Food for Forests: Changing the world with your plate - Big Agriculture

The connection between our natural environment and our agricultural system is strong. Long ago, we humans lived in small bands called tribes, and moved constantly in the search for a food supply and shelter…

Then an amazing thing happened. We stopped moving, and started planting. We had figured out how to take wild plants and animals, and over time domesticated them. This was the agricultural revolution. It changed many things. It allowed us to store food for the first time in our history. This allowed for larger and larger groups of humans to be in a single area. This lead to the formation of towns, then cities, then kingdoms, and eventually empires.

Find your way around:

From Nomads to Farmers

This shift in our species was astounding and unprecedented, and no other species has been able to accomplish such a feat. We were able to become ecosystem engineers on a grand scale. Although, At first this started small, but eventually through technological advances, the scale become larger. This did however come at a cost. In order for humans to create fields to farm, they had to alter the natural landscape into something that allowed for large scale cultivation. We created farms from forests. This allowed us to feed more people than ever before in our history. The ability to expand the food supply has been important for all civilizations that have risen and fallen throughout history.

Expanding the food supply

Recently, this has taken on an even larger scale but for different reasons. In farming eras past, the bulk of the crops grown were stored for and eaten by humans. Over the past 100 years, we have shifted to growing crops for farm animals.

This graphic is very telling. Eleven million square kilometers provides ~83% of the global food supply. Meat production requires 40 million square kilometers and provides only ~17% of the global food supply. This is incredible. It means that we are using 9,880,000,000 acres (40,000,000 kilometers x 247) of land to get only ~17% of global calories! Whereas ~83% of the global calories comes from only 2,717,000,000 acres of land.

Increasing animal production

We also have greatly intensified the number of animals bred into existence by us each year to satisfy our demand for animal meat. Each year we are killing over 150 billion animals for food production around the world. Ethical issues aside, this is an incredible waste of resources. It wastes a large portion of land, water, energy, oil, fertilizer, etc. The 7 billion acres of land can restore ecosystem functions across various places throughout the world.

Antibiotic usage

These animals consume the lions share of crops grown throughout the world, and only give us a very small portion back in food. Animals also consume the vast majority of antibiotics produced each year. Antibiotics increases animal growth rates, and CAFOs are breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses. In 2009, 80% of antimicrobial drugs sold for food-animal use, while 20% were for human medical use.

Why does this matter?

We have industrialized our food production system, with most cereal crops grown for feed. Animals are confined in larger and larger numbers to maximize profit. This leads to overcrowding, unsanitary, and stressful living conditions for the animals, but increases profit for the companies in this business (JBS, Cargill, Tyson, SYSCO, etc).

What does this have to do with human health?

The living conditions of CAFOs are like gigantic large scale petri dishes. These petri dishes allow bacteria and viruses to mutate and replicate many thousands of times, which can increase their potency and virulence. When you get sick and go to the doctor, the antibiotics that your doctor will use to treat you have been fed to your food (animal products). If the source of your infection was food borne, the bacteria you are infected with were given the opportunity to gain resistance before you were even treated, making the antibiotics less effective.

A new world…

This means we are essentially creating a world where once again a small infection could potentially turn deadly. We are decreasing the effectiveness of antibiotics with each passing year. When it comes to viruses this point is further emphasized through the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world. The current scientific thinking is that bats are the primordial reservoir, but the intermediary host was pangolins. These pangolins were infected with the SARS-COV-2 virus, then captured and caged at wet markets, and finally sold and eaten as a delicacy, which lead to humans being infected with this novel virus (Pangolins and SARS-COV-2 virus).

Do we have the willpower?

If we do not reduce our demand for meat and dairy products, and subsequently de-intensify our industrialized production of meat and dairy, then viruses and bacteria will continue to evolve and strengthen themselves against our defenses, leading to more deadly outbreaks in the future. These are outbreaks of our own making. We can and should do better, for ourselves and future generations to come. We have the power and ability to make these changes on a national and even global scale.

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