Myth #1: Industrial agriculture is efficient.

Truth: Small farms produce more agricultural output per area than large farms. Moreover, larger, less diverse farms require far more mechanical and chemical inputs. These ever increasing inputs are devastating to the environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more sustainable farms. (Source: Fatal Harvest)

• Studies show that when farms get larger, the costs of production per unit often increase, because larger farms require more expensive machinery and more chemicals to protect crops.  Additionally, large monocultures used in industrial farming undermine the genetic integrity of crops, making them susceptible to diseases and pets. Genetic weakening of our crops makes future industrial food productivity far less predictable and undermines any future efficiency claims of modern agriculture.
• Food policy expert, Pete Rosset says, “Surveying the data, we indeed find that small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms.  This is now widely recognized by agricultural economists across the political spectrum, as the ‘inverse relationship between farm size and output;”  He notes that even the World Bank now advocated redistributing land to small farmers in the third world as a step toward increasing overall agricultural productivity.

Myth #2: The market can regulate agriculture without government regulations.

Truth: Repetitively large, industrial agriculture corporations have used chemicals to increase yields and increase profits at the expense of the consumer.  An example of this is the use of DDT used as a pesticide.  This synthetic chemical was found to be unsafe for humans and detrimental to the environment and wildlife. Industrial agriculture companies did not attempt to stop using it until government regulations forced them to discontinue. Currently, India, China, and North Korea are the only countries that still produce and export DDT.

• Commodity Markets:  In 2008, the agriculture commodity market boom caused global food prices to soar.  One cause of this was the increased price of biofuel crops due to energy demands, as oil prices soared.  Between 2006 and 2008 average world prices for rice rose by 217%, wheat by 136%, corn  by 125% and soybeans by 107%.

Myth #3: Industrial agriculture will keep the world from going hungry.

Truth: World hunger is not created by a lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops. (Source: Fatal Harvest)

• Studies conducted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicate that food is in abundance, not scarcity.
• Every year, enough wheat, rice, and other grains are grown to provide every human with 3,500 calories. That equates to 4.3 pounds of food per person, per day, which would include two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.
• Increasing global population is currently not a problem. Over the past 35 years per capita food production as grown 16 percent faster than the world’s population.  According to Peter Rosset of Food First, “We now have more food per person available on this planet than ever before in human history.”

Myth #4: Industrial food is cheap.

Truth: If you added the real cost of industrial food – its health, environmental, and social costs – to the current supermarket price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it. (Source: Fatal Harvest)

• Environmental Costs: Industrial agriculture causes widespread destruction to the environment.  The use of pesticides pollutes our water, soil and air.  As the pollution problem grows worse, pests become immune to the chemicals and more are required. Additionally, industrial farming is responsible for 60 percent of global Nitrous Oxide emissions, the most potent greenhouse gas.  (Read more on our Say No to N2O campaign).  (Link to Say No to N2O Webpage)
• Health Costs: Pesticides, hormones, and other chemical inputs used in industrial farming contribute to the current cancer epidemic.  Industrial foods’ price tag should also include the expenses and lost workdays of the 80-million Americans who contract food-borne illnesses each year.  The Environmental Protection Agency also estimates that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year.
• Loss of Farms and Communities: Seventy years ago, there were almost 7 million American farmers.  Today there are about 2 million, even though the U.S. population has doubled.  Between 1987 and 1992, America lost an average of 32, 500 farms per year, an average of 80 percent of these were family-run.  Currently 50,000 farms account for 75 percent of U.S. food production.  The loss of farms as resulted in the loss of farm community and culture, along with the businesses those communities supported.
• Tax Subsidies: Taxpayers cover billions of dollars in government subsidies to industrial agriculture.  Among these subsidies are $659 million of taxpayer money spent each year to promote products of industrial agriculture, including $1.6 million to McDonalds to help market Chicken McNuggets in Singapore from 1986 to 1994 and $11 million to help Pillsbury promote the Doughboy in foreign countries.

Myth #5: Industrial agriculture benefits the environment.

Truth: Industrial agriculture is the largest single threat to the earth’s biodiversity. Fence-to-fence ploughing, planting and harvesting techniques decimate wildlife habitats, while massive chemical use poisons the soil and water, and kills off countless plant and animal communities. (Source: Fatal Harvest)

• Pesticides used in industrial agriculture have been clearly identified as the principal driving forces behind the drastic reduction of biodiversity on America’s farmlands.
• Industrial farming, through the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, is responsible for 60 percent of global Nitrous Oxide emissions, the most potent greenhouse gas.
• Additionally, the huge, monocultured fields characteristic of  industrial agriculture have dramatically reduced a number of wildlife populations by transforming habitats, displacing populations of native species, and introducing non-native species.

Myth #6: Genetically modified seeds and crops will solve the problems of industrial agriculture

Truth: New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture’s problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world’s food supply in the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land. (Source: Fatal Harvest)

• Superweeds: An emerging problem of planting genetically modified crops, is the resistance of weeds (known as superweeds) to the pesticide.  Superweeds are the result of genetically modified genes transferring from genetically modified seeds into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant superweed.  In an effort to fight superweeds, farmers are being forced to spray fields with stronger chemicals and pulling weeds by hand.    Farm experts say these efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water. (NY Times)

• Failures of GM crops:
  • Independent research shows that genetically engineered seeds do not actually increase yields.  A two-year study by the University of Nebraska showed that growing herbicide-resistant soybeans actually resulted in lower productivity than conventional soybeans.
  • Biotech companies have said that genetically modified seeds will be the answer to world hunger, but in reality, it could lead to starvation instead.  There are currently patents on genetically engineered “terminator” technology, which are seeds genetically engineered to produce a sterile seeds after a single growing season, meaning that the world’s farmers cannot save seeds and instead will have to purchase new seeds every year.  More than half the world’s population relies on saving seeds from their harvest.  The solution to world hunger is not to make the crops of the world sterile.