EA and the food radicals

Leaving aside the issue of growing under nutrition and malnutrition, we should look at other effects of corporate farming. Undisturbed soil has a natural fertility which is destroyed by ploughing, herbicides, and pesticides. (The first three chapters of Monbiot’s Regenisis are very good on this.) Corporate farming substitutes petroleum-derived fertilizers to compensate for the loss of natural fertility. Besides polluting waterways and creating dead zones in oceans, these fertilizers contribute more to climate change than all the fuel used in transportation. 

Traditional peasant farming produces more calories per unit of land than does corporate agriculture. The latter’s advantage is that it produces more calories per worker than traditional farming, hence more profit for capitalists, incentivizing land grabs and pushing peasants onto increasingly marginal land.

Peasant farming is both labor and knowledge-intensive. The farmer must be a practical scientist studying by trial and error how to get maximum production without chemicals; she must be a student of the soil, of various crops and their effects on soil fertility and control of pests. Monbiot is particularly good in explaining how this works.