favourable season, too -when above all others we need it; and there is none to be had. One of our most respectable manure-dealers was, for the first time, on Saturday, directly refused. They could not even promise him any further supply. When people have gradually accustomed themselves to the matter-of-course use of anything, the unexpected want of it must be very severely felt. This is the case with the farmer. We want guano as a manure for our barley and oats, and as a top-dressing for our wheat. We have reckoned more or less on our customary allowance, an have consequently neglected proportionately, to provide any substitute. With ordinary care, as we begin to see now when it is too late, we might have fallen back upon our own resource; as it is, however, there is an extraordinary and altogether unprecedented run on such manufactured manures as contain the ingredients required – ammonia and phosphates especially. The makers and dealers are at their wits end to answer the orders pouring in upon them, and go from one to the other anxiously seeking the material to fulfill them.” (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano ; https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-idOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=%22One+of+our+most+respectable+manure-dealers+was,+for+the+first+time,+on+Saturday,+directly+refused%22&source=bl&ots=mVt21ksDVQ&sig=JKnZJ4VNCx-IZ9_t6uqiq6vZ1FI&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22One%20of%20our%20most%20respectable%20manure-dealers%20was%2C%20for%20the%20first%20time%2C%20on%20Saturday%2C%20directly%20refused%22&f=false)

Without guano to reliably lean on, farmers around the world needed another concentrated source of P. For that, they turned to rocks. Recall that rocks had already been used as a source to create superphosphate fertilizer in England, so this wasn’t exactly new knowledge. Industrial mining of P-rich apatite actually began in 1851 in Norway, and phosphate mining in the United States began in North Carolina in the late-1860s, but it wasn’t until 1888 when Florida extraction became dominant, which remains the case to this day. (https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~vsmil/pdf_pubs/originalpdfs/aree2000-2.pdf) “There are 27 phosphate mines in Florida, covering more than 450,000 acres. Nine phosphate mines are currently active. ” (https://floridadep.gov/water/mining-mitigation/content/phosphate)

“Today, phosphorus is mostly obtained from mined rock phosphate and is often combined in mineral fertilizers with sulphuric acid, nitrogen, and potassium. Existing rock phosphate reserves could be exhausted in the next 50–100 years (Steen, 1998, Smil, 2000b, Gunther, 2005). The fertilizer industry recognises that the quality of reserves is declining and the cost of extraction, processing and shipping is increasing (Runge-Metzger, 1995, Driver, 1998, Smil, 2000b, EcoSanRes, 2003)” “While phosphate rock seemed like limitless source of highly concentrated phosphorus, it was relying on a non-homogenous, non-renewable resource. Today, societies are effectively dependent on phosphorus from mined phosphate rock. Without continual in-

puts, we could not produce food at current global yields (Cordell, 2010)” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51040734_A_brief_history_of_phosphorus_From_the_philosopher%27s_stone_to_nutrient_recovery_and_reuse)

P fertilizer consumption increased from 4.6 to 17.5 Tg P yr−1 (0.4 to 1.2 g P m−2 cropland yr−1 on average) from 1961-2013. In the mid- to late 1940s, about 2 million tons of chemical fertilizers were used per year by American farmers. By 1960, over 7 million tons were applied annually and by 2014, that number rose to 20 million tons per year. (https://cropwatch.unl.edu/fertilizer-history-p3)

Thankfully, C, H, O and N are abundant on the planet, but Earth minerals like P are far less abundant. Many are classified as “rare Earth minerals” for this reason. Even so, the search for and mining of earth minerals to use as fertilizer has exploded over the past 150 years.

Potassium (K), the third of the NPK triumverate, is unique to P in that it is relatively abundant in soils as a common constituent of clay mineral. This doesn’t mean K is available to life, but it does mean there is a lot of opportunity for it to weather away and become available. Potash mines…

Needless to say, companies are making beaucoup bucks off of these agrochemical sales. That makes sense, but what many people may not know is that only a select few companies produce and sell the majority of agrochemical products that sustain modern agriculture. Acquisitions and mergers in the past few decades have left this space even more consolidated, the “Big Six” recently became the “Big Four”. Dow and DuPont merged to become Dow DuPont in 2015 (later becoming Coretva Agriscience), ChemChina acquired Syngenta in 2016 and Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2016. These three agribusiness mergers alone have concentrated control in the agrochemical/seed market into the hands of an oligarchy comprised of Bayer, BASF, Corteva, and Chem-China, providing them with the ability to exert an enormous amount of influence on the agrochemical and seed industry. (https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~prb/the-big-six-to-the-big-four-the-rise-of-the-seed-and-agrochemical-oligopoly/) For example, Bayer and Corteva now control approximately 70% of the corn and soybean seed market in the U.S., a significant increase from around 40% two decades ago, according to USDA data. (https://www.agweb.com/news/business/taxes-and-finance/corteva-now-beating-out-bayer-companys-market-share-surges-soybeans) As a farmer or rancher, does this consolidation of power and influence make you feel more or less confident in the free market to set fair prices for your chemicals and seed?

Financially, the Big Four are doing very well. In 2023, Bayer’s gross profits were $30.1 billion (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BAYRY/bayer/gross-profit), BASF’s were $18.0 billion (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BASFY/basf-se/gross-profit) and Corteva’s were $7.3 billion (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CTVA/corteva/gross-profit). At the time of writing, BASF is seeing revenue fall in 2024 as high energy prices have hurt sales and profit.(https://www.ft.com/content/4e8699a2-dd69-489e-a1b9-543000109957) Another agrochemical giant, Bayer, reports their Crop Science arm saw a”significant decline in sales and earnings against very strong prior year, mainly due to lower glyphosate prices.” (https://www.bayer.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/bayer-annual-report-2023.pdf) Finally, Corteva Agriscience sales and profits have also been underwhelming (https://www.corteva.com/content/dam/dpagco/corteva/global/corporate/files/press-releases/01.31.2024_4Q_2023_Earnings_Release_Graphic_Version_Final.pdf). Corteva appears to be weathering the storm well, however, as Chief Executive Officer at CORTEVA INC, Charles V. Magro made $13,234,872 in total compensation in 2023. Of this total $1,341,923 was received as a salary, $1,472,175 was received as a bonus, $2,050,001 was received in stock options, $8,200,042 was awarded as stock and $170,731 came from other types of compensation. (https://www1.salary.com/Charles-V-Magro-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-Corteva-Inc.html) Many more of their executives make well over $1 million annually as well.

Corporations that specialize in fertilizer production also appear to be thriving financially. Nutrien, the largest soft rock miner and potash producer in the world and North America’s second largest phosphate producer, recorded over $1 billion in net income for 2023 and over $7.6 billion in net income in 2022. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NTR/nutrien/gross-profit) The Mosaic Company, a Fortune 500 company based in Tampa, Florida which mines phosphate, potash, and collects urea for fertilizer, brought in a net income of $1.1 billion in 2023 and $3.5 billion in 2022. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MOS/mosaic/net-income)

On the whole, it appears that agrochemical and seed sales won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Mordor Intelligence writes that, “The North America Agrochemicals Market size is estimated at USD 37.91 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 46.36 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 4.10% during the forecast period (2024-2029).” (https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/north-america-agrochemicals-market) Globally, “the Agrochemicals Market size is estimated at USD 253.29 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 308.17 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 4% during the forecast period (2024-2029).” (https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/agrochemicals-market) Many, if not most, farming and ranching ecosystems have become so degraded that they now rely on these inputs to keep them productive, meaning that abatement of chemical use is not advised in most cases. Ecosystems need to be weaned off of them just as a person with addictions to certain substances need to be weaned off slowly to avoid severe withdrawal symptoms. Sri Lanka’s massive organic movement failure is evidence of what can go wrong when inputs are forbidden basically overnight. Unfortunately, not many large-scale producers have begun this transition away from high input use, which means sales of agrochemical products
will only increase as land is pushed harder to produce enough food for a growing world population.

Finally, fossil fuels are an extremely important input for modern day farmers and ranchers, as of writing this in 2024. Whether it’s natural gas needed to create nitrogen fertilizer or diesel fuel used to power heavy equipment, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of conventional agriculture, and society as a whole. The 18,983.557 barrels of oil consumed every day as of December 2023 speak for themselves. (https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/oil-consumption) American farms are a relatively small percentage of total consumption, however they still spent $16.5 billion dollars in direct fuel expenditures in 2023. (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farm_Production_Expenditures/arms3cht7.php) That’s a lot of the green stuff for the black stuff. The (sort of) good news is that the United States is producing record amounts of crude oil, to the tune of 12.9 million barrels a day. (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545#:~:text=Crude%20oil%20production%20in%20the,%2Fd%2C%20set%20in%202019.) So, running out of oil shouldn’t be one one of the things keeping farmers up at night… at least not for a while, unless problems arise from extraction to fuel tank.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably don’t need to be told that oil companies are doing quite well financially, but here are some recent figures. Oil companies took a financial hit during the pandemic, but they’ve come roaring back since lockdown orders were lifted. In fact, the top five US-based oil and gas companies by market cap, according to S&P Global — ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, EOG Resources and Schlumberger — brought in more than $250 billion in profits between 2021 and 2023 under the Biden administration. That’s a 160% jump compared to the first three years of the Trump administration, according to calculations by CNN. (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/11/economy/oil-industry-profits-under-biden/index.html) This isn’t meant to be a political statement, but rather a statement proving this country’s addiction to energy, regardless of which party is in the White House.

There aren’t many activities that humans undertake every day for the entirety of their lives. Unlike air for breathing, food isn’t free, so there is a lot of money to be made in agriculture. The industry that provides inputs like machinery, agrochemicals, seeds and energy are certainly using this fact to their advantage, at least financially speaking.

Next, let’s take a look at whether or not a rising tide is lifting all boats. Are producers themselves faring well as agriculture has become increasingly industrialized?

Farmers & Ranchers

The previous section illustrated that the industry dedicated to selling products to farmers and ranchers is doing pretty well economically. Let’s now turn our attention to the farms and ranches buying their products. Are these businesses also faring well in the current industrial agricultural system? What about rural life in general? Are farmers, ranchers and their communities experiencing a golden age of health and wealth? The answer to these questions, as always, is complicated. One thing for certain is that the number of farms, ranches and workers on these operations has continually shrunk in the past two centuries, even as national populations have risen dramatically. If there’s one theme running through this whole article it’s that consolidation and concentration have taken hold of agriculture all along the chain. This is the natural outcome of an industry that chooses to operate by the economies of scale model, so it should come as no surprise to anyone what’s happened. Whether this is a good or bad result is up to you to decide.

According to the USDA, the number of American farms peaked at 6.8 million farms in 1935, at which point it began to decline sharply until the early 1970s. The number of farms decreased during this period primarily due to growing productivity and increased non-farm employment opportunities. Since 1982, the number of American farms has dropped much more slowly than the period from 1935-1975. The most recent USDA survey indicates the number of farms is still shrinking, as there were 1.89 million U.S. farms in 2023, which is down 7% from the 2.04 million reported in the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Similarly, the amount of land used for agriculture follows a downward trend. Total farmland decreased from 900 million acres in 2017 to 879 million acres in 2023. (https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/envirobiology/chapter/9-3-conventional-agriculture/) This is partially due to urban and suburban sprawl swallowing up productive farmland. In fact, since 1970, over 30 million acres have been lost to development.

While the number of farms has decreased, the size of the remaining farms has increased. The USDA writes that, “Cropland has been shifting to larger farms. The shifts have been large, centered on a doubling of farm size over 20-25 years, and they have been ubiquitous across States and commodities. But the shifts have also been complex, with land and production shifting primarily from mid-size commercial farming operations to larger farms, while the count of very small farms increases.” (https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45108/39359_err152.pdf?v=7180.1) Livestock operations have also shifted toward higher concentrations of animals per farm, especially for the hog and dairy industry. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44292/13804_eib43b_1_.pdf?v=7781) Census data shows that the average farm size was 464 acres in 2023, which is up 5% (441 acres) from 2017. (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/number-us-farms-falls-size-increases-census-shows-2024-02-13/). Given that mid-sized farms are making way for increasingly large farms while the number of small farms increases, the minor increase in average farm size is likely deceivingly small. A more important statistic is that the proportion of productivity from large-scale farms has increased greatly in recent decades. Since 1990, small and medium-sized farms have gone from producing nearly half of all agricultural products in the US to around a third in the 2020’s. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/farming-and-farm-income/). Currently, the USDA estimates that the 105,384 farms with sales of $1 million or more sold more than three-fourths of all agricultural products and accounted for 85% of the market value of agricultural production. (https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2010/05/18/small-farms-big-differences) (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2024/02-13-2024.php) Models show that global trends will likely follow the same path as more nations adopt economies of scale agriculture, with one estimating the number of farms decreasing “from the current 616 million (95% CI: 495–779 million) in 2020 to 272 million (95% CI: 200–377 million) by the end of the twenty-first century, with average farm size doubling.” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01110-y)

Miraculously, total farm production nearly tripled between 1948 and 2017, even as the number of farms, farmland and farm labor declined. The USDA states that the growth in farm output is “largely due to innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment and farm organization.” (https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/03/05/look-agricultural-productivity-growth-united-states-1948-2017) Globally, agriculture has experienced a similar upward trend in productivity and it’s estimated that between 70% and 90% of the recent increases in food production are the result of the adoption of conventional agriculture rather than greater acreage under cultivation. (https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/envirobiology/chapter/9-3-conventional-agriculture/)

Consolidation of farms also means that fewer Americans are working in the agricultural sector. Changes in U.S. jobs by sector from 1850-2015 reveals that the employment share of agricultural jobs has fallen by 56% during that time. (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-150-years-of-u-s-employment-history/) From 1960 to 2022 alone, agricultural jobs have gone from making up 8.3% of all American jobs to 1.6% in 2022. (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-in-agriculture-percent-of-total-employment-wb-data.html) Future outlook for agricultural jobs shows that this downward trend won’t change direction anytime soon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of agricultural jobs is set to decline an additional 2% during the ten-year period between 2022-2032. (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricultural-workers.htm)

Globally, the percentage of employees working in agriculture is dropping quickly as well. In 1991, 43% of employees worldwide worked in agriculture in some form or fashion. Today, that number has dropped to 23%. (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS) A full list of nations and their employment numbers can be viewed here, courtesy of the World Bank.

The decrease in farms and agricultural jobs isn’t necessarily a good or bad outcome. After all, statistics cannot imply “good” and “bad”. What they show is simply the direction most of the world’s economies have chosen, and fair enough to them. Promises of food security and material wealth made by conventional agricultural systems are hard to turn down, especially when the system does result in a massive increase in output. There’s also something to be said for creating a system that provides more individuals with the freedom to choose a career path outside of subsistence farming. It’s likely that the job you currently hold was chosen because it interested you, not because you had to produce immediate basic needs for you and your family. That’s something to be thankful for.

Even so, it’s probably worth asking how many millions of farmers and farming families were happy that their businesses didn’t survive the transition to industrial agriculture. Farming isn’t everyone’s passion, of course, and many families were undoubtedly excited to find new lives in cities and towns that offered the prospect of well-paying industrial and service-based jobs. However, it’s also true that there existed many passionate farmers who were forced off of land that their families had farmed for generations because they could not adapt to the changing agricultural system. One could argue this is simply how the business world works: survival of the fittest. However, something feels different about agriculture compared to other industries in this regard, largely because humans throughout history have lived with an intimate connection to the land that grows their food. Therefore, it’s likely that we’ve forfeited an integral part of ourselves by breaking our relationship with natural ecosystems en masse. This isn’t to say that pre-industrial agriculture was an idyllic paradise and societies should have eschewed anything resembling technological progress. Nostalgia for the “good old days” of agriculture can easily be overblown. But the fact is that politicians and industry leaders have let everyone know from the beginning that the march toward an increasingly industrial agricultural system is simply inevitable no matter how many farms are forced out of the industry. It’s simply the self-proclaimed Law of Butz: adapt or die.

Case in point, R. Douglas Hurt, a Purdue University history professor who specializes in agriculture, said in 2023 that, “Farms probably will get larger and become fewer in number in the years ahead. This is not necessarily a problem. Small-scale family farms are not more economically viable or more moral than large corporate farms, most of which are family corporations for tax purposes.” (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/nov/07/joe-biden/did-americans-lose-the-farm-fact-checking-joe-bide/) Leaving aside the brushed-off assumption that large corporate farms are just as moral as small-scale family farms, there is a serious risk in food production falling in the hands of a fewer businesses. The recent COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how vulnerable the current food production, processing and transportation system is to unforeseen events. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9335023/) Bottlenecks all along the chain, particularly in the meat processing plant sector (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/business/coronavirus-meat-slaughterhouses.html), create stress points that leave consumers at higher risk of shortages on supermarket shelves. The same risks are present with the increasing monopolization of food production, particularly when considering that major disease outbreak increases as plants and animals of the same species are placed in close proximity. Of course, there are risks and rewards with every system, but the risk of placing such a basic human need in the hands of fewer individuals who live further away from their consumers is, at the very least, something to ponder.

Hearkening the spirit of Rusty Butz, Sonny Perdue, while Secretary of Agriculture in 2019, echoed Hurt’s stance when he told an audience at a dairy expo in Wisconsin that, “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out. I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.” Perdue went on to say that, “It’s very difficult on an economy of scale with the capital needs and all the environmental regulations and everything else today to survive milking 40, 50, or 60 or even 100 cows.” (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/agriculture-secretary-sonny-perdue-says-family-farms-might-not-survive/) Exactly. The current production model that farmers were pushed to adopt requires such a large amount of capital that farmers need to produce an enormous amount of product to justify their large capital investments to keep up with the rest of the herd. Many farms simply can’t afford to keep up the pace in that race and they have to drop out, providing more land for surviving farms to divvy up. Theoretically, then, surviving farms should be making more profit and the farming community as a whole should be performing just as well because each farm has that much more money to put into their local economies. Is that what has happened?

First, consider that farming is a business unlike any other, as president John F. Kennedy rightly pointed out.

Not many other industries play a game where the rules are so tilted against them. What it boils down to is that farmers playing the commodity game are at the mercy of several variables outside of their control. COVID and Russian invasions being recent examples. Contrast that to a normal business, like the sandwich chain Subway. Remember the $5 footlong introduced in 2007? Why is that no longer around? According to journalist Kelly Corbett, “Subway’s $5 footlong sandwich promotion, which was introduced during the dawn of a recession, could not withstand rising costs, and naturally, the price had to go up.” (https://www.distractify.com/p/what-happened-to-five-dollar-footlongs) That’s how most businesses operate. They raise the price of their product when it costs more to produce it. Commodity farmers? Not so much. Farmers can’t increase the price of commodity goods, even when it costs them more to make the same amount of product. So if input prices go up, farmers and ranchers have to deal with it in ways other than raising the price of their goods. Thankfully, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that commodity prices have risen over time.

