Don’t Be Taken By the Agricultural Con Game…

sustainablelivingreport | July 20, 2015 | Going Organic, Green & Eco-Friendly Living, Sustainable Living

Here’s What You Need to Know About How Your Food Is Grown – & What We Can Do About It.

If you think that chemicals are necessary to grow food on large scale, you’ve been duped!

This interesting article reveals the problems with our current (and unsustainable) method of food production, and explains why we need to find a better way – sooner, rather than later.

What can you do to reverse the tide and help fix the problem? If you’re not growing your own food, make sure you’re purchasing food from people who use sustainable and responsible methods.

Check out the article here:

Decades ago, when people said “farming”, the “organic” part went without saying. But during the second half of the last century, massive food producing conglomerates collectively now known as “agribusiness” have changed the way that we look at, purchase, and consume food.

As if this weren’t bad enough, they’ve somehow managed to convince us that artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified foods are the only way our planet can survive.

The truth, in fact, is just the opposite!
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Here are the 7 things that make our current model of industrial agriculture unsustainable, and what we need to do in order to fix this mess:

1. Energy Return on Energy Invested

What this means is, are we getting out as much (or more) energy from our food as we are putting in to produce it?
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2. Soil Depletion & Erosion

Monoculture crops (see below) disrupt the balance of microorganisms in the soil, and destroy the healthy nutrients that the soil needs to grow healthy food.
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3. Aquifer Depletion

By farming in inappropriate locations, and using unsustainable growing methods, we are using up the water in our underground aquifers at alarming rates. (The recent water issues in California are just the beginning!)

4. Factory Farming (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations)

Animals in CAFOs are typically raised indoors in very tight confines (often they can barely even move), and are fed an unnatural diet of corn and soy products, instead of their natural diet of grass and plants. This unnatural diet causes health problems, which leads to animals being pumped full of antibiotics just to keep them alive until they are sent to the slaughter house.
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5. Monoculture Crops

No matter what part of the country you live in, you are probably aware that in the U.S. the most commonly grown crops are corn and soybeans – and wheat in some areas.
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Most conventional farms grow ONLY these crops, which means they are depleting the soil (see above), as well as eliminating species of food that may be beneficial to us and the planet.
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6. Food Waste:

Did you know that an estimated 40% of food produced in the United States every year is wasted?!?
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7. Toxic Chemicals

Lastly, all those chemical fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics used in conventional farming today don’t just magically disappear. In fact, we eat a large number of them on a daily basis.
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So What Can We Do?

A reversion to traditional organic and sustainable farming methods may be the only answer.

Considering our food system as a self-sustaining ecosystem that works together as a whole is essential in saving ourselves.
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While you, as a consumer, may not be a farmer, or even a small gardener, you can do your part simply through choosing to support farms that grow food sustainably.

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It may not seem like much, simply to change your shopping habits a bit, but you truly can make a real difference to your health – and the future health of our planet and species – by doing so.