Why could industrial agriculture be considered less sustainable than other subsistence strategies?
Question by Beverly: Why could industrial agriculture be considered less sustainable than other subsistence strategies?
Sustainability is totally different than what you think it is Texas R… It’s not about making a profit, its about maintaining land and resources so future generations can use them as well. Profit has nothing to do with it…
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3 Responses to Why could industrial agriculture be considered less sustainable than other subsistence strategies?
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It can’t. The argument for sustainability is ridiculous. Sustainable agriculture is simply any form of agriculture which can make a profit.
Texas R
July 30, 2012 at 11:56 pm
“It can’t. The argument for sustainability is ridiculous. Sustainable agriculture is simply any form of agriculture which can make a profit.”
Not quite. What you need to do is define long and short term sustainability. Sure something can be profitable if it is sustainable in the short term. However, most of our fertilizers come from finite sources through mining, and our soil is being eroded away in many places due to farming practices not matching up with the climate/soil type. In the short term that doesn’t affect profit, but when the mining of the fertilizer is no longer feasible and the quality of the soil deteriorates to the point where farming the land is either not profitable or entirely impossible, that practice is not long-term sustainable.
Sustainability ultimately requires the long-term sustainability. Short term fails because you cannot continue the practice for a prolonged period of time even if you are making a temporary profit, because you will eventually have major losses that cannot be recovered. Long-term on the other hand, may have initial costs that do not make it initially profitable, but overall will be more profitable than the short term because you can continue using the resource (such as land). So yes, sustainability can be likened to the ability to profit from the practice. However, it would be better defined as being able to profit from a particular practice after prolonged use of that particular method.
Obviously not a direct answer to your question, but hopefully that will give you something to flesh out your search a little bit more to pin down some specifics.
Tony
July 31, 2012 at 12:20 am
Certain industrial agriculture methods are less sustainable than others. If the crop is harvested without respect to soil health then you can wear out the soil quickly but industrial doesn’t mean unsustainable it just means it uses machinery to be the main sources of horsepower to harvest, plant, till the ground. Industrial farming using machinery to multiply the efficiency of the operator to generate more income and profit than subsistance farming. The farming methods of 90 years ago in the US is considered industrial farming when horses still towed threshing machines and steel planters. Subsistence farming means a farmer provides all what he needs with none to spare to sell for cash profit. Its the least efficient, and relegates the operator to the lowest levels of income.
the long shot
July 31, 2012 at 12:22 am