Unfortunately, farmers don’t put commodity prices into their bank accounts. They put net farm income into their bank accounts, and this metric varies widely year to year. In fact, at the time of writing in 2024, estimates show that farm income is likely to take the biggest hit since 2006. (https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business/2024-farm-income-to-face-biggest-annual-decline-since-2006) One reason is inflation, even though “the relationships between inflation and commodity prices are not strong.” (https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/06/inflation-and-commodity-prices.html) Price is mostly determined by supply and demand. Input prices, on the other hand, are significantly correlated with general inflation, with machinery and labor following closer to inflation than feed, seed, fertilizer, and fuels. (https://ag.purdue.edu/commercialag/home/resource/2023/10/trends-in-general-inflation-and-farm-input-prices-202310/) This has spelled trouble in the cattle, hog, and broiler markets, as “prices have not kept pace with inflation over the past 30 years.” (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/agricultural-production-and-prices/) In the grain market, “Prices could average well below the current break-even levels of $4.73 per bushel for corn and $11.06 for soybeans (see farmdoc daily, December 21, 2021). Lower prices will likely occur in the future because of above-trend yields increasing supply.” (https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2022/06/inflation-and-commodity-prices.html) Purdue University’s most recent Crop Cost and Return guide estimates the following earnings per acre for commodity grains grown in average productivity soils in the state of Indiana: Continuous corn: -$178, Rotation corn: -$79, Rotation Soybeans: -$1, Wheat: -$183 and Double Crop Soybeans: $240. (https://ag.purdue.edu/commercialag/home/paer-article/2024-purdue-crop-cost-return-guide/)

The point being made is not that 2024 is shaping up to be a rough year financially, although this is significant. The overarching point is that over the long-term the industrial agricultural system has incentivized the small fish to get eaten by the medium and large fish. Now, the conditions are right for the medium fish to get eaten by the large fish. One would think that the surviving medium farms would have been much more profitable as they swallowed the small ones, but many are still struggling to pencil in a profit year after year. This shows that focusing on producing an enormous amount of product for a gradually increasing price is not a winning strategy in commodity agriculture. Yield, pounds of animal sold and higher prices are not all of the variables in the equation of profitability. The cost of producing goods also has to be factored in before net profitability can be established. In addition, interest payments on “necessary” operating loans are an input cost that farmers of old didn’t have to contend with, so farmers of today really can’t afford a bad year or, heaven forbid, a string of bad years financially. USDA’s Economic Research Service forecast in 2022 that total farm sector debt will increase to a record high $535 billion in 2023. As a share of production expenses, interest expenses are the third largest (7.4%). Interest expenses are the fastest growing farm production expense, increasing 19.1% in 2023 and 33.2% in 2022. Fortunately, debt-to-equity ratios remain fairly low thanks to increasing land values, which represent 84% of total farm sector assets in 2024. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/assets-debt-and-wealth/)

Another metric worth investigating that affects net profitability is the commodity farmer’s share of the food dollar. Commodity farmers are essentially price takers, not price makers. Sadly for them, their share of the food dollar is at an all-time low in the U.S. at 14.5 cents. (https://www.agweb.com/news/business/taxes-and-finance/farm-share-us-food-dollar-hit-record-low-what-does-mean-producers) Even worse, American food producers as a whole industry receive a little more than 7 cents for every nominal food dollar spent in 2021. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=105572&cpid=email) Similar statistics are observed the U.K. (https://www.sustainweb.org/reports/dec22-unpicking-food-prices/) Economists believe this is largely due to more meals eaten at restaurants and more restaurant meals delivered to homes. The graph below shows that the farmer’s share of the food dollar has been decreasing the fastest as restaurants take more of the food dollar. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44825/7759_err114.pdf?v=0) In general, the more hands that touch a product between harvest and consumer, the less of the food dollar a farmer or rancher will see.

Overall, U.S. net farm income has remained relatively static in the period from 1970-2024. This in spite of the fact that there are roughly 350,000 fewer farms in 2024 than in 1970. Average net profitability per farm is incredibly difficult to calculate and average because farms vary in many ways, including farm size, product raised and location. With that said, the median household income from farming in the United States from 2012-2022 was at or below $0 each year. (see graph below) This is likely biased toward the lower end by the fact that so many farms are small and hobby farms, and these farms don’t make money on average. Nevertheless, off-farm income is the main source of income for many farming families, big and small.

A more complete breakdown of median farm household income can be found from the USDA here.

Farm and ranch profitability is important to many people in rural economies, not just producers and their families. When farms and ranches struggle economically, so do their local communities. Unsurprisingly, articles which give a grim depiction of rural American life with titles like “Most of America’s rural areas are doomed to decline” and “Small-town America is Dying. How can we save it?” are all too common. There’s no doubt that fewer farms and fewer farmers play a role in the economic woes of rural America, but there is another important factor at play. Think about all the capital that farmers must invest to produce a crop or animal product. Normally, more spending stimulates an economy. The problem with modern, commodity agriculture is that a substantial portion of the money they’re spending isn’t pumped back into their local economy. More and more money is going to increasingly consolidated large corporations located somewhere far away from Main Street, leaving less and less money to go around in rural communities. No wonder young people have left for urban and suburban areas in droves. Jayson Lusk, a food and agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, reports that in 1900, just less than 40% of the total U.S. population lived on farms, and 60% lived in rural areas. By the mid-2010s, about 1% lived on farms and 20% lived in rural areas. To Purdue professor R. Douglas Hurt, the reason for this mass exodus is quite simple. “Young people leave the farm for better jobs and more money. They have been doing this since the 1870s.” (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/nov/07/joe-biden/did-americans-lose-the-farm-fact-checking-joe-bide/) Census data from 2000-2020 shows that many rural counties in states like West Virginia, Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, and Nebraska have seriously decreased in population over that time. Seeing the data on a map is one thing, but listening to real-life stories of rural degradation is another. Check out this installment of the “Soil Carbon Cowboys” series on Youtube, titled “one hundred thousand beating hearts” to see how industrial agriculture played a role in making Clay county, Georgia one of the poorest counties in the U.S and what farmer Will Harris is doing to revitalize his local community.

Individuals who choose to stay in rural communities face many of the same challenges as their urban neighbors. However, outcomes are often worse for rural citizens, as in the case of public health. Dr. Macarena Garcia, a senior health scientist in the CDC’s Office of Rural Health, points out that, “There is a well-described, rural-urban divide in the United States, where rural residents tend to be sicker and poorer and to have worse health outcomes than do their non-rural peers.” (https://abcnews.go.com/Health/rural-americans-higher-risk-early-death-urbanites-cdc/story?id=109742216) One reason for this is that rural areas are often lacking in various resources, which purely comes down to available money. (https://time.com/6980243/classism-rural-america-essay/) Local funding for health and social services is determined primarily by an area’s overall wealth, tax base, and fiscal policies, and many rural communities have a low and declining tax base. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/109114210002800402) Concerning agricultural workers, long-term exposure to chemicals like pesticides is associated with various negative health outcomes, such as an increased risk of brain cancer (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8431399/), Parkinson’s Disease (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1059924X.2017.1317684), and prostate cancer (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/farm-harm-ag-chemicals-may-cause-prostate-cancer).

The two-decade increase in opioid mortality is also concerning because it hit rural communities especially hard. Interestingly, opiate deaths have corresponded with significant economic stressors in some rural areas, as rural labor markets are less diversified than urban ones. This makes them more vulnerable to economic shifts when downturns occur. (https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/opioid-crisis-rural-small-town-america) Silently, another crisis has infected rural communities: the mental health crisis. Farmers have suicide rates much higher than the general population, with elevated mental health symptoms and high stress levels. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10896109/) One report claims that American farmers are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. (https://www.agweb.com/news/business/health/startling-reality-rate-suicide-among-farmers-35-times-higher-general) Farmer suicide rates are so high that the USDA is offering mental health training to professionals working in farming communities. (https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/15/farmer-suicide-usda-mental-health-training/74076743007/) Family therapist David Brown, leader of one of the mental health sessions, explained some of the unique challenges that farmers face to the audience. He noted that, “current owners feel that if they fail, they would be letting down their grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren.” He also said that, “farmers’ fate hinges on factors out of their control. Will the weather be favorable? Will world events cause prices to soar or crash? Will political conflicts spark changes in federal agricultural support programs? Will a farmer suffer an injury or illness that makes them unable to perform critical chores?” (https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/15/farmer-suicide-usda-mental-health-training/74076743007/) Tethering profitability to the increasingly unpredictable world is a risky way of doing business, but it’s the model that farmers and ranchers were pushed to adopt. Unfortunately, too many of them lose hope that external factors will improve and their situation will turn around.

All of these factors, and many others, resulted in a difference in life expectancy as much as 5 years higher, on average, between wealthy and poor counties in the United States. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2020/may/extreme-poverty-counties-found-solely-in-rural-areas-in-2018/). A significant number of those poor counties are rural. (https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305728) Health and wellness, it turns out, might just depend more on a person’s zip code more than their genetic code. (https://hms.harvard.edu/news/zip-code-or-genetic-code) Yet, the disparity in rural health is almost paradoxical. One would think rural citizens would have cleaner air, cleaner water and better access to fresh fruits, vegetables, milk and meat seeing as they don’t live in crowded concrete jungles. And yet, a large portion of rural America is a food desert, meaning there is a lack of nutritious foods in the very places blessed with some of the most fertile soils in the world. And yet, places like “Cancer Alley” exist in rural Louisiana. (https://www.businessinsider.com/louisiana-cancer-alley-photos-oil-refineries-chemicals-pollution-2019-11?op=1) And yet, so many farmers, who get to work with nature and all its mysteries and wonders, are miserable to the point of suicide.

Obviously, the industrialization of agriculture and society writ large has brought many positives to rural America. Life expectancy has risen 25 years from 1920-2020. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/) Many, if not most, towns have a hospital, a grocery store and K-12 schoolhouses. Most rural households have cars, electricity, indoor plumbing, refrigerators, Wi-Fi, satellite TV and all the rest of the amenities that city folk enjoy. Most would say this is a good thing. Wendell Berry might not be so quick to take that stance, but most people would. Even so, many rural towns and counties across the nation are experiencing serious economic, health, environmental and social declines. Industrial agriculture is not the cause of every one of these problems, but to say that this system has only brought positives to the world would be equally false.

The content of this article gravitates strongly toward North American agriculture, so it’s also worth mentioning that farmers around the globe are affected by agricultural policy from world leaders like the United States, China and Brazil. One such example is the glut of products produced from Green Revolution technology and the forceful lifting of tariffs in the late 20th century to allow for the flooding of global markets with these cheap products. The path to hell is often paved with good intentions, and this policy likely hurt just as many farmers worldwide as it helped. This is because they can’t compete on a global market with subsidized products from the U.S. and China. One such example is the policy that allowed American-grown “Miami rice” to flood Haitian markets. This policy greatly hindered Haiti’s domestic rice production, leaving their population at greater risk of hunger when markets fluctuate or disasters strike. Former President Bill Clinton apologized in 2010 for this policy in front of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying, “since 1981, the United States has followed a policy until the last year or so, we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It’s maybe been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to I am not pointing the finger to anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did. Nobody else.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSE9wKUAMS8&t=84s (1:20)) Check out “The New Breadline” by Jean-Martin Bauer of the World Food Programme to learn more about the complicated world of food policy, conflict and outcomes for farmers in less fortunate situations.

Processors, Handlers & Sellers of Agricultural Products

Farmers and ranchers need to find a buyer for their product just like any other business. Agriculture is unique to most other industries in that many products are deemed “commodities”, meaning producers don’t set the price at which they can sell their product. Commodities are chosen because they are mass produced and can be bought and sold interchangeably. To the commodity market, a ton of wheat from Kansas is the same as a ton of wheat from Ohio. Prices are determined largely on the basis of current supply and demand, as well as future speculation on supply and demand. This means commodity farmers do not get to set the price for which they sell their production, making them price takers, not price makers. Commodities within agriculture include corn, soybean, wheat, cotton, oats, hogs, cattle, chicken and others. Of course, not all farmers and ranchers play the commodity game. Some grow more niche, non-commodity products without a set price, while others sell directly to their customers. Cutting out all of the middlemen works for some, but the vast majority of agricultural products are commodities and are sold to another company before it reaches the final consumer. In many cases, the product trades hands multiple times before it reaches a dinner plate. These processors, handlers and final sellers are the subject of this section.

Over the course of industrialization, markets for food and agricultural products have become quite concentrated, particularly in the last few decades. This should come as no surprise given the heavy consolidation in the input industry and among the producers themselves. Why would this side of the farm gate be any different? One of the most outspoken U.S. politicians on the subject is U.S.Senator Elizabeth Warren. She wrote in 2019 that, “Mergers mean that farmers have fewer and fewer choices for buying and selling, while vertical integration has meant that big agribusinesses face less competition throughout the chain and thus capture more and more of the profits. The result is that farmers are getting a record-low amount of every dollar Americans spend on food, food prices aren’t going down, and agribusiness CEOs and other corporate executives are raking it in.” (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/apr/04/elizabeth-warren/why-do-farmers-get-so-little-our-food-dollars-us/) On the other hand, agribusiness leaders claim that mergers, acquisitions and consolidation are all necessary in the fight against global hunger. Former Cargill CEO David MacLennan was very clear on this point after Cargill and Continental Grain agreed to by Sanderson Farms, the third largest chicken producer in the U.S. In 2022, Cargill and Continental Grain combined Sanderson Farms with Wayne Farms, a subsidiary of Continental Grain, forming a new privately held poultry business. (https://www.cargill.com/2022/cargill-continental-grain-complete-acquisition-sanderson-farms) Referring to the acquisition of Sanderson Farms, MacLennan says, “We think that the fact is when you have large players who can operate at scale it means we can help keep prices lower for consumers, so it’s important we can’t… you can’t have a bunch of small players delivering such an important food source to the nation’s consumers. You have to have larger companies that can do it cheaply and can keep costs down, so our view is that we can be a player with Continental Grain, with Wayne and Sanderson farms combined, to help keep prices lower.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epFbl8RtQnY) In the eyes of agribusiness, consolidation is not the problem, but rather the solution for a cheap and abundant food supply. Let’s dive deeper into various processing and handling sectors to learn just how consolidated each one has become.

As previously discussed, crop farmers are already experiencing the squeeze from the input side of the equations with the agrochemical/seed oligarchy comprised of German companies Bayer and BASF, American company Corteva, and Chinese-state owned Chem-China. On the output side, a similar story emerges. American companies ADM, Bunge and Cargill, French company Louis Dreyfuss Company and Chinese-state owned COFCO (China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation) together control between 70 and 90 per cent of the global trade in commercial grains. (https://www.somo.nl/hungry-for-profits/) These companies are often referred to as ABCD or ABCCD if COFCO is included. ABCCD, along with Swiss commodity trading and mining company Glencore Agricultural Co., announced an initiative in 2019 to create a “blockchain initiative focused on modernizing global trade operations” called Covantis, raising the threat of further inequality among commodity buyers given the billions of dollars the behemoths can invest in technology like blockchain and AI. (https://www.adm.com/en-us/news/news-releases/agribusiness-trade-modernization-initiative-advances-with-new-project-name-covantis/) Hyper-consolidation should result in hyper-efficiency and hyper-profitability if the Economies of Scale framework is true, but this begs the question: Efficiency and profitability for whom? The answer is as simple as ABCD.

ADM stock price has risen from 3.74 in 1983 to 60.84 in 2024, a 1527% increase. This helps explain how CEO Juan Luciano is able to receive an annual compensation package of $24.2 million. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ADM/archer-daniels-midland/stock-price-history, https://www1.salary.com/ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND-CO-Executive-Salaries.html) Gregory Heckman of Bunge rakes in over $17 million (https://www1.salary.com/Gregory-Heckman-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-BUNGE-LTD.html), while the salary for Cargill’s current CEO Brian Sikes is not available, given that Cargill is a privately owned company. However, other statistics indicate Cargill is doing just fine financially, with Forbes magazine finding that “the company ranked number two on Forbes’ list in 2020 with a total of $114.6 billion in revenue, behind Koch Industries. This total puts Cargill in the top 15 on the Fortune 500 list of highest revenue-producing companies” https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/121615/cargill-stock-doesnt-exist-heres-why.asp) Finally, Louis Dreyfus stock price has risen from 15.30 in November 1990 to 147.50 in September 2024, an 864% increase. (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LOUP.PA/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAEET6NkS51eYAl-Cf2WHte9FnvFsHEQ2EV8fa5A7EvUPezUmXNuFZjEPwxwXEKatenkaevDJtFHjTvRKtqG1TcfNSW6Zpfu8Jcj_kEz9obS5kmoh54XBxFQzyPsjeeYhkvl3V32hJ9b0Vfx_VWX6zMdXGXs2deUKC75xKdO39PY)

This isn’t to shame the success that these companies have achieved. Rather, it’s to illustrate how a tiny number of corporations wield an enormous amount of money and influence within the global grain market. This isn’t anything new as companies have tried to corner lucrative food markets for centuries (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecaf.12546), but the scale of control in modern society is unlike anything seen in human history. Whether that’s net good or bad for everyone and the planet is a complicated question that is best answered by investigating as many factors as possible, including the environment and public health, which will be discussed later.

Unfortunately, most farmers and ranchers who sell animal products find themselves in the same predicament as crop farmers. Meat, dairy and egg markets have consolidated greatly in the past 40 years in the United States. When it comes to meatpackers (the industry that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat), “Four companies now control more than half of the market in chicken processing (Tyson, JBS, Perdue, and Sanderson), close to 70 percent in pork (Smithfield, JBS, Tyson, and Hormel), and nearly three quarters in beef (JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef), according to one recent analysis.” (https://civileats.com/2021/07/14/just-a-few-companies-control-the-meat-industry-can-a-new-approach-to-monopolies-level-the-playing-field/) These numbers are dramatically higher than they were in 1977 when the top four companies controlled 22 percent of chicken processing, 31 percent of pork, and 25 percent of cattle. (https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22298043/meat-antitrust-biden-vilsack, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/41108/18011_aer785_1_.pdf?v=0) Mergers and acquisitions are one reason for the dramatic increase. Another reason, as the USDA’s Economic Research Service states, is that, “packers built bigger plants. In 1980, the average beef-packing plant owned by one of the top four firms handled 417,000 cattle; by 2002, that average plant size had more than doubled to more than 1 million head. Hog packers also built much larger plants: Nearly 90 percent of all hogs moved through plants handling at least 1 million hogs a year by 1997, compared with 38 percent just 20 years before.” (https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/january/concentration-in-u-s-meatpacking-industry-and-how-it-affects-competition-and-cattle-prices/) Data from Johns Hopkins University finds that the vast majority of U.S. poultry and pork products come from facilities that each produce over 200,000 chickens… while most egg-laying hens are confined in facilities that house over 100,000 birds at a time. (Johns Hopkins, 2014) These large-scale facilities have increasingly put pressure on smaller, more local meat processing plants as they try to compete in an Economy of Scale. As a result, many medium- and small scale plants are closing nationwide, leaving producers with fewer options to process meat. (https://farmaction.us/concentrationdata/)

Regarding the beef industry, consolidation is nothing new. In what is known today as the Beef Trust, late 19th- and early 20th century corrupted inspection policy allowed for the beef packing industry to reach a near monopoly. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4480058) Competition improved after Congress passed the Packers and Stock Yard Act of 1921 to “assure fair competition and fair trade practices, to safeguard farmers and ranchers…to protect consumers…and to protect members of the livestock, meat, and poultry industries from unfair, deceptive, unjustly discriminatory and monopolistic practices….” (https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/packers-and-stockyards-act) Since then, consolidation has been allowed to slowly creep back up, particularly in the time since the 1980’s. Numerous smaller cattle markets have gone out of business during that time, leaving that slice of the market even more concentrated, which means farmers are left with only one or two buyers in many local geographic markets. (https://farmaction.us/concentrationdata/)

Further down the supply chain is no better. The current stranglehold that the top four American beef slaughtering and processing companies hold means they now slaughter 85% of steer and heifers nationwide (https://www.agrinews-pubs.com/business/2023/07/19/study-focuses-on-ag-consolidation-impacts/), while earning 82 percent of sales. (https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-control-us-beef-industry-2021-06-17/) You know conditions are unfair when even McDonald’s is crying foul! (https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/mcdonalds-sues-major-beef-producers-us-price-fixing-lawsuit-2024-10-07/). Thankfully, the issue has at least been expressed to Congress. Regardless, Justin Tupper, rancher and manager of South Dakota’s St. Onge Livestock sale barn, testified in 2021, telling politicians the issue. He told them, “Since 2015, corporate packers’ gross margin has ballooned from an average of $100 to $200 per head to well over $1,000 per head. Packers have enjoyed unbelievable profits, harvesting around 120,000 head per day while cattle producers go out of business and consumers pay double or even triple at the meat counter… ” (https://www.tsln.com/news/sds-tupper-urges-competition-in-senate-ag-hearing/) Watch this Youtube video from Vox to meet Justin and learn more about unfair conditions producers face in the beef supply chain.

