Now a days, humans seem have a high demand of enormous amounts of crops and livestock in a short period of time. How are they able to do this you ask? Well, the natural way would be letting the animals grow at their own pace. But since the food industry needs to produce large quantities of meat, they find other ways to speed up the process. The way to do this is by injecting hormones into our meat, usually beef and poultry, and changing their diet.
Sustainable Agriculture are farms that produce all natural foods without any excessive use of pesticides or chemicals, produces organic crops and organic foods containing high levels of antioxidants. Industrial Agriculture are unsanitary industrial farms and slaughterhouses with high levels of meat contamination and produces crops with the heavy use of pesticides. They're crops also contain more nitrates and strive to increase production to make more money without the regard for human health.This clip taken from, "Food Inc", shows how chickens are being re-designed to grow bigger and faster. Birds are now raised and slaughtered in half the time they were 50 years ago and still twice as big. They also re designed the chicken to have bigger breasts, because that's what people like to eat most.
With the global human population increasing just means there will be an even higher demand of food and land. More food means, taking over land to grow crops and food and to build more homes. Population growth every year means farmers must feed 78 million more people with 27 billion fewer tons of topsoil. Eight pounds of grain and 2,464 gallons of water is needed to produce just one pound of beef. Feeding more people means feeding more animals. Also more pesticides and herbicides will be needed to be able to produce more, which can have an effect of human health because of the exposure to pesticides in our foods.In this video it shows a concentration feeding grounds for cattle. I mean, does this look at all natural to you? It looks pretty disgusting to me and knowing this is what we basically consume when we eat beef is even worse. Also, the way they treat animals makes me sick! Clearly there's no respect for them and the living conditions they're in are horrible. Humans seem pretty selfish and greedy, we change the natural ways of living of the animals and poison them just to satisfy our consuming needs. It's crazy to see how far people go to make more money and how humans can keep on eating and eating and eating, we just don't know how to stop!
It is because of industrial agriculture that now people are facing health issues and changing the way our livestock grow just to meet consumers around the world's massive demand of cheap food. Our population is rapidly growing and we seriously need to understand the consequences we face to selfishly meet human needs. I strongly believe that the risks of reducing genetic diversity outweighs the benefits of relying on few highly productive livestock breeds and crop varieties.References
http://www.planetwire.org/files.fcgi/291_Agricult.pdf
http://www.sustainabletable.org/intro/comparison/
BLOGS I COMMENTED ON
http://sbi3u1carminachu.blogspot.com/2011/01/feeding-growing-population-vs.html?showComment=1294098461237_AIe9_BE_Ws0Us9Ae9CxtUS2TbqB2wFQp5xS7pYGYvawk9S4lP5sG84Cq89VPySeDHP2c4Z-ZiLlvYH9UK7D9N2r_1QG0wTpdRvQYmQXNZujvLMz59ZgQCWdQw2Eyxyz33mfTDRaLlysFoJnyB_4YKdwphJC4yocgeXRCgddpjBw-oAqExf-IqLI42spsugOVyY6Y7wPeF1januYrVWpkg0DGqxksu5-8B1tF8JwWFF6cgMD_LIQNo896xvoZDJtiAyutJdUfimjgf5EHxKGR7gExwLLiMpAz36KCXL8IMUNFAaX_JuYai1p3__-cK3bGBPkYbMdPOQQO8nS5yBUcze6CWwrt54qNAQvKQrdsvz0UMKHPRB-vDW0cTKMtCcVTWS8VOGjkW7eYSTfVsu2DMCBpAiSn5dqdSQ3iWzOE8JhYGGL8X7gJkx-awecJ2xFs4N13kax1n7o1Hf5Z8aBGvWCgtHWh4WB3H8DeL2WHJifT5A1CA7EhT5Lhy79DxmUmD-Y0fxpJvSRUKHRcU1bcKogHhDT-ljYT2gm0b2PfHQBUdA8AfQ0VFdse5_BFDy4iTNdvnCOGGVbYQS9n570ix613IrDsGaCMWtMWva_5wNLc49lFMQuPXTRBh5yottVASqIAn4EPkstuTvuojZZ2ox5nZtqY0riZCuqZIaKCRXttLlvyvEKAzG7i0JraCem0v9y1lfKOj1piltIGSEc3uZynEsoJzEIKrB-a7mBWtrrdgWaAR3udNIfIOT2IqzoBKrEbI_e3fkUAzbvwl-9uM7g2q8Ew-H1fWfF1n0xsXF_nua1v3lPEqIZL4OXLWZJLbVWTbP0qraI9fN1O0Tmg7d4-C0Ly24aGhWqycyXS_PnGg_U6b1YTZMEkhZMRVLaYWSP4E2CJKBVr#c5591208903990230914
http://melissasbioblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/differences-matter-sustainable-over.html?showComment=1298907699398#c321316396035219777
