{"id":11712,"date":"2023-09-16T14:06:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T14:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11712"},"modified":"2023-09-16T14:06:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T14:06:44","slug":"the-myths-we-tell-ourselves-about-american-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11712","title":{"rendered":"The myths we tell ourselves about American farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“If you were to guess America\u2019s biggest source of water pollution, chemical factories or oil refineries might come to mind. But it\u2019s actually farms<\/a> \u2014 especially those raising cows, pigs, and chickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The billions of animals farmed each year in the US for food generate nearly 2.5 billion pounds<\/a> of waste every day \u2014 around twice as much as people do \u2014 yet none of it is treated like human waste. It\u2019s either stored in giant pits, piled high as enormous mounds on farms, or spread onto crop fields as fertilizer. And a lot of it washes away into rivers and streams, as does synthetic fertilizer<\/a> from the farms growing corn and soy to feed all those animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese factory farms operate like sewerless cities,\u201d said Tarah Heinzen, legal director of environmental nonprofit Food and Water Watch. Animal waste is \u201crunning off into waterways, it\u2019s leaching into people\u2019s drinking water, it\u2019s harming wildlife, and threatening public health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet in practice, the Environmental Protection Agency appears to be largely fine with all that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While the entire food sector benefits from agricultural exceptionalism, animal agriculture is especially privileged. Meat and dairy producers get far more subsidies than farmers growing more sustainable foods, like beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Big Ag often argues its exceptional status is justified because farming is indeed exceptional, given the essential nature of its product: food. But Secchi argues this is the wrong way of thinking about it. Since<\/a> the early days<\/a> of American agriculture, farming has been a business like any other, focused on high output, which has led to excess supply and profitable exports around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we don\u2019t apply exceptionalist logic to any other industry. Energy production, for example, is highly polluting but essential to human flourishing, just like food, so we push to make our laws and economy limit the industry\u2019s externalities and scale renewable forms of energy.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Jefferson\u2019s vision never came to pass. Small farms have been squeezed out by big farms, due in part to American farm policy<\/a> advocated for by the same elected officials who evoke the Jeffersonian ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s left is a highly consolidated<\/a> agricultural sector, with many farmers precariously employed as contractors<\/a> for corporations, and a radically uneven distribution<\/a> of farm wealth”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/8\/31\/23852325\/farming-myths-agricultural-exceptionalism-pollution-labor-animal-welfare-laws<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“If you were to guess America\u2019s biggest source of water pollution, chemical factories or oil refineries might come to mind. But it\u2019s actually farms \u2014 especially those raising cows, pigs, and chickens.
\nThe billions of animals farmed each year in the US for food generate nearly 2.5 billion pounds of waste every day \u2014 around twice as much as people do \u2014 yet none of it is treated like human waste. It\u2019s either stored in giant pits, piled high as enormous mounds on farms, or spread onto crop fields as fertilizer. And a lot of it washes away into rivers and streams, as does synthetic fertilizer from the farms growing corn and soy to feed all those animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese factory farms operate like sewerless cities,\u201d said Tarah Heinzen, legal director of environmental nonprofit Food and Water Watch. Animal waste is \u201crunning off into waterways, it\u2019s leaching into people\u2019s drinking water, it\u2019s harming wildlife, and threatening public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet in practice, the Environmental Protection Agency appears to be largely fine with all that.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“While the entire food sector benefits from agricultural exceptionalism, animal agriculture is especially privileged. Meat and dairy producers get far more subsidies than farmers growing more sustainable foods, like beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Big Ag often argues its exceptional status is justified because farming is indeed exceptional, given the essential nature of its product: food. But Secchi argues this is the wrong way of thinking about it. Since the early days of American agriculture, farming has been a business like any other, focused on high output, which has led to excess supply and profitable exports around the world.<\/p>\n

And we don\u2019t apply exceptionalist logic to any other industry. Energy production, for example, is highly polluting but essential to human flourishing, just like food, so we push to make our laws and economy limit the industry\u2019s externalities and scale renewable forms of energy.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Jefferson\u2019s vision never came to pass. Small farms have been squeezed out by big farms, due in part to American farm policy advocated for by the same elected officials who evoke the Jeffersonian ideal.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s left is a highly consolidated agricultural sector, with many farmers precariously employed as contractors for corporations, and a radically uneven distribution of farm wealth”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/8\/31\/23852325\/farming-myths-agricultural-exceptionalism-pollution-labor-animal-welfare-laws<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[103,1523,359,1552],"class_list":["post-11712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-environment","tag-farming","tag-pollution","tag-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11713,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions\/11713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}