In 2021, the House Committee on Agriculture “directed USDA to investigate the vulnerability of the beef supply chain and the level of concentration in the industry. In 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order, “Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” which referred specifically to meatpacking concentration and its effects on financial returns to farmers and ranchers. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice—charged with enforcing the Nation’s antitrust laws—jointly issued revisions to their “Merger Guidelines” aimed at concentration in U.S. industries.” (https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/january/concentration-in-u-s-meatpacking-industry-and-how-it-affects-competition-and-cattle-prices/) Whether this is cause for optimism or just paying lip service to farmers is up for debate.

Broiler chicken producers have also felt the squeeze from mass consolidation. Chicken was primarily a luxury meat before World War II and was often thought of as the byproduct of slaughtering older laying hens or extra males. After WWII, industry technology and scientific advancements changed the game, and production was driven sky-high. The 1970s are often credited as the decade where chicken production really took off and “evolved from fragmented, locally oriented businesses into a highly efficient, vertically integrated, progressive success story”, according to the U.S. National Chicken Council. (https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/history/) Vertical integration, indeed, is the name of the game in today’s poultry industry. In fact, more than 90 percent of all chickens raised for human consumption in the United States are produced by independent farmers working under contract with integrated chicken production and processing companies. (https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/industry-issues/vertical-integration/) Of the remaining ten percent, most broilers come from company-owned farms, while only less than one percent are raised by individual growers. Other meat industries appear to be following suit, and the vertical approach to meat production isn’t just limited to chicken.

There is no denying that industrialization has led to an increase in chicken production and lowered the price. The graph below depicts the meteoric rise in chicken production over the past sixty years. As a result, the price of a pound of chicken is nearly half of what it cost in 1980, using average price data. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1c04c) However, as with increased production of numerous other crops and livestock protein, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so it’s necessary to investigate the effects of modern broiler production on all facets of the supply chain to understand the true costs of production. One often overlooked cost is the human element. Unfortunately, anecdotes from many poultry producers reveal a high level of mistreatment. One producer commented that working under contract made them feel like an indentured slave. (https://apnews.com/general-news-93141db585a648d4bdb488ba18d3e59a) The documentary Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! provides a deeper-dive into the challenges that contract poultry producers face while working in the world of vertical integration. Another cost is the environmental damage that large poultry houses can cause. Large quantities of poultry litter and manure, dust and volatile gasses increase the risk of local air pollution (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-04-26/air-pollution-surging-across-poultry-megafarming-hotspots/) and water pollution (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68221223, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/24/463976110/when-a-chicken-farm-moves-next-door-odor-may-not-be-the-only-problem) in local areas and watersheds connected to large poultry facilities.

In this article, chicken came before the egg, but both are important topics of discussion. The egg industry is not nearly as consolidated as the beef and broiler industry, but some consolidation has occurred throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2023, the top 10 egg producers in the United States control about half the country’s eggs. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellenierenberg/2023/01/27/cracking-open-the-issue-of-high-egg-prices/) Even so, the big players in the space make enormous sums of money, which was particularly striking during the egg shortage of 2023 when the United States’ largest egg producer, Cal-Maine Foods, saw profits rise 718% as prices skyrocketed. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/03/29/countrys-largest-egg-producer-saw-profits-surge-718-amid-shortage/) Egg producers in many countries reported slight increases in gross margin as the price of eggs rose in the early 2020’s, but nothing close to the level that companies like Cal-Maine raked in. As British Free-Range Egg Producers’ Associtation chief executive Robert Gooch put it, “There have been small rises in the price of eggs in shops, but that money has evaporated before it gets to the farmgate. It’s the same old story of the farmer at the bottom of the chain being the last to see any price rise.” (https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/poultry/layers/egg-producers-on-the-brink-as-30-cost-rise-wipes-out-profits) Same story, different industry.

Finally, the pork industry. Jason Detzel of Cornell University has written an excellent piece on the history of the American pork industry, which can be viewed here. In it, he details some of the transition hogs made in the 20th century from small farm, food scrap converters to large facility, hyper-efficient products. This transition coincided very nicely with increased consumer demand for low-fat products, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century when saturated fat was painted as a dietary villain. In addition, seed oils quickly replaced animal fats on the market, so lard production became an undesirable trait. The hog industry consequently used genetics, nutrition and new machinery to produce higher lean-to-fat ratio animals ready for harvest in ever shorter timescales. Rapid consolidation of the industry followed, particularly in the 1990’s, when “the number of operations shrank and the survivors became larger and more sophisticated, setting the foundation for vertical integration.” (https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/hog-nutrition/on-the-move-the-pork-industry-s-history-of-innovation) Concentration in the hog industry occurred more slowly than beef, for example, but by 2019 the four largest meatpackers still accounted for 67% of all hog purchases. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/january/concentration-in-u-s-meatpacking-industry-and-how-it-affects-competition-and-cattle-prices/) Hog production also appears to be following suit of other industries by implementing more vertical integration in its supply chains. U.S. National Farmer’s Union president Robert Larew says that, “while chicken growers have historically had the least power in the marketplace, increasingly, pork producers are finding themselves in similar positions.” Larew also warns that, “ranchers are worried that conditions are right for an even more accelerated level of concentration [in beef].” (https://civileats.com/2021/07/14/just-a-few-companies-control-the-meat-industry-can-a-new-approach-to-monopolies-level-the-playing-field/) Hog producers, beware.

As one can imagine, being an oligarch in the beef, poultry and pork industries provides handsome financial returns. JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, has seen revenue rise from $31.4 Billion in 2010 to an astounding $72.9 Billion in 2023. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JBSAY/jbs-sa/revenue) Tyson Foods’ revenue has risen from $27 Billion in 2009 to over $54 Billion in 2024. (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSN/tyson-foods/net-profit-margin), while Perdue revenue has risen from $4 Billion in 2012 to $11 Billion in 2023. (https://www.forbes.com/companies/perdue-farms/) Once again, companies should not be shamed simply because they achieve high levels of success and wealth. That’s the point of the free market: Some companies figure out how to adapt, thrive and provide products and services better than other companies, and they subsequently get rewarded by the consumer for doing so. However, highly concentrated markets distort pure competition, and fairness often takes a backseat to profit at all cost. One cost, environmental damage, is a topic of discussion later in this article. This corruption of the free market occurs at any level of business where humans are involved, but the sheer quantity of money in an industry like meat makes the temptation to cheat that much higher. One piece of evidence that these titans of the meat industry put profit before their people is that they often refuse their responsibility to pay their employees what they deserve. Don’t just take it from me. Take it from an ongoing 2024 court case where JBS, Tyson, Perdue and others have been found guilty of sharing confidential information with one another to keep workers’ wages artificially low. JBS has agreed to pay $55 million, Tyson has agreed to pay $77 million and Perdue has agreed to pay a cool $1.25 million. The remaining defendants in the case include many of the oligrachs previously discussed, including Cargill, Hormel, National Beef and Smithfield. (https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tyson-jbs-pay-127-million-resolve-workers-wage-fixing-lawsuit-2024-03-11/#:~:text=March%2011%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Meat,case%20in%20Colorado%20federal%20court.) Given the enormous amount of revenue these companies bring in, conspiring to pay employees below is a truly bad visual and further evidence that top executives of these companies care more about lining their pockets than the well-being of the people and communities they purportedly support.

The processing and handling of crops and meat is no different than any other industry in that Economies of Scale ideology, and mass consolidation has taken hold in a big way over the past 100-plus years. Winners in this lucrative race have made out like bandits, just like Amazon and Google have dominated their respective industries. Another giant, Walmart, highlights the subject of the next section: supermarkets.

Supermarkets

Miraculous by historical standards, most supermarkets in developed nations are filled to the brim with groceries and other essentials produced with ingredients from all around globe. Historians often cit the 1915 opening of Astor Market in New York City as the first attempt at a store using Economies of Scale to offer a wide variety of grocery options at lower prices. Unfortunately for them, consumers much preferred neighborhood corner shops to larger shops like Astor and the store went out of business. (https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/11/astormarket.html) Consumer opinion slowly changed between 1915 and today, and many historians cite Clarence Saunders’ opening of the first Piggly Wiggly in 1916 as the true catalyst that set America and many other nations on a crash course with mega, self-service supermarkets. (https://www.slateam.com/grocery/) At the time of the first Piggly Wiggly’s opening, local mom-and-pop stores provided the vast majority of grocery, pharmacy and specialty products to a community. Think of the local butcher, shoe cobbler and watch maker. At grocery stores, customers would provide store keepers with a list of desired products and the keeper would fulfill their order. Clarence Saunders had other ideas. His Piggly Wiggly stores were to showcase products on shelves and have customers walk through the store and pick out what they wanted. It’s strange for us modern grocery shoppers to think this was revolutionary, but, according to John Stanton, professor of food marketing at St. John’s University, showcasing products to the customer was an absolute game-changer. He writes, “That [method] meant consumers could make decisions as to what it was they wanted to buy, and that really led to companies trying to catch consumers’ attention. It’s really the origin of branding.” (https://time.com/4480303/supermarkets-history/) Many grocery stores followed suit after the success of Piggly Wiggly’s new strategy, including the 1930 opening of King Cullen in New York City and the transition of existing grocery stores like Kroger and Safeway to the Piggly Wiggly model. King Cullen’s introduction to the market was especially transformative because they were the first to have a bakery, a butcher and thousands of everyday products in one convenient location alongside the typical dry good groceries offered at grocery stores up to that point. (https://stacker.com/business-economy/history-supermarket-industry-america)

World War II benefited many of these new supermarket chains as local mom-and-pop shops suspended business while family members took jobs supporting the war effort. Bigger stores like the Piggly Wiggly and Kroger could afford to lose a few employees. Small family shops simply could not. As it turns out, a perfect storm of conditions was brewing for large supermarket chains to thrive post-WWII. Aside from fewer competitors, larger supermarkets benefited as demand for groceries sharply increased all across the nation thanks to the baby boom of 1946-1964. A few fortuitous conditions allowed supermarkets to comfortably feed this growing population throughout the 20th century. For starters, the U.S. government released its enormous reserves of food that had been stockpiled during the war, allowing supermarkets to weather the initial rise in demand. Second, America’s mighty industrial sector transitioned from producing wartime materials to consumer goods and domestic products. Agriculture benefited greatly as factories mass-produced items like nitrogen fertilizer and tractors, making them more cost-effective for farmers. Cheaper inputs, Green Revolution technology and Earl Butzian policy formed the triumvirate of conditions that drove American food production in the 20th century. American consumers in the 1940’s and 50’s greatly appreciated these stocked shelves after experiencing the Great Depression and many years of wartime rationing. Families were also able to spend more at the store thanks to a booming economy and rising wages.

Supermarkets slowly embedded themselves in American society and their success became a symbol of American capitalistic strength. So unique were American supermarkets that world leaders often made detours on official state visits to check one out for themselves. Visits include Queen Elizabeth in 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 and Soviet President Boris Yeltson in 1989 during the height of the Cold War. (https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/food/online/new-and-improved/superhighways-supermarkets/supermarkets-symbols) Yeltson’s visit to Randall’s Supermarket in Clear Lake, Texas was so influential that it shaped the former president’s views on communism. (https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/houston-matters/2020/02/21/361467/boris-yelstins-1989-visit-to-a-houston-grocery-store-is-now-an-opera/) As he later recounted in his autobiography, “When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort… for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people.” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/supermarkets-are-a-miracle/612244/)

Throughout the 20th century, nations across the globe adopted the self-service supermarket model as wages and standards of living rose. Tesco in the United Kingdom and Carrefour in France are two examples of chains that greatly expanded their market share in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike shoppers at Astor Market in 1915, post-WWII consumers appreciated the variety, convenience and low prices that large supermarkets could offer. The rules of engagement had been set, and the race to the bottom was on for supermarkets to offer the most variety and convenience at the lowest possible price. Enter Sam Walton.

On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened the very first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas and changed the way consumers shopped forever. (https://corporate.walmart.com/about/history) Walton was laser-focused from the beginning on offering customers the cheapest possible price. Even today, most Walmart products receive only around 1-5% profit margin. (https://www.cascade.app/studies/walmart-strategy-study) By 1980, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. eclipsed $1 billion in sales and by 1990 had became America’s top retailer. (https://corporate.walmart.com/about/history) Walmart’s latest figures reveal the company achieved over $600 Billion in net sales. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/183399/walmarts-net-sales-worldwide-since-2006/) In addition, the company sells more groceries than three of its closest competitors. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-6274-9_6) Overall, Walmart holds a quarter of the grocery store market in the United States, with Costco a distant second place at 7.1%.

Interestingly, the largest supermarket brands in various nations around the world have also secured around a quarter of their nation’s grocery market. Tesco holds around 28% in the United Kingdom (https://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/grocery-market-share/great-britain), Edeka Group holds around 25% in Germany and Groupement E. Leclerc holds just north of 24% in France (https://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/grocery-market-share/france).

Mergers and acquisitions are rife in the supermarket industry, as data from the U.S. census bureau reveals there are nearly one-third fewer grocery stores in 2020 than there were in 1995. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation) this leaves consumers with fewer choices, even in densely populated areas. In fact, inhabitants of most metropolitan areas only have five to six store chains on average to choose from. (https://www.agrinews-pubs.com/business/2023/07/19/study-focuses-on-ag-consolidation-impacts/) Notable mergers and acquisitions in recent history include Tesco’s £3.7bn takeover of Booker in 2017 (the combination of Britain’s biggest retailer and wholesaler), Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 and the $9.7bn takeover of Morrisons in the UK by the American private equity fund group CD&R in 2021. (https://www.insider.co.uk/news/sainsburys-asda-tesco-booker-deals-12452889, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58962054) Fortunately, government competition groups have challenged and/or stopped even larger mega-deals that would negatively harm consumer choice and sticker price. Two recent examples include the proposed merger of the UK’s second and third largest supermarket chains, Sainsbury’s and ASDA in 2019 (https://www.ig.com/uk/news-and-trade-ideas/shares-news/sainsbury-and-asda-supermarket-merger-blocked-by-competition-wat-190425) and the proposed merger of the fifth and tenth largest supermarket chains in the U.S., Kroger and Albertsons, in 2022 (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/26/investing/kroger-albertsons-merger-blocked-ftc/index.html).

Despite the work of watchdog groups, independent grocers are still concerned that power is too concentrated in the supermarket space and that this concentration is hurting their ability to compete. (https://www.supermarketnews.com/finance/nga-calls-for-crackdown-on-grocery-retail-power-buyers-) In 2021, the National Grocers Association (NGA) in the U.S. held a press conference “urging federal lawmakers and regulators to clamp down on big-box and online grocery “giants,” claiming these and other large chain retailers engage in anticompetitive behavior that puts independent grocers at a marked disadvantage in supply and pricing.” These words were spoken on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic where large supermarkets survived the battle of attrition and were able to maintain relatively stocked shelves and keep prices from spiking due to their economic sway with suppliers. (https://www.supermarketnews.com/finance/nga-calls-for-crackdown-on-grocery-retail-power-buyers-) Many smaller stores struggled to survive or closed their doors during the pandemic, while revenue for bigger stores like Walmart, whose revenue rose 3% during the pandemic, made it to the other side. The pandemic was certainly never smooth sailing for any supermarket, but the larger stores were able to weather the storm more efficiently than the smallest among them. One reason why is due to the fact that 82% of food stamp dollars were spent in the largest supermarkets and superstores like Krogers, Walmart, Costco and Sam’s Club, meaning the taxpayer indirectly added $64bn to their revenue. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation) It’s no wonder, then, that the largest supermarket chains are performing very will in the post-pandemic economy, especially given the lower number of competitors around to negotiate prices. (https://www.cspinet.org/sites/default/files/attachment/Rigged%20report_0.pdf) In 2022, Kroger reported an operating profit of over $4 billion and Walmart had an operating profit of $21 billion. (https://qz.com/supermarket-prices-grocery-food-inflation-pandemic-1851369826) Amazon, who saw a total operating income of $12 billion in 2022, has made it well known that they are keen to improve upon this number moving forward and grow their influence in the supermarket space. (https://www.axios.com/pro/retail-deals/newsletters/2023/04/13/retail-amazon-spotlights-grocery)

The modern food system deserves credit for its role in helping to prevent mass starvation during both pandemic and non-pandemic periods. Many families still struggle with food insecurity, so this isn’t to ignore their situations, but the industrial model of today produces food at an affordable price for most consumers. Shelves are stocked with $3 cans of soup, not $300 cans of soup. In fact, larger supermarkets, in conjunction with behemoths throughout the agricultural supply chain, have had the positive effect of lowering the cost of basic goods like groceries and apparel during the 20th and 21st centuries. In the United Kingdom, about a third of household income was spent on food in 1940 compared to 12% in 2016. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-uks-food-history-revealed-through-five-generations-of-data) In the United States, spending on food and apparel shrunk from 60% of a family’s budget in 1900 to 17% in the year 2003. (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-america-spends-money-100-years-in-the-life-of-the-family-budget/255475/) Of course, these statistics concurrently rely on rising incomes, but lower food prices certainly play a significant role. These results of the industrial food system are difficult not to root for, especially when considering the needs of families of lower socioeconomic status or during times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. For that, the modern, Western food system deserves credit. However, sticker price is only a portion of the true cost, just as it was with the dramatic decrease in the price of chicken. Aside from rising healthcare and environmental costs, both of which will be discussed in later sections, another talking point when considering cheap food is whether the consolidation of something as necessary for survival as food in the hands of a small number of elite supermarkets is a risk that consumers should be accepting in the first place. People are able to dramatically vary or eliminate spending on most items, but food is not one of them. Yes, consumers do respond to times of economic downturn by obtaining their groceries more frequently from value stores like Dollar General (https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2022/07/11/a-look-back-at-the-great-recession-and-how-it-changed-the-retail-landscape) or food banks (https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/feeding-america-network-stays-resilient-during-covid-19-crisis), but the fact is there’s no getting around a family’s need to acquire food every week of the year. We are truly a captive audience, and the over-concentration of supermarkets leaves us more at risk to the threat of price gouging and market fragility and resiliency. (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p162318supplychainreport2024.pdf)

From a supplier standpoint, fewer supermarkets also means that food companies are limited in who they can sell their products to. This has created a hyper-competitive environment in which food companies compete against one another for coveted shelf space in the Walmarts and Tescos of the world. The most lucrative positions in stores, such as shelves at eye level, end caps and product areas near the check-out, can cost food companies millions in fees. (https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/tesco-suppliers-asked-to-pay-for-eye-level-display/350985.article) “All told,” writes University of North Florida marketing professor Gregory T. Gundlach, “supermarkets collect more than $50 billion a year in trade fees and discounts from food and beverage companies.” These fee structures allow giant food corporations like Tostitos and PepsiCo to easily outcompete their smaller competitors for shelf space. “As a result,” Gundlach remarks, “the food system is rigged against everyone but the big food manufacturers with big marketing budgets, which tend to be the most established companies and brands.” (https://www.cspinet.org/sites/default/files/attachment/Rigged%20report_0.pdf)

Research backs up Gundlach’s claims. A 2021 joint investigation by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch found that consumer choice in the supermarket is largely an illusion. But how could this be? Customers are bombarded with thousands of products every time they step into the supermarket. The answer, as you might have guessed, is that the food and drink industry is extremely consolidated, arguably more consolidated than any of the sectors previously investigated. Results from the aforementioned joint investigation by the Guardian found that four firms or fewer controlled at least 50% of the market for 79% of the groceries we purchase. Worse yet, the top firms controlled at least 75% of the market share for almost a third of shopping items. Remember our old friends JBS and Tyson? JBS owns over 100 separate brands (https://jbsfoodsgroup.com/our-brands), while Tyson owns over 30 brands, many of which are recognizable in their own right. (https://www.tysonfoods.com/our-brands) Another example is PepsiCo, the food and beverage giant who controls 88% of the dip market thanks to its ownership of five of the most popular brands including Tostitos, Lay’s and Fritos. Once a simple soda company with humble beginnings in New Bern, North Carolina, PepsiCo now owns popular brands like Quaker, Gatorade, Aquafina, Cheetos, Doritos and many others. Check out the “Illusion of Choice” chart below to see how PepsiCo and nine other of the largest food companies own an enormous amount of recognizable grocery brands. It’s incredible to see in this format, and it shows the wide variety of products the giants control. After all, who thinks of PepsiCo when they open up a new box of Captain Crunch? Speaking of breakfast cereals, 73% of breakfast cereals on the shelves are controlled by the top four largest players in the space. On the drink side, 93% of the sodas we drink are owned by just three companies: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Keurig Dr. Pepper. Many more statistics of the like can found in this interactive article from the Guardian which cleverly visualizes the extent of concentration in nearly aisle of the supermarket.

