Industrial agriculture
The identification of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus (referred to by the acronym NPK) as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making possible more intensive types of agriculture.
The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in concentrated, controlled animal feed operations by reducing diseases caused by crowding.
Farmers turned to land availability in the Brazilian Cerrado through the help of investors and other capital gaining methods needed for financialization.
In the article Financialization of work, value, and social organization among transnational soy farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado Ofstehage gives examples of how industrialized farming has evolved into a management model.
[2] In the Brazilian Cerrado the farming model is strictly based on increased profit margins which dictates decisions involving management and labor related work.
This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped drive the Industrial Revolution.
In recent decades, historians cited four key changes in agricultural practices, enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation and selective breeding, and gave credit to a relatively few individuals.
[W]hen hunter-gatherers with growing populations depleted the stocks of game and wild foods across the Near East, they were forced to introduce agriculture.
Further population growth among shifting slash-and-burn farmers led to shorter fallow periods, falling yields and soil erosion.
Plowing and fertilizers were introduced to deal with these problems—but once again involved longer hours of work and degradation of soil resources(Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth, Allen and Unwin, 1965, expanded and updated in Population and Technology, Blackwell, 1980.
Between 1930 and 2000 U.S. agricultural productivity (output divided by all inputs) rose by an average of about 2 percent annually causing food prices paid by consumers to decrease.
But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production systems—for example, the rapidly developing resistance among pests is rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective.".
A study done for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment conducted by the UC Davis Macrosocial Accounting Project concluded that industrial agriculture is associated with substantial deterioration of human living conditions in nearby rural communities.
If this supply of inputs would be disrupted by conflict or large catastrophes, this would decrease yields in industrial agriculture considerably.
The aim of the operation is to produce as much meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost and with the greatest level of food safety.
Food and water are supplied in place, and artificial methods are often employed to maintain animal health and improve production, such as therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements and growth hormones.
In meat production, methods are also sometimes employed to control undesirable behaviours often related to stresses of being confined in restricted areas with other animals.
The designation "confined animal feeding operation" in the U.S. resulted from that country's 1972 Federal Clean Water Act, which was enacted to protect and restore lakes and rivers to a "fishable, swimmable" quality.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as point source polluters of groundwater.
Lagoons not protected with an impermeable liner can leak waste into groundwater under some conditions, as can runoff from manure spread back onto fields as fertilizer in the case of an unforeseen heavy rainfall.
Workers may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings.
Organic methods rely on naturally occurring biological processes, which often take place over extended periods of time, and a holistic approach; while chemical-based farming focuses on immediate, isolated effects and reductionist strategies.
Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is a practice in which the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (fertilizers, food) for another.