As a result, the supermarket supplier oligarchy are enjoying a time of massive financial sales and returns. Nestle, the world’s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company, achieved $99 billion in global net sales in 2023. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/260963/leading-fmcg-companies-worldwide-based-on-sales/) Pepsico came in second with a meager $86 billion in net sales, enough to ensure CEO Ramon Laguarta made over $26 million in total compensation for the fiscal year ending in 2023, $10 million of which came from stock award value. (https://www1.salary.com/Ramon-L-Laguarta-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-Pepsico-Inc.html) Another giant, Mondelez, brought in over $4 billion in net profit in 2023, and Dirk Van de Put, CEO of Mondelez International, made over $21 million in compensation in his own right. (https://www1.salary.com/Dirk-Van-de-Put-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-MONDELEZ-INTERNATIONAL-INC.html)

At the end of the day, most food and drink suppliers, as well as supermarket giants, are publicly held companies with shareholders to appease. Money talks, and processed food and drink are incredibly profitable products for the companies that produce and sell them. For example, candy typically has a profit margin between 50% and 80% (https://finanssenteret.as/en/the-profit-margin-on-candy-everything-you-need-to-know/), soda ranges from around 30-70% (https://www.profitableventure.com/income-soda-retailers-margin-bottle/) and even frozen slushy drinks hover around 80% profit margin. (https://restaurant-update.co.uk/2020/11/09/revealed-top-5-most-profitable-food-and-drink-items-in-the-uk/) Most supermarkets operate on profit margins around 2.2%, with higher-end natural stores running on 5-10% profit margins. (https://thegrocerystoreguy.com/what-is-the-profit-margin-for-grocery-stores/) Most supermarkets rely on high volume, the Walmart strategy, so selling high profit margin processed food is naturally incentivized, as these products are very good for their bottom line. In fact, this is a big reason why gas stations earn more money on food and drink purchases than actual fuel sales these days. (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/economics-gas-station-rcna19516)

Highly processed foods are profitable because agricultural products like corn, soy, wheat, sugar, cattle and dairy are heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer. This essentially means that the cost of raw material is kept low for companies that make processed foods. Look at the ingredient list of most packaged foods the next time you’re in the store. You’ll likely see a bevy of subsidized ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, flour and soybean oil if you’re in the United States. Large food companies subsequently spend millions of their profit dollars on lobbying and political donations to maintain these subsidies and other influences within the food and drink industry. In 2020, the 30 American food and beverage companies who gave away the most on lobbying spent a combined $38.2 million. (https://www.fooddive.com/news/where-the-dollars-go-lobbying-a-big-business-for-large-food-and-beverage-c/607982/) In addition, the top 15 American food and drink companies donated a combined $8.2 million to the Biden and Trump campaigns in the 2020 presidential race and have so far spent $4.5 during the 2024 presidential race, as of September 22, 2024. (https://www.fooddive.com/news/campaign-election-donations-food-beverage-companies-trump-harris/728411/) Maybe these millions are given out of the kindness of their hearts as a genuine gesture in the hopes of protecting the American food system. Who knows. More likely, at least to this cycnic, they’re expecting Washington D.C. to return the favor with a back scratch of their own at a later date.

To sum up, supermarkets and large food companies are becoming increasingly consolidated and top-heavy, just like the input industry and the farming and ranching sector that were investigated earlier. Economies of Scale methodology has its grip on this all-important sector of the food system, no doubt about it. However, as most people know, likely from personal experience, today’s average consumer doesn’t go to the grocery store, pick out their weekly groceries, prepare their meals and eat most of their meals inside of the home like they once did. In fact, the percentage of meals eaten outside of the home has been increasing for decades, which is why it’s necessary to highlight the growth of another important sector that feeds millions every day, namely, the restaurant.

Interestingly, many of these behemoths don’t have much say. They are beholden to shareholders like BlackRock, Vanguard and Fidelity. (UPP chapter 18)

Restaurants

The concept of the restaurant is nothing new. Historians believe the first establishments to resemble the modern restaurant appeared near the Chinese cities of Kaifeng and Hangzhou around 1100 AD. (https://www.history.com/news/first-restaurants-china-france) These cities were home to around a million inhabitants and many hungry tradesman traveling for work, making it a perfect location to prepare and sell cooked meals. 400 years late across the East China Sea, Japanese restaurant culture bloomed out of their teahouse traditions of honoring seasonal and local food and drink. About the same time, French establishments called “table d’hôte” emerged, which were fixed price meals eaten family-style around large tables among friends and strangers alike. While table d’hôte did resemble restaurants from the standpoint that customers enter and eat prepared food, historians don’t consider these true restaurants because meals were only served at one time during the day and there was no menu or choice. It wasn’t until the 1760’s that the French created the first true restaurant, born out of a desire for the wealthy merchant class in urban areas to distinguish themselves from poorer classes. Heaven forbid they get caught eating something as embarrassing as brown bread or onions and sausage! Thus, so-called bouillon restaurants emerged, providing a space for well-to-do’s to consume luxurious bowls of nutritious bone broth-based dishes. Bouillon restaurants were also unique in that they created printed menus and gave customers the option to choose whichever dish they wanted that day. Eventually, the menu slowly widened to include a variety of options like most restaurants do today. (https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Restaurant-Gastronomic-Culture-Historical/dp/0674241770/ref=dp_ob_title_bk) French restaurant culture slowly diffused outward into other nations in the subsequent decades as wealthy citizenry wanted high brow eating establishments of their own. In London, for example, Dowling’s opening in 1810 appears to be the first to call itself a restaurant. (https://localhistories.org/from-humble-eateries-to-global-gastronomy-a-bite-sized-history-of-london-restaurants/) Check out historian Rebecca Spang’s book The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Gastronomic Culture for much more information on the fascinating history of restaurants.

In America, the first fine-dining restaurant is believed to be Delmonico’s, located in the sprawling urban town called New York City. Delmonico’s opened its doors in 1837 and has operated in the same location ever since, giving the world culinary classics such as the Delmonico steak, eggs benedict and baked Alaska. (https://www.history.com/news/first-restaurants-china-france) Antoine’s in New Orleans is another famous restaurant that sprang up around that time dedicated to providing French-style high class meals. At the time, most of these high-class meals in the U.S. were served in hotels, but Delmonico’s and Antoine’s bucked the trend by serving food as stand-alone food establishments. Even with a handful of fine-dining establishments, the restaurant scene was fairly slow catch on in the States, leading many European visitors to mock American cuisine during their travels. Even Charles Dickens described his first trip to America in 1842 as a “culinary disaster” after receiving what he described as “piles of indigestible matter.” (https://daily.jstor.org/the-first-american-restaurants-culinary-concoctions/, https://www.slurrp.com/article/a-brief-history-of-dining-out-american-style-amp-how-it-evolved-over-200-years-1692964007535) The tide began to turn as American industry picked up steam and urban cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia swelled in population. Restaurants began to pop up near these industrial hubs and, as a result, many factory workers chose to eat their lunch at these local restaurants. Interestingly, the majority of people that worked in American restaurants in the 1880’s were born outside of the U.S., just like it was in the 1980’s and as it is today in 2024. (https://news.yale.edu/2017/05/05/yale-historian-paul-freedman-history-american-restaurants-and-paradox-food)

The Industrial Revolution was also instrumental in the rise of the restaurant thanks to more accessible transportation for the public. Trains provided the opportunity for more people to travel, which necessitated finding a place to eat while they were away. Not only could people travel greater distances, but so could products like meat. This, combined with new food processing and handling technology, afforded restaurants the opportunity to invest in infrastructure and provide for a larger customer base. One such style of food establishment that emerged in the early 20th century was the “automat”, a self-serving cafeteria of sorts that was popular in the northeastern U.S. Popularity of the automat waned as quickly as it waxed. In the coming decades, demand slowly decreased as urban residents moved to suburban areas, particularly after World War II. (https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/article/a-bite-sized-history-of-fast-food/) What didn’t die down during the 20th century was the so-called “fast food” restaurant.

White Castle’s introduction to the market in 1921 is traditionally cited as the beginning of the fast food industry. At that time, customer opinion of beef consumption was still tainted from the scathing details of the Chicago meatpacking industry revealed in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 classic The Jungle. Founder Walt Anderson decided the best way to calm customer fears would be to prepare the meat in view of the customer, a decision which changed restaurant culture forever. As a result, he had ingeniously designed a hamburger cooking model that could provide customers with a safe, uniform hamburger that customers knew would taste the same no matter the location. The speed at which each order was completed was also an added bonus that customers appreciated. Thanks to his success, and the meteoric rise in automobile ownership, various fast food burger joints popped up across the nation throughout the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s.

One simply can’t discuss the rise of the restaurant without mentioning the rise of the automobile. The two are joined at the hip, and it’s no coincidence that the world’s leading restaurant rating system is run by a tire company! (https://guide.michelin.com/kr/en/article/features/history-michelin-guide) The rise in car ownership happened staggeringly quick: 1 in 13 families had an automobile in 1918. That number rose to 4 in 5 families eleven years later in 1929. The total number of cars on the road during that stretch increased from 8 million to 23 million. (https://worldhistory.us/american-history/cars-in-the-1920s-the-early-automobile-industry.php) Americans and citizens of other developed nations were now on the go and they brought their appetite with them wherever they went. The restaurant industry responded to this call to feed the mobile by opening various drive-in restaurants where people could sit in their car and have food brought to them. One example is Pig Stand, the famous pork BBQ restaurant in the Dallas/Fort Worth area that opened in 1921, the same year as White Castle. (https://www.thedailymeal.com/1052707/what-was-the-first-drive-in-restaurant-established-in-the-u-s/) Pig Stand’s slogan was, “A delightful meal, served at your wheel!” The drive-in restaurant model remained a fairly popular option throughout the mid-20th century, and we see remnants of this age with chains like Sonic, but the sit-down fast food model would prove over time to win out. In addition, a clever innovation in the 1940’s would soon be introduced to sit-down restaurants that would allow for customers to stay in their vehicle without the need for a carhop. The fast-food industry was about to reach stratospheric heights.

Rising wages, population and enthusiasm for consumerism after World War II provided the perfect kindling to set the fast food restaurant industry ablaze in the latter half of the 20th century. Importantly, a new form of vehicular meal acquisition arrived shortly after the troops came marching home with the introduction of the drive-thru window in 1947. West coast chains like In-N-Out and Jack in the Box quickly adopted the drive-thru, and it continued to change the way Americans thought about meals. Gone were the days of meals eaten exclusively around a table with family, friends or, in the case of table d’hote, strangers. Americans fully embraced the drive-thru for its unmatched convenience. Only home food delivery is perhaps a more convenient method of getting food in one’s mouth. Interestingly, major chains like Wendy’s and McDonald’s were actually quite slow to introduce the drive-thru to their customers. In fact, it wasn’t until 1975 that McDonald’s opened their first drive-thru in Sierra Vista, Arizona. (https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/first-mcd-drivethru.html) Mickey D’s was fortunate in that they could afford to be a late adopter. Business was booming without it.

In much the same way as Walmart, McDonald’s designed their business model around razor-sharp efficiency and replicability. Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernadino, California in 1940. Originally a burger drive-in, the brothers soon devised the “Speedee Service System” and ditched the drive-in model by 1948. This new model of efficiency divided food preparation into individual stations, simplified their menu and replaced dishes and glassware with disposable versions. (https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/article/a-bite-sized-history-of-fast-food/) The brothers even designed spatulas, condiment dispensers and spinning platforms to improve the efficiency of making burgers. As Tim Harford of the BBC wrote, “What Henry Ford had done for cars, the McDonald brothers did for hamburgers and French fries: they broke down processes into simple, repetitive tasks.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51208592) Even so, it was Ray Kroc, the business shark who took the brothers’ ideas in 1954 and expanded it into an empire, who later said, “I put the hamburger on the assembly line.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/sungardas/2014/01/14/become-a-better-leader-ray-kroc-mcdonalds-and-his-ten-recipes-for-success/) Economies of Scale methodologies had reached the restaurant industry, and Kroc was about to cash in big, as the assembly-line methodology worked like a charm. Other entrepreneurs took notice and decided to join in on the fun, such as Keith G. Cramer’s new burger joint he called Burger King, which opened in 1953. Today, there are over 38,000 McDonald’s and 18,000 Burger Kings operating in over 100 countries.

The number and diversity of fast food restaurants in America has expanded tremendously since the mid-20th century. Reasons include the success of Japanese and German car industries, Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System and the further development of suburbia. These factors led to the emergence of different types of fast food restaurants outside of the typical burger and french fry, such as those that specialize in chicken, sandwiches, chicken sandwiches and various ethnic foods. Restaurants that fit this bill would be Kentucky Fried Chicken (1954), Pizza Hut (1958), Taco Bell (1962, only after switching from burgers to Mexican-style cuisine) and Subway (1965). (https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/article/a-bite-sized-history-of-fast-food/) Today, in 2024, there are over 200,000 fast food restaurants operating in the U.S., and the American fast food market is valued at $331 billion. That’s a third of a trillion dollars. Let that sink in. All kinds of fast food restaurants have emerged since White Castle sold its first slider for 5 cents, including those that specialize in Asian cuisine like Chinese, Indian and Thai. Despite this, the burger still reigns supreme. 2023 cumulative sales for burgers rang in at $92.2 billion, more than double the next category of “snack”, which came in at $42.5 billion and nearly tripling the third category of “chicken” at $36 billion. (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-most-popular-fast-food-brands-in-america/) Unsurprisingly, McDonald’s leads the way as America’s top fast food chain with $46 billion in annual sales, which is why they’re able to spend a whopping $1 billion of revenue on advertising alone. (https://worldmetrics.org/mcdonalds-statistics/) The restaurant industry is wildly competitive, however, and McDonald’s doesn’t have near the market share that was observed by Walmart and Tescos. Consumer demand and preference are simply too big and too varied. McDonald’s simply doesn’t have the capacity to feed the 36.6% or 84.4 million American adults that consume some kind of fast food on any given day. (https://www.zippia.com/advice/us-fast-food-industry-statistics/)

Despite the unfathomable amount of Big Macs and double stuffed crust pizzas eaten from sea to shining to sea, China now has the largest market share of the global fast food industry, followed by the United States in second place. (https://worldmetrics.org/global-fast-food-industry-statistics/) The global fast food market is projected to reach $931 billion in value by 2027 (https://worldmetrics.org/fast-food-restaurant-industry-statistics/) and over $1,077 billion by 2034. (https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fast-food-market) It turns out the Standard American Diet, appropriately called the SAD, might be the Standard Global Diet in just a few short years. Bad for waistlines, good for profits.

Another class of restaurant, fast-casual, became a mainstay in the North American restaurant scene in the 1990’s, largely as a healthier alternative to fast food. Fast-casual is defined as “a restaurant that does not offer full table service, but advertises higher quality food than fast-food restaurants, with fewer frozen or processed ingredients.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_casual_restaurant) Think Chipotle, Panera Bread, Shake Shack, Wingstop and Pret a Manger. These restaurants proved an important point, namely that suburban customers and families were willing to pay a premium for high-quality food, says David Strasser, managing director of Swan and Legend Venture Partners. (www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/12/31/why-fast-casual-restaurants-became-the-decades-most-important-food-trend/) Since the Great Recession of 2008/2009, investment has poured into the fast-casual space thanks to it’s generous profit margins and rising consumer demand. As a result, the number of fast-casual restaurants in the United States has risen from around 17,300 in 2009 to 34,800 in 2018, more than doubling in just 10 years. Sales have followed a similar trajectory, with the industry recording $19 billion in 2009 and $47.5 billion in 2018. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/12/31/why-fast-casual-restaurants-became-the-decades-most-important-food-trend/) Globally, the fast casual restaurant market size has reached $211.52 billion, as of 2023. According to research group EMR, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.5% between 2024 and 2032, reaching almost $563.41 billion by 2032. (https://www.expertmarketresearch.com/pressrelease/global-fast-casual-restaurant-market)

Whether it’s fast food, fast-casual or traditional sit-down, many restaurants are doing well financially. One reason is that an enormous amount of people eat meals outside of the house compared to decades past, and somebody’s got to make the $1.1 trillion dollars Americans are willing to spend on food outside of the home. (https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/media/press-releases/restaurant-industry-sales-forecast-to-set-1-1-trillion-record-in-2024/) Unlike commodity farmers and ranchers, restaurants are able to take advantage of this rise in demand by experimenting with different ways to add value to their product and raise the price as needed, within reason, of course. This is in large part why restaurants and other eating-out places take in over a third of the American food dollar, the largest allotment of the food dollar of any industry. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58354) That’s a hefty amount compared to the 7.4 cents that American farmers and ranchers receive for their efforts. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=105572&cpid=email)

American spending on groceries historically dwarfed spending on eating out, but these figures converged in early 2015. Since then, spending on eating out consistently topped spending on groceries, and it’s not that close anymore. By 2022 Americans spent 20% more money on food prepared outside of the home than inside of the home. That number rose to nearly 30% in the first two months of 2023, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. (https://www.axios.com/2023/04/14/restaurants-groceries-retail-sales-spending) This means roughly $130 dollars get spent eating out for every $100 that goes toward groceries, even though it’s cheaper to purchase groceries and cook at home. Having that meal delivered adds even more cost, with Forbes research in 2018 finding that a delivered meal from a restaurant can be up to 5 times more expensive than cooking at home. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/priceonomics/2018/07/10/heres-how-much-money-do-you-save-by-cooking-at-home/) Consumers don’t seem to care that much, though, particularly after developing consumption habits during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Research group McKinsey and Company wrote in 2021 that, “food delivery has become a global market worth more than $150 billion, having more than tripled since 2017. In the United States, the market has more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, following healthy historical growth of 8 percent.” (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/ordering-in-the-rapid-evolution-of-food-delivery) Delivery apps like UberEats, Deliveroo and Just Eat came to the rescue for customers and restaurant owners alike in the early 2020’s, and half or more of their customers don’t appear to be ditching their services now that the lockdowns have been lifted. Consumers appear to remain loyal customers even during periods of high inflation on the cost of goods. (https://kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2023/02/food-for-thought-2023.html) Delivery companies are still challenged economically, however, as DoorDash chief operating officer Christopher Payne told the Wall Street Journal, “This is a cost-intensive business that is low-margin and scale driven.” (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/ordering-in-the-rapid-evolution-of-food-delivery) In reality, the Economies of Scale monster has already wrapped its tentacles around this burgeoning market to a large degree. Consider the Chinese market. China is currently the largest market for food delivery, with a market size of $46.6 billion in 2023. Just two companies, Meituan and Ele.me, control about 90% of all food delivery in the country. In America, large-scale consolidation began before the pandemic in 2018 and 2019, which led to DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub becoming the three main food delivery services. Post-pandemic, DoorDash now rules the roost as it controls over 50% of the American food delivery market. (https://www.businessofapps.com/data/food-delivery-app-market/)

While many eating establishments and delivery apps have indeed thrived in the 21st century, not every food business has experienced this level of success. The restaurant industry in particular is about as greuling and cuthroat as it gets. Given what we’ve already seen in the previous sections, it only makes sense that investors and owners are working tirelessly to de-risk the food service industry by adopting the Economies of Scale model. The rise of the franchise and large corporate restaurant sector is direct evidence of their efforts, and this mass consolidation has spelled trouble for many local restaurants. As an experiment, drive through any town in middle America and you’ll likely see the same restaurants everywhere you go. Shining beacons rising into the sky from the likes of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Sonic, Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings will be observed early and often. The really interesting part is that the first three (KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) are controlled by the same parent company, YUM Brands, just like the latter three (Sonic, Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings) are controlled by the same parent company, Roark Capital. It turns out that ten conglomerates control a significant portion of the restaurant chains found across the nation. It’s the illusion of choice all over again. These restaurant groups, along with behemoths like McDonald’s, are the victors in the Economies of Scale sweepstakes that has taken place over the past few decades. They have merged and consolidated to a large degree and are now able to weather economic storms and hold prices stable significantly better than local mom-and-pop restaurants, and there is no better example of this fact than what has happened in the early 2020’s. Inflationary pressure from world events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the War in Ukraine have left many independent restaurant owners with no choice but to close their doors as the price of energy, food, labor, and rent become too much to bear.

In the U.K., statistics from UKHospitality show that over 30% of restaurants have closed their doors since the beginning of the pandemic. (https://www.ft.com/content/a36ad5fd-db20-4ba8-89ea-e185838c8aa0) More than three restaurants closed every day in 2023 alone, and UKHospitality data suggests this number won’t slow down anytime soon, as roughly 40% of UK restaurant owners are operating at or below break-even point in 2024. (https://www.ft.com/content/a36ad5fd-db20-4ba8-89ea-e185838c8aa0) In the U.S., 110,000 restaurants (17% of the total) shut down during the lockdowns in 2020 (https://www.businessinsider.com/thousands-us-restaurants-closed-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-12?op=1) Two years later, there appears to have been a slight recovery as there are only 72,000 fewer restaurants in 2022 than in 2019, when there were 703,000 restaurants across the nation. (https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/25/business/restaurant-closures/index.html) This isn’t to say that franchises and chains didn’t fail during the pandemic. Every type of restaurant was hit hard during the pandemic and many continue to struggle. Many recognizable names have recently filed for bankruptcy since the pandemic, including Red Lobster and TGI Fridays, while many other restaurants, including Applebee’s, Denny’s, and Outback Steakhouse are shutting down numerous underperforming locations in 2024. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/06/06/major-restaurant-chains-that-have-closed-down-locations-across-the-us-in-2024/) The difference is that these large corporations can temporarily trim the fat when times get lean and expand when the economic environment improves. Independent restaurant owners don’t have that luxury. Losing one or two restaurants to them is often the end of the road, the death of a dream and the ending of a family legacy.

Similar to the previous examples of the small family farm and small mom-and-pop markets, independently owned, local restaurants aren’t necessarily higher on the moral totem pole than franchises or chains. Even McDonald’s started out as one small family owned burger joint, after all. Large companies and corporations simply used the Economies of Scale and assembly line-type methods to their advantage. https://www.businessinsider.com/thousands-us-restaurants-closed-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-12?op=1) Large-scale restaurant consolidation is allowing the biggest players to a adopt new technology, such as AI and robotics, more quickly, providing them with a huge advantage over the competition. (https://medium.com/@garypryor/how-consolidation-is-driving-innovation-in-the-restaurant-industry-b3d49dd7c49a) It’s a winning recipe we’ve observed all throughout this article. In many ways, these restaurants are the inevitable result of the modern global food system and they bring with them their own unique advantages, such as consistency and reliability. Even so, it must be admitted that something valuable is lost when a local restaurant shuts down. It often feels like a piece of that town’s local history goes down with it. And too often it feels like many American, and to a lesser extent British and other European, cities are becoming boring, homogenized copies of each other. One personal example is from a recent summer holiday trip to Barcelona, Spain. In the heart of the city stands the Sagrada Familia cathedral, a unique piece of architecture full of excruciatingly intricate detail both on the exterior and interior. Interestingly, the cathedral began construction in the year 1882 and is still being built as of 2024. This slow, methodical construction of something so beautiful is almost unheard of in today’s world, and it’s truly breathtaking to see in real life. Could they finish the building quicker? Sure they could, but they want to get the details right… and make sure to get all of their siestas in, of course. And that’s not a bad thing, to be clear. It’s a difference in cultures. But what struck me nearly as much as the Sagrada Familia’s beauty were the antithetical mini-cathedrals to Economies of Scale surrounding it. McDonald’s, Costa Coffee, Five Guys, Taco Bell, Burger King and KFC all have shops across the street. Use Google Maps street view to check it out for yourself. It’s quite remarkable to me that a tourist can go from soaking in Gaudí‘s wildly unique takes on architecture and biblical stories one minute and have a tray with a Big Mac, fries and large Coke the next. This juxtaposition of slow, local beauty and multinational efficiency stopped me in my tracks for a few minutes as I pondered just how much the world and food landscape had changed since the first brick was laid in 1882.

Like anything else in life, it’s all about balance. Having a mix of local, charming restaurants and large, multinational ones is desirable in many respects. However, given the near ubiquitous nature of consolidation in the industrial food system, it feels like the pendulum has swung dangerously far in the direction of large food processing, handling and vending corporations, providing them with an outsized advantage over their smaller competitors, and giving them a disproportionate amount power and influence over something so crucial as food and drink. The image below Farm Actions shows how top-heavy various agricultural sectors have become. Keep in mind that experts consider abuses of power to ramp up when the top four corporations control 40% or more of the sector.

Market consolidation is a natural process in the business world, but today’s global economy and technology mean that we’ve reached a critical point where large corporations can innovate and leave their competition in the dust like no other time in history. Think of the billions poured into marketing and AI by the McDonald’s and KFC’s of the world.(https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/09/02/how-technology-is-changing-the-restaurant-business/) The little local diner in small towns across the U.S. simply can’t compete.

At the end of the day, it’s seriously worth considering how the motives of companies like Cargill, Tyson, YUM Brands, Roark Capital and others compare with the motives of consumers and individual farmers and ranchers. Do executives from large multinational corporations really care about the health and financial safety of producers, consumers and the environment? They say they do, but what if a decision will lead to a decrease in stock price? Will corporate executives stand up for producers, consumers and the environment in the face of pressure from stockholders? If you ask them, their motives are pure, like when Kellogg’s CEO suggested that cash-strapped Americans to eat more cheap cereal for dinner out of the kindness of his heart. (https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/kellogg-ceo-cereal-dinner-save-money-2024-2) Maybe he really does think this is helpful and not an opportunity to cash in during a serious economic situation, only he knows.

So far, this article has detailed the winners and losers of the modern, industrial agricultural system mostly through an economic lens. Now, it’s time to look at the effects through a more biological lens. Industrial agriculture was billed as a necessary shift in the fight against the world’s food and nutrition problems, so the next section will lay out how well industrial agriculture has fed and nourished the world, while also discussing the environmental costs incurred during this transition. Human society is built on natural capital, so anything that degrades and destroys natural systems will inevitably degrade and destroy itself in the long run, no matter how awesome the short-term benefits it brings. Dr. Fred Provenza, in his usual brilliance, described the situation perfectly when he wrote, “People will have to learn we are members of nature’s communities. What we do to them, we do to ourselves. Only by nurturing them can we nurture ourselves.” (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6434678/)

Human Health and the Environment

Like all living beings, you and I need a constant intake of energy and raw materials to grow, reproduce and maintain our bodies throughout adulthood. Breathing, drinking and eating are how we consume the energy and raw materials that drive the millions of essential processes that keep us alive and healthy. These resources are allocated toward keeping us alive, first and foremost. Therefore, the baseline metric to judge industrial agriculture’s impact from an anthropocentric perspective is how well it provides resources to maintain human life. Bonus points are awarded if excess resources are made available to facilitate an increase in the number of people living. The following section will evaluate how well industrial agriculture has fed the world, based on global population and hunger statistics. After this, we’ll investigate how the air we breathe, the water we drink and soil we rely upon has changed during the transition, weaving in human health statistics to observe the level of influence that industrial agriculture has had on the health and well-being of humankind. Breaking it down in this manner may sound like a frivolous endeavor, but it’s critical for understanding the Grand Canyon-like divide of opinion on industrial agriculture. Every story, as they say, often has three side to it. One side, the other side, and the truth, so let’s approach the following sections on human and environmental health with an open mind. Admittedly, this is a terribly difficult ask for such a polarizing issue, but it’s the best option we’ve got if we truly want more people rowing in the same direction.

Whatever your opinion, it’s undeniable that the implementation of industrial agricultural methods supercharged the output of food, fiber, and fuel. Industrial Revolution and Green Revolution innovations played a pivotal role in the six-fold increase in agricultural production from 1900 to 2000, which is estimated to have saved over a billion lives from starvation. Not only this, excess resources were produced to fuel the global population’s boom from 1.7 billion people in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000. At the time of writing in 2024, the global population has risen further to 8.1 billion people. That’s a lot of mouths to feed, and most of the 8 billion people alive today have one technological breakthrough to thank: the Haber-Bosch process already described in the section on inputs. (https://www.nature.com/articles/22672) The impact that Haber-Bosch nitrogen production has had on public health and global population simply can’t be overstated. The reason, as many farmers and ranchers know, boils down to simple biology.

Proteins are among the most abundant molecules in the bodies of living organisms because they perform a near infinite amount of jobs. In fact, one cell may contain hundreds or thousands of proteins, each with a different job. These include proteins that support the structure of the cell, aid in cell movement, act as communication signal between cells or facilitate the building or breaking of other molecules, which is the job of a very special group of proteins called enzymes. All proteins, no matter their job, are made up of basic units called amino acids that are linked together. Anytime you see “amine” or “amino”, think nitrogen. Every single amino acid contains a nitrogen, which is one reason why its demand in living organisms is so high. Another reason is that nitrogen is a key component of nucleic acids, the genetic compounds in living organisms. DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid) is a nucleic acid which contains the blueprint for the production of proteins that make up living organisms. RNA (RiboNucleic Acid) is another nucleic acid, but its job is to transport the information contained in DNA to sites that translate the information into proteins. Lastly, nitrogen can be an important constituent of molecules that don’t fall under the umbrella of carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids or fats. One such molecule is chlorophyll. Each green-reflecting chlorophyll molecule contains four nitrogen atoms, which is why plants often green-up with nitrogen fertilizer applications. More chlorophyll molecules are produced, which increases the amount of green light from sunlight reflected back to your eye. Basically, nitrogen is at the heart of almost every single process happening in living organisms. Without nitrogen, there are no proteins, no nucleic acids and no life.

The good news is that aboveground creatures are literally swimming in nitrogen, as the air is composed of around 78% nitrogen. The bad news is that the form on nitrogen in the air is unusable for living creatures. When two nitrogen atoms come together, they create an incredibly stable gas, N₂, which remains unreactive for decades. This is why the enormous quantity of nitrogen you take in with every breath has no effect on your body. N₂goes in the lungs, N₂goes out of the lungs. Because of its high demand and unreactive nature, nitrogen is often the limiting factor for biological activity in ecosystems. So, how did living organisms solve this problem if they need it so badly? The answer is the enzyme. Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions to happen millions of times faster than they would occur on their own, such as the breaking apart of an N₂ molecule. This reaction, called nitrogen fixation, is facilitated by a microbial enzyme called nitrogenase. It would be handy if every creature had nitrogenase in their chemical arsenal, but fungi, plants and animals don’t have the ability to produce it, so ecosystems have historically had to rely heavily on tiny microbial miracle workers to unlock nitrogen from the air and bring it into the cycle of the living. That was until Haber and Bosch stepped onto the pages of history and worked out a way to crack open N₂ by brute force. In the factory, N₂ gas is heated up to 300 degrees Celsius and compressed in a chamber with 200-300 times normal atmospheric pressure. Only then will the two nitrogen atoms release their grip from one another. Then, the individual nitrogen atoms have three hydrogen atoms slapped onto each of them, which makes ammonia (NH₃) gas. As you can see, the Haber-Bosch process is extremely energy intensive and makes up 10% of agricultural emissions worldwide, as well as 1-2% of the world’s total energy use. (Menegat et al., 2022) (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG462) Incredibly, nitrogenase produced by single-celled microbes is able to fix nitrogen into bioavailable ammonia (NH₃) at moderate outdoor temperatures and normal atmospheric pressure. No giant factory or fossil fuels needed. Chemists still don’t fully understand how nitrogenase is able to separate N₂ so efficiently.

Once ammonia is produced, whether in the factory or by microbes, there is still room for one more hydrogen to jump on board. Potent ammonia gas becomes plant fertilizing ammonium (NH₄) when the additional hydrogen is brought on board. Many fertilizers contain nitrogen in this ammonium form. Another option is to remove the hydrogen atoms and replace them with three oxygen atoms to get the other major form of nitrogen plants absorb, nitrate (NO₃). Either way, farmers have been adding prodigious amounts of synthetically produced nitrogen fertilizer to the soil since World War II, in particular, when factories pivoted from making nitrogen-based explosives to making nitrogen-based fertilizers. This is great for short-term global population potential because more nitrogen in available forms (a.k.a. reactive nitrogen) means more plants. More plants means more food, whether by direct consumption or the consumption of animals that eat plants.

It should also be noted that since 1850 significant loads of reactive nitrogen have also been added to the landscape through the increased use of agricultural legume crops (those that associated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria) like soybeans and clover, as well as through the combustion of fossil fuels. Remember, fossils fuels are made from ancient living organisms who also utilized nitrogen to form their tissues, so when oil or coal is burned, the nitrogen atoms get released out the tailpipe or the smoke stack. Globally, over a billion kilograms of nitrogen falls back to Earth in precipitation each year. Deposition is largest in high rainfall areas downwind from cities (thanks to car exhaust and coal burning power plants), concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and fertilized wetland rice production. (Weil and Brady)

Left to their own devices, ecosystems tend to strike a dynamic balance between inputs and outputs over time, no matter the resource in question. In the case of nitrogen, over 200 million tons are crammed into the landscape every year, which has inevitably led to a tremendous output of reactive nitrogen into the air, watersheds and oceans. This is called a “nitrogen surplus”. Estimates show that up to one third of global nitrogen surplus is concentrated on 10% of the world’s croplands in nations like China, Northern India, central US and Western Europe. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301200878_The_Nature_and_Properties_of_Soils_15th_edition) (pg. 641) Small surpluses of nitrogen can remain on a landscape for a little
while in the form of excess plant tissue or soil organic nitrogen compounds, but most of the excess will eventually leach away into nearby watersheds or volatilize into the atmosphere, causing environmental damage like oceanic dead zones (https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-02/hypoxia_task_force_report_to_congress_2019_21_final.pdf) and natural forest acidification. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112724002822) In the United States in 2015, nearly 75% of the damage costs from nitrogen leakage were associated with agricultural nitrogen applications and its effects on aquatic systems. (Sobota et al., 2015) Products like nitrogen stabilizers and variable rate fertilizer technology, as well as practices like buffer strips, are ways in which farmers are successfully reducing the amount of reactive nitrogen leaving agricultural fields, but we’ve still got a long way to go before striking a healthy balance with nitrogen. Industrial agriculture’s role in environmental pollution will be divulged in-depth in the following sections. For now, let’s continue the conversation around increased food production and world hunger.

Global distribution of excess nitrogen application to agricultural land producing the major cereals such a maize, wheat and rice. The darker the green color, the greater the imbalance between nitrogen inputs and crop removals, resulting in environmental losses of the excess. White areas are not cereals cropland. The excessive use of nitrogen in north India, east China, a few parts of the USA, and northern Europe are highlighted. Prop/natu soils (pg 641)

Strictly speaking about food products, how well agriculture “feeds the world” is measured mainly by the amount of bellies that could be filled. The quality of food, in terms of nutrient density, is not given much consideration. Rather, the main metric used to approximate global food output is the amount of calories produced. The word calorie is thrown around a lot, but very few people actually know what a calorie is. In simplest terms, a calorie is a measurement of energy. The typical definition used in the nutritional world is that a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1° Celsius. (Technically, 1,000 calories raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1° Celsius. The upper-case term “Calorie” means 1,000 lower case calories. “Kilocalorie” would also be accurate, as the prefix “kilo” means 1,000. Making concepts more confusing is par for the course in the world of nutrition, unfortunately. Moving forward, I’ll be using kilocalorie for simplicity’s sake.)

Scientists measure the amount of kilocalories by using bombs to blow up food. Ok, maybe this is an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but a contraption actually called a bomb calorimeter does in fact combust food (or any organic material) to calculate its kilocaloric content. The bomb calorimeter works by measuring the heat emitted by a sample of biomass burned in the presence of oxygen in a closed vessel (bomb) surrounded by water. The temperature increase in the water is caused directly by the amount of calories in the piece of food. The consequence of the calculation is called the amount of combustion, calorification, or British Thermal Unit (BTU). (https://byjus.com/chemistry/bomb-calorimeter/) Incredibly, our bodies do essentially the same oxygen-dependent combustion process to crack open food molecules, harvest the energy contained within it and store that energy in a biological battery that can travel to wherever the body needs it. The heat we emit is in part due to this processing. However, the human body doesn’t have the ability to break down everything that enters the digestive system, such as insoluble plant fibers or sugar substitutes like aspartame or stevia. This explains why some food and drink products can be described as “zero calorie” and why individuals with diabetes can consume desserts laden with sugar substitutes without the risk of a dangerous spike in blood glucose. For most things that go in our mouths, though, we have the biochemical equipment to break down the carbohydrates, proteins and fats contained within it. The most basic units of carbohydrates and protein predictably contain 4 kilocalories/gram, while fat is much more energy-dense, containing 9 kilocalories/gram.

All that to say, producing more food equates to more energy for the human population, so kilocalories are an important metric for correlating agricultural production and public health statistics. But it must be remembered that all organic material contains energy from the sun, so not every kilocalorie produced on the farm or ranch becomes a kilocalorie for food. A product like cotton has enormous benefits to society, but it does not provide nourishing kilocalories. The hide of a cow contains kilocalories, but this material is likely to end up as fashion or furniture. It turns out that a tremendous quantity of agricultural products, and thus kilocalories, are not used for direct human consumption. Since 1961, the amount of land used for feed and fuel has greatly increased.

Unfortunately, tracking historic agricultural production before 1961 is very difficult, as this was the first year the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began compiling comprehensive data on global food supply and consumption. (https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply) With regards to per capita kilocalorie availability from food products, records are sparse before the UN’s work, but there are some estimates available prior to 1961 that give insight into food security pre-modern agriculture. Bear in mind that current recommendations say that the average male should consume 2,500 kilocalories per day and the average women should consume 2,000 kilocalories per day to maintain weight. This value varies tremendously per person based on age, weight, height, activity level and genetics, so the previously mentioned values are very generic averages. The United Kingdom is estimated to have supplied 2,200 kilocalories per capita all the way back in 1274. This is quite impressive considering it wasn’t until nearly 500 years later when another nation, France, reported a food supply offering 1,675 kilocalories per capita in 1705. Now, France makes 3,578 kilocalories available per capita, meaning the nation has more than doubled its available food supply in just over 300 years. The up-and-comer United States of America reported in 1800 a supply of 2,950 kilocalories per capita in 1800 and has remained at the top of the list for most of the time from 1800-present. These values do not include waste after food reaches the consumer. They represent available kilocalories at retail, not consumption. (https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply)

Thanks to the FAO’s efforts, we are able to track the availability of food for most of the nations around the world. Their data show a steady increase in per capita calorie supply at the retail level for most nations as agricultural technology and distribution methods have improved. From 1961-2021, Asia has increased by 62%, Africa and North America by 28%, South America by 25%, Europe by 13% and Oceania by 3%. (https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply) Globally, the world has seen a 36% increase since 1961. These are very impressive statistics considering the concurrent skyrocketing of mouths to feed. Unfortunately, these available kilocalories are not distributed evenly among nations, with the United States leading the way at 3,911 kilocalories available per capita at retail, while many African nations like Burundi, the Central African Republic, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Zimbabwe offer 1,700 kilocalories to just above 2,000. Political instability, lack of infrastructure and underdevelopment of markets are but a few reasons explaining the inequality of food availability. It also appears that food availability correlates quite nicely with general economic performance, which is of course a cause and effect of political instability, lack of infrastructure and underdevelopment of markets. This is a good reminder that agriculture does not occur within its own little bubble. Innumberable public and private industries must work together for the global food system to provide sufficient kilocalories to a nation’s citizenry.

So in terms of providing more kilocalories at retail, the modern industrial agricultural system has excelled beyond belief. There’s always room for improvement, or course, but by and large the system has delivered on its promise to increase the amount of food products offered to the world. People need to be able to afford the available food and it also brings up a crucial point missing from many discussions surrounding “feeding the world”. Man cannot live on kilocalories alone, meaning the human body requires more than energy. We also eat to bring essential atoms, molecules and compounds into our bodies for the millions of processes that keep us alive and well.

Are we efficient? Does that explain why a lot of people can’t afford a healthy diet?

Consumption

“In industrialized countries, over 50% of calories come from ultra-processed foods. Study after study links overconsumption of UPF’s like breakfast cereals, soft drinks, hot dogs, French fries, frozen pizza and snack chips to non-communicable diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, colorectal and breast cancer, obesity, depression and all-cause mortality.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/03/04/why-now-is-the-time-to-reinvent-processed-foods/)

“

The finding is in line with a trend showing that people in all regions of the world have been eating more calories since the year 2000, with the highest spike, in Asian countries in 2021.

Europe and North America consumed most calories last year – at 3,540 per day – while African nations consumed the least: 2,600. Oceania’s calorie count was closest to the United States’ and Europe’s, at around 3,150.” (https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131637)

“Currently (2013), 36% of the calories produced by the world’s crops are being used for animal feed, and only 12% of those feed calories ultimately contribute to the human diet (as meat and other animal products). Additionally, human-edible calories used for biofuel production increased fourfold between the years 2000 and 2010, from 1% to 4%, representing a net reduction of available food globally.”

“We find that on a global basis, crops grown for direct human consumption represent 67% of global crop production (by mass), 55% of global calorie production, and 40% of global plant protein production (table 2). Feed crops represent 24% of global crop production by mass. However since feed crops like maize, soybeans, and oil seed meal are dense in both calories and protein content, feed crops represent 36% of global calorie production and 53% of global plant protein production. Together crops used for industrial uses, including biofuels, make up 9% of crops by mass, 9% by calorie content, and 7% of total plant protein production (table 2).” (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf)

Vegetable oil calories (pg 258 UPP) 3/4 of palm oil is used for UPF.

Chemically speaking, biological combustion is the exact same combustion process happening to a burning log. It’s just that the process is smaller and much more controlled inside of a living cell. This gives literal meaning to the phrase “burning calories”!

In the last of the three “duh” statements, the human body needs food for its energy and nutrients. For the purposes of this article, I will term the quantity of food by calorie production and the quality of food later by the nutrient density of the food supply. What is a calorie? Ties to energy below.

Remember that idea that we literally combust food in our cells to break it open and capture the energy inside of it? Let’s expand on that a little bit. The Earth is an open system, meaning it gets bombarded with a constant input of energy from our closest star, what we call the sun. The amount of energy reaching the earth from the sun is actually mind-boggling: every two minutes, Earth is hit with the total amount of energy that humanity uses
in a year. (https://gulfnews.com/uae/environment/two-minutes-of-sun-enough-to-power-a-years-usage-of-humanity-1.1910990)

Photosynthesis is the process whereby organisms capture that solar energy and jam it between carbon atoms in the sugar they produce from water and carbon dioxide.

“Hunger is an uncomfortable or painful physical sensation caused by insufficient consumption of dietary energy.” “Moderate food insecurity- People facing uncertainties about their ability to obtain food, and have been forced to compromise on the quality and/or quantity of the food they consume. Severe food insecurity- People that have typically run out of food or, at worst, gone a day (or days) without eating.” In 2023, as estimated using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES): 2.33 billion people struggled to access adequate food regularly. This includes 864 million people who faced severe food insecurity.
Malnutrition might be seen as slow-burning famine’ (Ó Gráda 2009, 6) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51044161_From_Famine_to_Food_Crisis_What_History_Can_Teach_Us_About_Local_and_Global_Subsistence_Crises) Even though the average per capita food supply rose by one fifth between 1960 and 2000, the number of undernourished people doubled. This means

that the ratio has been stabilizing to around 15%. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51044161_From_Famine_to_Food_Crisis_What_History_Can_Teach_Us_About_Local_and_Global_Subsistence_Crises)

(Food dollar globally: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00279-9) (pg. 274 UPP)

In summary, industrial ag is excellent at producing, but distribution is lacking. People are still hungry.

The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) and its predecessors allowed the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for the first time to report on the number and proportion of people in the world living in hunger. The United Nations (UN) agency started publishing such estimates following the end of the Second World War, but the model was not fully developed until 1961. Even this measurement is scrutinized. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292923000206) “Almost 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet in 2020 due to the increased cost.” (pg. 51) North America and Europe- 1.9%, Eastern Africa- 87.4%, Western Africa- 85.7%, Middle Africa- 85.4%, Sub-Saharan Africa- 85%. (https://www.fao.org/interactive/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/) “The cost of a healthy diet is defined as the cost of the least expensive locally available foods to meet requirements for energy and
food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG) for a representative person within energy balance at 2,330 kcal/day.” (https://www.fao.org/3/cc0639en/cc0639en.pdf)

Average lifespan. Agriculture is not the only tool. Medicine and basic sanitation have also played a critical role, specifically public sanitation. Thankfully, no one throws buckets of excrement out the window and surgeons wash their hands between operation. So, lifespan can be deceiving with modern medicine allowing people to live longer, unhealthier lives potentially.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…. cold, hungry people don’t give a rip about polluting air and water, and they have every right to feel this way, so meeting the basic needs of humans is goal number one. If we can do this by maintaining or improving ecological health, wonderful. If not, how can we mitigate the damages being done and inch closer toward a sustainable food and drink system. Once people are well nourished and warm, they can then spend time and energy thinking about the future.

Once food production and water availability statistics are finished, begin describing the ecological effects of this transition

Air

The first ingredient for stayin’ alive is the one we take the most for granted: oxygen. Remember that this precious atom is used by aerobic organisms during the process of harnessing energy from food. Humans rely on oxygen to utilize energy and nutrients from food in a process called combustion. The same can be said for most animals, plants and many microbes. At this moment in Earth’s history, the atmosphere provides terrestrial creatures with an abundance of oxygen atoms. (Thank you photosynthesis!) In fact, each adult breath contains approximately 12,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10²²) oxygen atoms, even though a fifth of the air is composed of oxygen. The vast majority of the air is actually unreactive nitrogen gas that leaves our lungs just as easily as it entered. So unless any of you decide to live at the peak of a very tall mountain, there’s no need to worry about running out of oxygen anytime soon. However, the industrialization of agriculture and society writ large has led to some very serious changes in the qualitative nature of the atmosphere by injecting an enormous amount of unwanted objects into the air we breathe, which has caused negative public health outcomes.

The next ingredient in the recipe of life is water. There’s a reason why NASA spends billions of dollars on projects to look for signatures of water on other planets, and it’s that biological critters anywhere in the universe will require water as a key substrate. Water is that important!

From inputs to end consumer, there appears to be a mixed bag of both positive results and unintended consequences as nations adopted modern agricultural methods. The previous four sections detailed the results largely from a human and corporate standpoint. The fifth and final section will investigate how the industrial agricultural system affected the natural environment which provides the medium, raw materials and energy used for all agricultural production (and GDP of any kind, for that matter (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067). In essence, the water, energy, and nutrients required to raise crops and livestock can’t come out of thin air. They’ve got to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the natural resource base of the planet, along with the barrage of solar energy reaching the planet every day. Industrialization has done an excellent job of designing systems that divert more matter and energy from the natural resource base into agricultural production. This mass manipulation of the environment has been a boon for providing more calories to the human population, but what have been the effects on other species and the health of the planet itself?

An important fact to remember is that humans have been shaping and reshaping the natural environment for millennia. One reason is that many ancient societies relied heavily on the plow to prepare the ground and control weeds, which caused widespread soil erosion. After all, the present-day nations of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Cyprus were once considered the Fertile Crescent. Not so today, and the way societies treated their soil is likely a leading contributor to the degradation. David Montgomery’s “Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations” is a must read on the topic, as he details how soil erosion influenced the fates of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and necessitated the American push westward. Overall, there is about half of the green and photosynthesizing land cover today as there was 8,000 years ago, meaning that 5 billion hectares (12.4 billion acres) have become desert in 8,000 years. (https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/supporting-the-soil-carbon-sponge/) Agriculture is certainly not the only reason for large-scale desertification of the planet, but it has no doubt played an integral role in the de-greening of the planet.

Quality of Air, Water and Food

As a reminder, oxygen is abundant in the air. No worries there. Air quality, on the other hand, is a much different story. Besides oxygen and nitrogen gas, the air we breathe contains tiny fractions of other gases, like argon, helium, krypton and xenon, as well as tiny particles of solid material light enough to waft in the breeze. Other noxious gases can be released by natural processes, such as volcano, etc. But many other gases that cause harm to public health are released by human sources. These include… They will be touched on as well in the Environment section. For solids in the air, the scientific term for any solid in the air is “particulate matter”, or PM. PM comes in a variety of shapes in sizes, including sulfate, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, black carbon, mineral dust and water,(https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-and-health/health-impacts/types-of-pollutants) and is typically categorized by the diameter of the substance. The two main categories are PM₂_.₅and PM₁₀, meaning PM smaller than 2.5µm or PM between 2 and 10µm. 10µm is 0.001 centimeters, so these are incredibly tiny objects. The trouble with them is that they are so small that they… Air pollution is a serious health hazard to public health.

This is because ammonia and aerosol particles can stay suspended in the atmosphere for days to a few weeks and so be transported long distances.”

Ammonia emissions released from fertilisers and animal waste is the biggest driver of fine particulate matter pollution, particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres in size. Though ammonia itself is a short-lived gas, when it combines with other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides or sulphur dioxide, it can create fine particulate matter and last for days and travel great distances. This kind of fine particulate pollution can have serious health effects, with estimates saying it may contribute to between 29,000 and 99,000 additional premature deaths each year in the UK. (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/mar/farms-found-be-biggest-particulate-pollution-source-cities)

Coke influence on research (https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/23/8996)

Developing world health statistics since western diets have been introduced: Ghana obesity was less than 2% in 1980. Now, it’s over 13%. More people around the world are obese than underweight. Between 1980 and 2015, obesity rates in the U.S., U.K. and Australia more than double. China- 800%, Mali- 1,550%. Fizzy soda drink sales have doubled since 2000, overtaking the U.S. Worldwide, fast food sales grew by 30% from 2011 to 2016. Domino’s Pizza opened 1,281 stores during that time, amounting to one every seven hours, almost all outside of the U.S. Health care infrastructure in many of these nations has far less capability to manage chronic disease with pills and treatments like they can in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. (Ultra processed people page 247.)

Is food cheaper and more abundant? Then, what are the health consequences. We mentioned how chicken and other products are cheaper now.

Nutrients

Nutrient density of foods

Has human health improved or worsened.

Public health stats over the last 150 years

Spending on food vs healthcare:

There simply is no debate that industrialization has put dangerous levels of nutrients and contaminants into much of the world’s streams, rivers and oceans. To be clear, nearly every facet of modern life and industry have contributed to the degradation of water systems, not just agriculture. Early industry lacked environmental regulation, so one might be tricked into thinking this is an issue of the past, but that’s not the case. Water degradation has in fact worsened across the globe since the 1990s. Today, two million tons of sewage, industrial, and agricultural waste is released into water around the world daily, which leads to widespread infectious waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. These diseases attribute to more human deaths annually than from war and other forms of violence. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332222000434, https://www.unesco.org/en/ihp) The United States is blessed in that most cities have installed waste water treatment plants to largely eliminate the spread of these diseases. However, water quality is still lacking in many ways, as is described later with soil erosion and fertilizer leaching statistics. Blue baby syndrome. In 69 of Minnesota’s 72 agricultural counties, nitrogen from manure combined with nitrogen in fertilizer exceeded the recommendations of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or MPCA, and the University of Minnesota. In 13 counties, nitrogen from the two sources surpassed the recommendations by more than half. This excess nitrogen is the major cause of nitrate pollution in drinking water, which is linked to elevated rates of cancer. (Porter, 2020)

Argentina cancer rates (pg 263 UPP)
Antibiotic resistance (pg 267 UPP)

Social Consequences

Worker Conditions

Conditions of farm workers, seasonal, meat factories, etc. “It also means those who harvest, pack and sell us our food have the least power: at least half of the 10 lowest-paid jobs are in the food industry. Farms and meat processing plants are among the most dangerous and exploitative workplaces in the country.” (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation) The Jungle meatpacking book. Two meatpacking amputations a week (https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22298043/meat-antitrust-biden-vilsack) Poultry barn risks (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34719452/) Poultry barn impacts (Inhalation of poultry house dust can lead to inflammation and respiratory diseases, adversely impacting poultry health as well as the health of farm workers and inhabitants living in the areas surrounding the farms (Rimac et al., 2010; Viegas et al., 2013) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722071145.

Air quality & water quality effects on human health. To date, air pollution – both ambient (outdoor) and household (indoor) – is the biggest environmental risk to health, carrying responsibility for about one in every nine deaths annually. (WHO, 2016) (https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution)

While not necessarily considered air pollution, caustic chemicals like anhydrous ammonia and 2,4-D are considered irritants that harm the respiratory system of workers. Researchers in North Carolina found that the closer children live to a CAFO, the greater the risk of asthma symptoms. (Barrett, 2006)

Mental health of farmers, ranchers and other ag workers like slaughterhouse workers

More than 2 billion people currently live on about 550 million small farms, with 40% of them on incomes of less than U.S. $2 per day. Despite high rates of poverty and malnutrition, these smallholders produce food for more than 50% of the population in low-and middle-income countries, and they have to be part of any solution for achieving the 50% higher food production required to feed the world’s projected 2050 population of nearly 10 billion people. (https://hbr.org/2021/08/making-small-farms-more-sustainable-and-profitable)

Disproportionately affects people of color (https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/10/17/meatpacking-plants-mostly-pollute-low-income-communities-of-color-epa-data-shows/)

So has industrial agriculture improved public health? Depends on who you ask. One side hails the Green Revolution as the savior from Malthusian chaos, while the other points to the chronic disease epidemic raging through developed nations. The reason for such a split might be because it’s a classic “two things can be true at the same time”-type situation. Proponents rightly point to industrial agriculture’s miraculous ability to produce and transport calories across the globe, while others rightly point to environmental and public health ramifications.

Economics

Whether we think so or not, money is tied to natural capital. Oil is really old photosynthetic capture. Gold is an earth mineral. Fiat currency may appear to be untethered from the confines of nature, but somewhere down the line, a physical cost is paid for the dollar. Therefore, from a striaght dollars and cents point of view, maintaining the current industrial food system is an unwise decision for future generations. The Earth’s natural capital bank account was loaded, but we’ve now drained it.

“Researchers at the University of Oxford and London School of Economics has found that transforming the global food system could realise benefits of up to 10 trillion USD per year, and that the costs of achieving this would be relatively small in comparison.”

Page 187 Making Eden

Environment

Today, land degradation is accelerating, reaching 30 to 35 times the historical rate, according to the United Nations. This degradation is caused by a number of factors, including urbanization, mining, farming, and ranching. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/desertification) One reason for agriculture’s role in accelerating land degradation is that the size and power of equipment has dramatically increased in recent decades. Traditionally, animal-drawn plows knifed into the soil a few inches, but today’s multi-ton tractors are able to pull plows that move over a foot of soil at a furious pace. Another reason is that an increasing world population demands more food and fuel, which has caused an acceleration of the loss of native climax communities around the planet. Since the end of the last ice age around 11,700 years ago, the world has lost around one-third of its forests. Two billion hectares (4.9 billion acres) of forest have been transitioned into agricultural land and/or harvested for fuel and building material. To put into perspective the accelerating rate of deforestation, consider that half of the global forest loss occurred between 8,000 BC and 1900. The other half was lost from 1900 to today. (https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation) Forests are extremely important for the health of the planet for a plethora of reasons, including their ability to positively impact the efficiency of the planet’s energy and water cycles. Similarly, a large portion of grasslands, which cover more than 70% of the planet’s land mass, have transitioned into cropland, development or desert in the past few millennia. In fact, nearly half of all temperate grasslands and 16 percent of tropical grasslands have been converted to agricultural or industrial uses and only one percent of the original North American tallgrass prairie exists today. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/grassland-threats)

Turning grasslands and forests into agricultural land might sound like a tit for tat trade, but ecologic performance decreases after the transition, particularly in land managed with conventional agricultural methods with set-stock grazing, monoculture cropping and high use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Take cropping for instance. The most productive land is usually transitioned into cropland first, while more marginal land is used for grazing. This means that each additional acre of cropland transitioned is likely to be less and less productive as time goes on because the most productive land around the planet has already been used as cropland for decades to centuries. For example, in the U.S. from 2008-2016, croplands expanded at a rate of over one million acres per year, and 69.5% of new cropland areas produced yields below the national average, with a mean yield deficit of 6.5%. Grasslands, including those used for pasture and hay, constituted 88% of the land converted to crop production across the US. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18045-z)

Of course, humanity needs to produce food for itself, but food production needs to be done in a way that doesn’t devastate the resources we rely on for food production in the first place. One such resource is the resource of biological organisms cohabitating the planet with us. Agricultural production, and humankind as a whole, relies on trillions of living beings to purify freshwater, cycle nutrients, pollinate crops and a host of other services needed for our survival. Undermining microbial, plant and animal communities to produce agricultural products in the short-term is a recipe for decreasing efficiency in the long-term. This is why the term “biodiversity” is thrown around so much these days. Earth is a solar-capturing, self-perpetuating biological system only because the abundance and diversity of life works together. Simplifying landscapes runs the risk of reducing this biodiversity, which consequently reduces the resilience and efficiency of ecosystems that our children, grandchildren and others further down the line will need to survive.

Unfortunately, biodiversity loss does appear to be accelerating around the world. The global rate of species extinction today is orders of magnitude higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years. Land and sea use change are often cited as the dominant direct driver of recent biodiversity loss worldwide (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm9982), with the global food system as the primary cause of these land use change patterns. (Benton et al., 2021) The effects on biodiversity appear to vary by species, but the common sense point to remember is that every species needs food and habitat to survive in a landscape. Take away one or both, and that species will struggle to survive as well as it did previously. For example, one study found that, “abundance and richness [of insects] were reduced by 7% and 5%, respectively, in which high levels (75% cover) of natural habitat are available, compared with reductions of 63% and 61% in places where less natural habitat is present (25% cover).” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04644-x) Another report from Cambridge University found that, “The bees, butterflies, wasps, beetles, bats, flies and hummingbirds that distribute pollen, vital for the reproduction of over 75% of food crops and flowering plants are visibly diminishing the world over… Disappearing habitats and use of pesticides are driving the loss of pollinator species.” (https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/pollinatorsriskindex) Although these studies may be true, the “insect apocalypse” widely reported may be more complex than once thought, as some studies show net insect populations remain relatively constant, especially in North America (https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10301082). What does appear to change are the diversity and turnover rates of some species compared to others. This illustrates that making blanket statements for the whole planet is very difficult, even though large-scale patterns may emerge from the data.

Birds are another class of species that receive a lot of press concerning their population decline. It makes sense on the surface that bird populations would be in decline if insect populations are in decline, as they rely upon insects as a major food source. This appears to be the case as BirdLife International, a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats, details in their State of the World’s Birds Report for 2022 that 49% of the planet’s birds are in decline. Their research shows that agricultural expansion and intensification is currently impacting 1,026 species (73%) of globally threatened bird species worldwide. These threats drive declines in bird populations through a variety of mechanisms. The most important mechanism driving population decline is habitat conversion and degradation (1,336 species, 95%), while other mechanisms include direct mortality of individuals (862 species, 61%), as well as indirect effects, including reduced reproductive success (510 species, 36%) or increased competition (134 species, 10%). (https://www.birdlife.org/papers-reports/state-of-the-worlds-birds-2022/) Regarding North America, research shows that grassland and farmland birds have been experiencing severe declines in recent decades. In this case, pesticides and harvesting/mowing are reported as among the most influential factors related to their decline. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016788091730525X?pes=vor) Birds, it turns out, might be the literal canaries in the coal mine indicating that ecosystem function is in decline on agricultural land.

Humans have also been intentionally reducing diversity through breeding and selection. Consider that more than 20,000 species of edible plants are available across the globe, but only fifteen species provide 90% of the food requirement of the world’s population today. Just three crops, (rice, wheat and maize) provide a whopping 60% of the world population’s energy intake. (http://www.fao.org/3/u8480e/u8480e07.htm). (Sreenivaulu & Fernie, 2022) Bananas are a great example of this simplification, as 50% of bananas grown globally, and 99% of exported bananas, are of one variety, the Cavendish banana. This variety was chosen due to its ability to resist bruising and high yields, despite there existing around 1,000 different varieties of bananas. The same story goes for livestock. I.R. Bowler wrote in 1986 that, “The first half of the 20th century marks an era of great breed extinction in Europe with breed losses amounting up to 50% as a result of the expansion of industrialization processes in agriculture, especially in the decades immediately after the Second World War (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40571039).” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800921001750) Breed loss, the FAO writes, is considered one of the greatest threats to animal husbandry, agrobiodiversity and biodiversity (FAO, 2015), raising the risk of major unpredictable problems and challenges in the future.

What exactly is the problem with relying on a few ultra-productive varieties of crops and breeds of livestock? Just as species diversity promotes resilience in a landscape, genetic diversity promotes species and community resilience. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44185-023-00022-6) This is because a group of individuals with a very similar set of genes is extremely susceptible to pest and pathogen attack. Imagine a thousand homes with one type of lock on their front door. A burglar is able to enter each house once they get the right key, whereas they would have to find a thousand different keys if there were a thousand different kinds of locks. Consider the Cavendish banana once again. The Gros Michel banana was once the world’s most produced banana until a fungal disease called Panama disease, a form of banana wilt, ravaged the species. Producers switched to the Cavendish banana due to its resistance to banana wilt, along with its superior yield and shipping ability. Global banana infrastructure was reshaped to fit the Cavendish and the problem was solved. That is, until something adapted to attack the Cavendish, which is the current situation. A new strain of Panama disease, Tropical Race 4, now has the ability to infect Cavendish bananas, leaving the banana industry reeling once again. The nation of Colombia went so far as to announce a national declaration of emergency in August of 2019.

Additional cautionary tales of susceptibility include the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century caused by the fungus phytophthora infestans, as well as citrus greening, a bacterial infection ravaging the Florida orange industry. The bulk of U.S. orange crops consist of just three main varieties: the Washington Navel, the Valencia, and the Hamlin, all chosen for their ability to ship long distances and easily make juice. (https://www.producebluebook.com/know-your-produce-commodity/oranges/)

It’s often the case that we macroscopic, aboveground creatures have a natural bias toward the large, macroscopic happenings around us. However, the loss of microscopic, underground diversity is just as worthy of our attention. As it turns out, reports of declining soil biodiversity and the simplification of soil food webs due to intensive agriculture abound. One group found that the number of feeding groups, total biomass of the soil food web, and biomass of the fungal, bacterial, and root energy channel [which consists of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), root-feeding fauna, and their predators] were all lower under an intensive wheat rotation and extensive crop rotation relative to grassland. (de Vries et al., 2013) Another team of researchers out of Europe wrote that, “land use intensification reduced the complexity in the soil food webs, as well as the community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. In all regions across Europe, species richness of earthworms, collembolans and oribatid mites was negatively affected by increased land use intensity.” (Tsiafouli et al.) Finally, it may come as a surprise, but even intensive fertilizer use can alter soil diversity. Excuse the long quote from Dr. Robert Soclow of Princeton University, but it’s worth reading in its entirety. He writes, “We know from a large ecological literature that the fertilization of natural ecosystems, perhaps first noted in the eutrophication of lakes, is likely to result in a loss of species diversity…Any addition of a resource to [a natural community where that resource is scarce] will lead to the dominance of the species that can use that resource most efficiently. Rather than having a net positive effect, inadvertent fertilization alters ecosystem composition and diminishes ecosystem function. (Soclow, 1999)” Steven Heisey and his colleagues also reported in 2022 that “fertilization with urea did not significantly alter the structure of soil microbial communities compared to the control but reduced network complexity and altered hub taxa.” (Heisey et al.) Network connectivity and complexity are crucial features of ecosystems that are resistant to takeover by competitive species. (https://www.ecdysis.bio/_files/ugd/49b043_26e90d07f26c4304b7b14f8a10de69b3.pdf) It must be said, though, that fertilizer use does not always have to be a net negative to soil biology. Research shows that some fertilization may slow down soil organic matter losses (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00374-017-1194-0), so the truth is not as black-and-white as “fertilizers = bad”.

While the practices that diminish soil biology and soil organic matter are constantly under debate, the significant loss of soil organic matter since the adoption of industrial agriculture is less debatable (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065211321001048), which is a big piece of evidence for those who argue that industrialization has in fact led to underground biodiversity loss. Soil organic matter is the house, the food and the soil biology itself! (Organic in this case means carbon-based organisms and the compounds they produce, all at various stages of decomposition.) Ecosystem productivity decreases as the home, the food and the creatures themselves in the soil dwindle over time. Farmers and ranchers simply can’t afford the services of their underground employees to slow down any more than they already have. If so, producers will be forced to spend more money on pesticides because the soil community can’t suppress disease effectively. Producers will also spend more on fertilizer purchases because dead soils cycle nutrients less efficiently. The topic of diversity, resilience and agriculture’s role in promoting both deserves much more space than is provided here, so check out these articles about the all-important ecosystem function called community dynamics to learn more. Part 1 can be viewed here, while part 2 can be found here. In short, implementing the six principles of soil health and three rules of adaptive stewardship builds biodiversity and resilience, while indiscriminate use of industrial methods tends to deteriorate both.

In summation, industrial agricultural practices extract more resources than they put into the land, which promotes land degradation, biodiversity loss and incentivizes primary succession species to proliferate, most of whom are considered weeds, pests and pathogens. This is certainly not sustainable over the long-term, particularly when the discussion dials in on water management. As it turns out, water quality and biodiversity are intimately linked, as about one-third of the reduction in global biodiversity is estimated to be a consequence of the degradation of freshwater ecosystems mainly due to pollution of water resources and aquatic ecosystems. (United Nations, nd) While it’s easy to envision water pollution as a pipe spewing factory waste into a lake or a bunch of trash floating in the ocean, agricultural water pollution is often more subtle, but can be just as harmful. Farmers and ranchers can either manage their soils in such a way that purifies the water leaving their land or in such a way that pollutes it. Proper soil structure (a.k.a soil aggregation) and biological activity are the most important factors in determining which of the two paths water quality will take. This is because water needs to infiltrate into the soil profile and be held in the soil long enough for carbon and microbes to take out the impurities. Industrial agriculture damages this process. First off, tillage, bare soil and the overapplication of chemical pesticides and fertilizers are all very good ways of creating a compacted, or “capped” soil surface that infiltrates water poorly. Second, those same practices break apart soil aggregates and invertebrate channels, while causing a net loss of organic matter over time, which hinders the soil’s ability to move water and hold onto it effectively. Organic matter is especially important because it behaves like a sponge in the soil, soaking up and holding water for later use. Depressed soil organic matter levels decrease water holding capacity, which means water that does infiltrate could very likely zoom through the profile into the watershed, particularly in areas that have had drainage pipes installed.

Although soil type and management styles vary widely, estimates show that most agricultural soils worldwide have lost around 30% to 75% of soil organic carbon since tillage-based agriculture became widely adopted. (Soil organic matter is roughly 50% carbon, so soil organic carbon and soil organic matter statistics go hand-in-hand.) In the United States Corn Belt alone, researchers found that conventional agricultural practices have led to the erosion of roughly one-third of A-horizon soil (a.k.a. topsoil). The loss of A-horizon soil has removed “1.4 ± 0.5 Pg (1.4 ± 0.5 trillion kg) of carbon from hillslopes, reducing crop yields in the study area by ∼6% and resulting in $2.8 ± $0.9 billion in annual economic losses.” (https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1922375118) As with land degradation and biodiversity loss, the rate of soil organic carbon loss accelerated with the widespread adoption of industrial agriculture. (Delgado et al. 2011) In fact, global loss of carbon from the top 2 meters of soil is estimated to be around 133 Pg (133 trillion kg) globally. (Sanderman et al., 2017) (Cotrufo and Lavallee, 2022) Water holding capacity, and consequently water quality, are just two negative effects of this net extraction of carbon from the soil. Many more risks exist.

With many meteorologic societies predicting more intense rainfall events in the coming years, (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/understanding-climate/uk-and-global-extreme-events-heavy-rainfall-and-floods) infiltrating and absorobing all of the rain that falls on the land is vital for agricultural success and flood mitigation. And yet, there is even more than flooding at stake when water rushes off the landscape too quickly, particularly from conventionally managed agricultural land. This is because water is the ultimate solvent, meaning its electromagnetic nature dissolves and holds onto an incredible range of molecules and compounds. Water is very rarely pure water, especially in nature. Therefore, a healthy soil not only affects the rate and amount of water coming off the land, it also affects what gets carried with the water. Soil organic matter is the crucial component for cleaning water as it flows through the profile. Recall that organic matter is roughly 50% carbon. Carbon’s natural structure contains the maximum amount of sites to bind to other things, which means that molecules and compounds stick to it electromagnetically like Velcro. This is why water filters are filled with carbon-rich compounds like charcoal. Compounds contained in the water attach themselves to available bonding sites on carbon, thus purifying the water coming out the bottom of the filter. Soil organic matter behaves in a similar manner. Water leaving a carbon-rich soil profile comes out the other side cleaner because it is held for longer, allowing time for more compounds to get pulled out of the soil. It’s not just organic matter that is purifying water, though. Increasing soil organic matter levels also improves microbial biomass and activity levels. (https://extension.psu.edu/understanding-and-managing-soil-microbes) Microbes are nature’s decomposers, so the more microbial activity, the more they’ll consume and transform compounds in the water. Some of these compounds may be simple nutrients like nitrates and phosphates, while others may be complex contaminants they break down into more inert compounds. This process can’t happen if 1) water doesn’t enter the soil, 2) water zooms through the profile too quickly, 3) soil can’t support a rich and abundant population of purifying microbes.

Soil erosion is another serious concern for water quality because nutrients, organic matter and compounds like pesticides and manure hitch a ride with soil particles as they wash into the watershed. The best estimates show that global soil erosion rates are in the ballpark of 2.2 ton/acre/yr. – 11.4 ton/acre/yr. OR 0.015 – 0.074 in./year loss. (Borrelli et al., 2017) (Borrelli et al., 2021) These same authors later acknowledge the difficulty of calculating global erosion statistics, as “Detailed information on soil erosion, through both modelling and measurement, is lacking for large parts of the world. This condition is particularly true for regions most susceptible to high levels of soil erosion.” (Borrelli et al., 2021) In the United States, erosion statistics are more robust. One study found that annual soil mass losses from crop and grazing land (1.72 Gt soil y–1; Lal 2003) is three times greater than the combined yields from corn (Zea mays L.; 0.36 Gt y–1), soybeans (Glycine max; 0.045 Gt y–1) and hay (0.146 Gt y–1; USDA 2012). (Teague et al., 2016) Overall, an average rate of 4-4.5 ton/acre/yr OR 0.02-0.03 in./yr of soil is lost across the nation. (Shojaeezadeh et al., 2022)(National Resources Inventory, 2017) It should be noted that soil erosion is a natural process, even in forest and grassland ecosystems, so eliminating erosion is not necessarily the goal. (Natural soil erosion statistics) The goal is to reduce erosion to natural levels.

Cropping is especially vulnerable to soil degradation and water contamination because conventional agricultural practices like tillage and synthetic chemical applications run the risk of decreasing soil organic matter and biological activity over time. This is largely due to aggregate stability degradation and soil erosion. Organic matter and soil biology are essential for sticking soil particles together and reducing the risk of soil erosion during rainfall events or windy days. Maintaining soil armor is also an important practice for reducing erosion. It’s very common for conventional agricultural cropping systems to leave the soil bare for stretches of time over a year, which leaves the soil vulnerable. In the Midwest of the United States, research out of Wisconsin and Minnesota found that 10% of the runoff events caused 85% of the total soil loss, with 69% of soil lost in May and June, when rainfall and storm intensity tend to be heaviest and crop canopy is low. (Discovery Farms, 2016)

Conventional animal agricultural systems also affect water quality. First, grazing pastures or fields too hard reduces soil organic matter and soil armor, which increases the risk of soil erosion. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479721002681) Second, large herds of animals increase the risk of water pollution from unnaturally large amounts of manure and urine produced in one static location. In fact, a confined animal farm can produce more waste than some U.S. cities, with one feeding operation containing 800,000 pigs producing “over 1.6 million tons of waste a year. That amount is one and a half times more than the annual sanitary waste produced by the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” (GAO, 2008) Annually, it is estimated that livestock animals in the U.S. produce each year somewhere between 3 and 20 times more manure than people in the U.S. produce, or as much as 1.2–1.37 billion tons of waste (EPA, 2005). Though sewage treatment plants are required for human waste, no such treatment facility exists for livestock waste. (CDC, 2010) Contaminants from animal wastes can enter the environment through pathways such as through leakage from poorly constructed manure lagoons, or during major precipitation events resulting in either overflow of lagoons and runoff from recent applications of waste to farm fields, or atmospheric deposition followed by dry or wet fallout (Aneja et al., 2003) Although anaerobic digestion of wastes in surface storage lagoons can effectively reduce or destroy many pathogens, substantial remaining densities of microbial pathogens in waste spills and seepage can contaminate receiving surface- and ground-waters. (Burkholder et al., 1993) Another risk of water pollution is the unnaturally large nutrient loads that find their way to watershed from animal waste. One study from the Midwest US found that compared to upstream total phosphorus loads, those downstream from three Wisconsin dairy confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) increased by 91% after the expansions – over four times that of concentration increases – implying that the rate of downstream phosphorus transfer has increased due to CAFO expansion. (Waller et al., 2019)

Where to fit in mining operations, depletion of P, peak production, “The prominent chemist and science writer Isaac Asimov succinctly stated: “Life can multiply until all the phosphorus has gone and then there is an inexorable halt which nothing can prevent” (1974).”

Unnaturally high nutrient loads in the water may originate in freshwater systems, but the problem extends all the way to salt water. Off-coast, macabre sounding “dead zones” caused by eutrophication from excess nitrogen and phosphorus are found all over the world today. Eutrophication is the process of aquatic microorganisms utilizing these high nutrient loads, which leads to oxygen depletion and the creation of dead zones for animals like fish. Hypoxic areas have increased dramatically during the past 50 years, from about 10 documented cases in 1960 to at least 169 in 2007. In developed countries, such as the United States and nations in the European Union, heavy use of animal manure and commercial fertilizers in agriculture are the main contributors to eutrophication. In developing countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, untreated wastewater from human sewage and industry mainly contribute to eutrophication. (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/dead-zone/) One famous dead zone is the area in the Gulf of Mexico that immediately receives water from the Mississippi River. The size of this particular dead zone fluctuates annually, but the five year average from 2017-2022 was 4,280 square miles, which is over two times larger than management targets. The size decreased in 2022 to 3,275 square miles, which is still equivalent to more than 2 million acres of habitat unavailable for fish and bottom species. This area is larger than the combined areas of Rhode Island and Delaware. (NOAA, 2022)

Agricultural activities remained the most important source of nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways causing eutrophication in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the nitrogen that contributes to the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico—between 60 and 80 percent—originates on farms and livestock operations in the Midwest, largely in the form of synthetic fertilizers that run off fields of corn and other crops. (Robertson & Saad, 2013 , EPA, 2015) In the case of nitrogen, the amount leaching from farmland is increasing, not decreasing. In fact, one model indicates that total nitrogen (TN) export during 2000–2014 was “twofold larger than that in the first decade of twentieth century: Dissolved inorganic N export increased by 140% dominated by nitrate; total organic nitrogen export increased by 53%. The substantial enrichment of TN export since the 1960s was strongly associated with increased anthropogenic N inputs (synthetic N fertilizer and atmospheric N deposition).” (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GB0064750) Input of nutrients into the water stack up over time, and one study has indicated that so much nitrogen has accumulated in the Mississippi River basin that it may take 30 years or more to reduce loads enough to meaningfully reduce the size of the Gulf dead zone (Ballard et al. 2019; Van Meter, Cappellen, and Basu 2018).

On the whole, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported in 2022 that 46% of American rivers and streams in the United States have excess nutrients, and only 28% are assessed as “healthy” based on their biological communities. The National Water Quality Assessment from the EPA also shows that agricultural runoff is “the leading cause of water quality impacts to rivers and streams, the third leading source for lakes, and the second largest source of impairments to wetlands.” (https://www.epa.gov/nps/nonpoint-source-agriculture)

For further reading on agriculture’s impact on water and how regenerative practices can clean it up, check out Grounded’s article on the Water cycle by clicking here.

The only other substance that rivals water in terms of immediate necessity is the air we breathe. Our atmosphere is way more than oxygen. It’s actually a
hodgepodge of many different chemical compounds, mostly in gaseous form. Nitrogen gas (N2) makes up around 78% of the atmosphere, followed by oxygen gas (O2) at 21% and argon gas (Ar) at 0.9%. For those keeping track, that’s 99.9%. The other 0.1% of the atmosphere is a combination of various compounds including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Compounds like ammonia, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are found in parts per billion (ppb) amounts. In other words, very, very tiny amounts. Atmospheric levels of various compounds are important to track over time because it tells a story of what the land and water are emitting and absorbing, and at what rate. Lower to the ground, everyone has seen images of smog near large urban cities with high populations of people and/or large industrial factories. Smog is a build-up of sulfur-oxide gases, nitrogen-oxide gases and hydrocarbons which come from burning coal and other fossil fuels, as well as smoke from forest fires. Interestingly, many cities with the worst smog, such as Los Angeles and Shanghai, are located close to mountains because the mountains block the smog from quickly dispersing. (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/smog/)

Undoubtedly, urban/industrial areas have caused a large amount of air pollution and illness. However, industrial agricultural practices are not without fault either. When it comes to agricultural air pollution, there are three main types. The first is noxious gases, the second is dust and the third is greenhouse gases. Noxious gas emissions are most commonly associated with animal agriculture. Specifically, the finger is often pointed at confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and for good reason, as large animal numbers in a small area pile up an unnaturally large amount of manure, urine and gases. In a healthy functioning ecosystem with green growing plants, these products are food to something else in the food web. Unfortunately, these “waste” products turn from blessing to curse when there is no functioning ecosystem to utilize the nutrients and energy contained within them. Scientifically speaking, noxious gases are produced mainly by anaerobic microorganisms, and giant piles of nutrients and energy, like manure and compost, turn anaerobic in a matter of days and even hours when access to oxygen is cut off. As a result, research shows that the air surrounding CAFOs can be polluted with gases such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and particulate matter (tiny matter), all of which have varying human health risks. (CDC, 2010) Residents near CAFOs often complain about these terrible smells and report a decreased desire to be outside. Residents also report these odors are markedly worse than smells formerly associated with smaller livestock farms. (CDC, 2010) This makes sense considering sunlight, fresh air, growing plants, a vibrant biological community and a rotation of animals creates more aerobic environments that properly utilize manure, urine and gases from animals. To see a real-life case study on the subject, check out this interesting video from Vox detailing how North Carolina pig CAFOs are severely harming the air quality and water quality of nearby residents.

Crop production also emits noxious gases into the atmosphere. Notably, nitrous oxide (N2O) is produced from conventional cropping systems. N2O will be discussed in subsequent paragraphs, along with other greenhouse gases. For now, let’s move on to air pollution via dust and particulate matter. As with pretty much every environmental topic discussed so far, dust and soil traveling in the air is naturally occurring. As a matter of fact, scientists estimate that 3 billion tons of dust are emitted into the atmosphere every year (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/10/1/89). The talking point should not be to eliminate soil and dust particles in the air, because that is an impossible goal. Rather, the focus should be on mitigating and eliminating the giant, man-made dust storm events caused by our mismanagement of the land. The United States Dust Bowl of the 1930’s is probably the most famous example of how agricultural practices, particularly tillage and exposing bare soil, lead to huge concentrations of dust particles in the air. Mechanical disturbance physically breaks soil aggregates apart into finer pieces, making it more susceptible to fly off in the wind when it lies on the surface unprotected. (Katra, 2020) Unfortunately, dust storms are still a common occurrence in the much of the United States. Some, like this 2023 dust storm in Illinois, can turn deadly. In fact, dust storms killed 272 Americans between 2007 and 2017. (https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/104/5/BAMS-D-22-0186.1.xml) One reason why dust storms still occur is that machinery has gotten much larger since the 1930’s, meaning each tillage event can turn over and destroy significantly more soil aggregates than before. These are self-inflicted wounds because large dust clouds originating from agricultural land are completely avoidable. The solution is to protect the soil from wind by covering it with residue or growing plants, and to minimize mechanical disturbance. Combine smaller aggregate size with the fact that chronic tillage reduces organic matter levels in the soil, and you get fine soil particles that can no longer stick to each other, thus increasing the probability of dust in the air.

Finally, agriculture emits greenhouse gases. That’s not a surprise to you because that fact is announced to the public nearly every day. What may be a surprise is that greenhouse gases are not bad. In fact, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the ability of our atmosphere to absorb heat and keep the planet at a nice, Goldilocks temperature. As always, it’s all about balance and cycling at a sustainable pace. Regardless of whether someone thinks fluctuating levels of greenhouse gases affect climate patterns as seriously as some proclaim, it’s hard to deny that industrialization has changed atmospheric chemical concentrations over the past couple centuries at a historically rapid rate. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the big talking point nowadays, as its concentration has risen from 283 parts per million (ppm) in 1800 to 425 parts per million today (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide), which is around 100 times the rate of addition compared to the period of warming after the last Ice Age (https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-would-happen-climate-if-we-had-much-lower-co2-levels). In addition, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have also risen quickly during that time. (https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/) Overall, the current estimate is that agriculture is responsible for around 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions (see chart below) and around 10% of American greenhouse gas emissions. (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

For thousands of years, agriculture has been releasing tremendous amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. This first occurred as societies began to plow and farm grasslands, savannas and forests. Renowned soil scientist Dr. John Baker estimates that around 15-20% of co2 in the atmosphere is the direct result of soil organic matter oxidation caused by the plow. (https://farming.co.uk/news/20-per-cent-of-world%E2%80%99s-co2-from-ploughing-%E2%80%93-soil-scientist) Nowadays, land use change like deforestation is still a net emitter of co2, (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deforestation-and-global-warming/) but today’s global agricultural system also emits large amounts of co2 via post-harvest shipping, processing, storing and cooking. Global freight transport associated with vegetable and fruit consumption contributes 36% of food-miles emissions—almost twice the amount of greenhouse gases released during their production. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00531-w) One has to wonder just how energetically efficient global food systems are compared to more local production. When the entire upstream food supply chain is considered, global food-miles correspond to about 3.0 GtCO₂e (3.5–7.5 times higher than previously estimated), indicating that transport accounts for about 19% of total food-system emissions (stemming from transport, production and land-use change).

All in all, agricultural production isn’t the biggest player in the direct emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. What many people fail to point out is that modern agriculture is woefully inefficient in the direct intake of CO2. The truth is that agriculture is in an unprecedented position to become the shining example of a sector that is a net negative emitter of CO2. No other industry has trillions of built-in carbon dioxide consuming organisms that run on solar energy and have the ability to store it for later use without using one drop of fossil fuel. All that’s required is to allow good ol’ photosynthesis to takes its course. Modern agriculture, with its rows of modern variety monocrops and highly concentrated feedlots and feed houses, does not take advantage of photosynthesis nearly as well as the native forest, grassland or savanna from which it came. This is where regenerative agricultural systems really shine compared to conventional systems, and it could make all the difference in the world’s effort to cycle carbon dioxide sustainably into the future.

One would be forgiven for thinking carbon dioxide is the only greenhouse gas that affects the planet. After all, CO2 does receive the lion’s share of press on the topic of climate change. However, atmospheric chemistry is really complex and compounds are constantly changing from one form to another. (https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/just-some-nerdy-atmospheric-chemistry/) One prime example is another carbon-based compound that happens to be appearing in more and more media stories. That compound is methane. Methane is a gaseous compound made up of one carbon atom attached to four hydrogen atoms, written CH4. Methane is the product of anaerobic metabolism of carbon-based organic matter. This can occur in the rumen of herbivores, in water-logged rice fields and in the ground (A.K.A natural gas). In other words, methane production and emissions are natural phenomena, as is their uptake by methanotrophic soil organisms and transformation in the atmosphere to CO2. The issue is that methane emissions have far outpaced methane uptake since the Industrial Revolution kicked off around 1750. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are now 160% what they were in 1750, according to ice core samples. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00969-1). It’s believed that rising atmospheric methane levels are the result of global population increase, both from the increased consumption of food and energy that was used to create global population spikes and from the decomposition of waste created by more humans.

Agriculture is currently the leading emitter of methane into the atmosphere, with fuel exploitation and waste management rounding out the top three. Within agriculture, enteric fermentation (anaerobic ruminant digestion), manure management and rice cultivation emit the most methane. Interestingly, methane emissions from fuel exploitation and waste management have risen by more than 50% in the time from 1990-2022. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1298494/annual-global-methane-emissions-by-sector/) Novel NASA satellite technology is currently mapping global “super-emitters” of methane, most of which are unsealed oil and gas fields, waste-processing sites and landfills. (https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/) One super-emitter in Kazakhstan led to a “mega leak” of methane for months. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68166298) Emissions from wetlands, particularly in the tropics, also increased significantly from 2006-2022. (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GB007875)

As one can see, methane is emitted from more than just agriculture and every sector has an important role to play in reducing their emissions. Yes, agriculture emits a plurality of methane, but our bovine companions have ironically become this issue’s solitary scapegoat, while other sectors and super-emitters go under the radar of the national press. Much, much more information on the subject can be found in the the Common Questions article about cows warming the planet, which can be found here. For now, just understand that all of society has played a role in rising atmospheric methane levels and all of society has a role to play in decreasing net methane emissions. Agriculture can once again become the leading example in this space, but it requires managing ecosystems the way they were designed to operate.

The final of the three most recognized greenhouse gases is nitrous oxide (N₂O). Globally, the primary sources that release N₂O into the atmosphere are soil, ocean, manure application, industries, and biomass burning (Thomson et al., 2012). Soil microbial transformations of nitrogen like nitrification and denitrification account for more than two-thirds of its emission into the atmosphere in what is a naturally occurring process (Thomson et al., 2012). Industrialization of society has led to an unnaturally speedy increase in atmospheric n2o concentrations, similar to co2 and ch4. Unlike the other two, it appears that this increase falls pretty much squarely on the shoulders of agriculture. One reason is the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process, which takes inert nitrogen from the atmosphere and transforms it into fertilizer that living organisms can immediately use. This has greatly increased the total concentration of nitrogen in the landscape and water ecosystems, meaning more nitrogen for microbes to feast on and turn into n2O. In fact, two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions from synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are emitted after they’re applied to fields, with one-third of emissions originating from production processes. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230209114736.htm) Overall, cropland is the largest contributor of anthropogenic N₂O emissions, accounting for approximately one-third of total anthropogenic N₂O emissions. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590332224000058)

Atmospheric levels of N2O began to rise in the 1800’s and rose sharply in the 20th century, with a significant acceleration in the time period from 1980-2016. Hanqin Tian and a team of researchers write that, “Global human-induced emissions, which are dominated by nitrogen additions to croplands, increased by 30% over the past four decades (1980-2016) to 7.3 (4.2–11.4) teragrams of nitrogen per year. This increase was mainly responsible for the growth in the atmospheric burden. Our findings point to growing N₂O emissions in emerging economies—particularly Brazil, China and India.” (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2780-0) Synthetic N fertilizer across the whole supply chain is responsible for an estimated 10.6% of agricultural emissions and 2.1% of global greenhouse emissions (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18773-w) These findings make sense as agriculture has continually moved away from balanced nutrient loads to large, unnatural piles of nitrogen in one place, such as in CAFO manure and urine, as well as in concentrated nitrogen fertilizer applied to a soil. Just like carbon, nitrogen is not the enemy. It’s the distortion of the natural cycling of nitrogen that creates issues, and industrial agriculture is very good at dumping large unnatural loads of nitrogen into ecosystems.

Believe it or not, there is one more greenhouse gas that affects global temperatures more than the triumvirate of co2, ch4 and n2o. That greenhouse gas is water vapor. Gaseous water vapor molecules account for half of the greenhouse effect that traps in the sun’s heat to keep earth at a hospitable temperature. Without water vapor, the temperature at Earth’s surface would be 59 degrees F (33 degrees C) colder. The main difference between water vapor and the other three main greenhouse gases is that the average water vapor lasts two weeks in the atmosphere before changing to liquid or solid, as compared to years and decades for the other three. (https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-do-we-blame-climate-change-carbon-dioxide-when-water-vapor-much-more-common-greenhouse) The important point concerning industrial agriculture is that transpiring plants release water vapor, taking solar heat with it. As that water condenses into a liquid, the heat can continue traveling back out into space. This means that living plants are paramount for cycling water in and out of atmosphere, creating a nice balance between warming and air conditioning. As mentioned earlier, the plow and modern, industrial agriculture practices have led to less green plant material on the planet, which means large and small water cycles aren’t functioning efficiently across the planet. Out-of-whack water cycling negatively affects Earth’s ability to maintain stable heating and cooling mechanisms. The planet needs more green plants for more days of the year. This is a real climate solution that very few people are talking about. Read all about the water cycle and its impact on climate in this article.

It must be re-emphasized that agriculture is not evil. Farmers and ranchers are not evil. They’re hard-working folks who want to produce food, fuel and fiber for their fellow man and leave the land better than they found it. Truck drivers and others along the supply are chain are not evil. They’re people trying to make a living and put food on the table for their families, just like everyone else. It’s an inescapable fact that agriculture, and existing as a human race for that matter, changes the environment. Humans have been shaping and reshaping environments and species for a long time (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abb2313), but the rate at which contemporary agriculture is causing ecologic change should cause us all to pause and consider the sustainability of such a system.

Humanity must feed itself, and any loss of human life due to hunger is a tragedy. The point is that governments and industry must set their sights on creating systems that build ecosystem function and biodiversity over time if we are to supply everyone in the world with nutritious food for the decades, centuries and millennia to come.

Summary

Pointing out problems with a person, place or thing is the easy part. Pointing out problems and providing alternative solutions is much more difficult. Regenerative agricultural systems provide solutions to many, if not most, of the issues caused by modern conventional systems, including rural economic collapse, public health woes and biodiversity loss. At the very least, the hope is that this article will cause readers to pause and think about the real winners and losers of the current agricultural system that dominates the developed world. “Behaviors change when values change.” – Wendell Berry.

“Farm subsidy good article” (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-spends-4-billion-a-year-subsidizing-stalinist-style-domestic-sugar-production-2018-06-25)

Today’s productivity vs. tomorrow’s continuation: The following excerpt from the 1895 Journal of the American Geographical and Statistical Society is worth noting their acknowledgement of future productivity. “But notwithstanding the astonishing results from its application to the soil, the fear that enormous crops realized under its stimulus exhaust the land of its productive elements, deterred the great body of farmers availing themselves of so valuable a fertilizer.” [Journal of the American Geographical and Statistical Society (1895)]. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano)

It’s all very complex. Cheap food allows a populace to spend less money on food and more on other things, improving economics in a region, which could provide the catalyst to have the time and money to care about the environment. It’s hard for people with little food and clean water to care about the future of the planet.

“Behaviors change with a change in values.” – Wendell Berry. Ultra Processed People description of the food companies beholden to their shareholders.

To take the words from Chris van Tulleken’s incredible book, Ultra-Processed People, “Railing against ‘evil’ foo companies starts to feel less sane when you’re seeing things from the perspective of Eddie and Paul.” (pg. 276) Eddie was a farmer friend who previously sold Nutri-grain bars for Kellogg’s, while Paul worked in the food industry with Unilever for decades. Both Eddie and Paul’s description of life inside these behemoths was all about driving down cost of production and adding value where they could, bringing home more profit. “Once you start to understand ultra-processing as being about adding value, then you see that it’s not just adding emulsifiers.”

So who benefits most from modern agriculture? Probably you. And who is hurt by modern industrial agriculture? Also you. It’s a seriously complicated question with a complex web of interactions at multiple layers.

There seems to be an emerging pattern where the biggest are thriving to the detriment of the others, no matter if it input, producers or output.

Intensifying industrial, commodity agriculture doesn’t appear to be the solution to rural woes, as this method of farming has an extremely high barrier to entry, shrinking financial margins and isn’t overly attractive to most young people.

Consolidation is not just an agricultural issue. It’s prevalent in nearly every American sector of the past 20 years. “Over the past 20 years, however, negative concentration has become relatively more prevalent in the United States.⁴ Recent increases in concentration have been associated with weak productivity growth and declining investment rates.” (https://www.nber.org/reporter/2019number4/economics-and-politics-market-concentration)

Jonathan Lundgren article: “So yes, that would make someone really defensive when people criticize them. My goodness, you are doing the best that you possibly can, and someone comes in and tells you that you are hurting the planet? That you don’t care? My gosh, you are spending every day and have risked everything trying to help grow food and work within a system that you didn’t create. It doesn’t change what I believe is right and wrong. History will look back on us very poorly for animal confinement as it is practiced in feedlots and dairies. But this experience has changed my perspective on farmers who run these operations. In confined animal feedlots and dairies, it isn’t just the animals that are trapped; the farmers are trapped too. They are trying to do the best that they can to work within a system. My gosh, the corporate vultures are circling around the American farmer right now.” (https://medium.com/@jon.lundgren/empathetic-tribalism-d225427655a9)

Wendell Berry’s “What are People For?” comes to mind. The argument to be made is that there needs to be a balance between heartless industrialism and a Luddite-like system of agriculture. Eating is an agricultural act – Wendell Berry (https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/wendell-berry-pleasures-eating)

Agriculture is far from the only industry to have these issues. It appears that most of the American economy followed a similar trend in the 20th century: economies of scale model of production has had enormous effects on the viability of American farms. Excerpt from Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark. “Although there was income inequality, the total size of the pie grew [in the United States from WWII until the mid-1970’s] in such a way that almost everybody got a larger slice. But then… something changed: although the economy kept growing and raising the average income, the gains over the past four decades went to the wealthiest, mostly to the top 1%, while the poorest 90% saw their incomes stagnate. The resulting growth in inequality is even more evident if we look not at income but at wealth. For the bottom 90% of U.S. households, the average net worth was about $85,000 in 2012- the same as twenty-five years earlier- while the top 1% more than doubled their inflation-adjusted wealth during that period, to $14 million.(https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20625/w20625.pdf)” Covid wealth: https://www.reuters.com/business/pandemic-boosts-super-rich-share-global-wealth-2021-12-07/

As we will discuss later in this article, large agricultural industries along the supply chain have enjoyed similar success at the expense of mid- and small sized producers.

COVID revealed some serious bottlenecks in our modern food system. Long distance,

“Regenerative is just another fad.” Modern conventional agriculture has been around for the last 150 years. Agriculture has been around for nearly 12,000 years.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, metaphorically and literally. Our food system is a net extractor of limited natural resources. This can’t hold up forever, barring massive shifts in energy sourcing, specifically.

Regardless of what was said in this article, ask yourself these questions: If you’re a producer, are you better off now than you were 5 years ago? 10? 20? 50? (Financially, spiritually, do you have hope, are things trending up or down would you say?) What about your rural community? Are new schools opening or shutting down? Do you remember when a small family farm could afford to raise a large family? What would be missing if family farms went by the wayside and agriculture became truly corporate and industrial? Is your community healthier than it was in generations past? Is America becoming healthier or unhealthier? Socially, as well as public health-wise. We often hear about progress, but who decides what progress looks like? And what are we progressing toward? Where does the majority of agricultural money, profit and value go? Does it stay in the rural community or to large corporations headquartered in large cities? Wendell Berry’s “What are People For?”