Industrialized Farming

You realize that your fridge is completely empty and run to the grocery store. ALL the shelves are empty and bare. Without industrialized farming, that would be a common situation many families face today. With the industrialization, less and less number of families have to live and work a farm. But does this industrialization benefit our healths? Not all the time.

Farms have now become large scale. Therefore, they are trying to produce as much of their product in a day as they can. A few years ago, there was a big scare that E. Coli was being transmitted to many people byt eh cattle feces that snuck their way into our hamburgers. Instead of making sure to clean the floors and areas around the meat, they just chose to sanitize the feces in the meat. Surprisingly, E. Coli was unknown before 1982. E. Coli is a microbe that thrives in the habitat of a cow's rumen. This ideal habitat is created in the cow when it has a diet of grains instead of grass. Then the manure from these cows contain the harmful E. Coli microbes, and other chemicals that allow the cows to survive the grain lifestyle, end up becoming pollutants instead of fertilizer.

There was also the E. Coli scare with the pre-packaged and washed spinach leaves. When the spinach is being packaged, leaves from many different places are brought together and washed in the same water. That way, if one leaf was contaminated, not all the leaves were contaminated and spread to the whole nation. The Center for Disease Control now estimates 76 million Americans get sick each year from the food supply, while 300,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die.

A way to reverse the negative aspects of industrialized farming is to keep local farmers in business. By doing so, we can pinpoint where the contamination came from, if there was any. Not as many people will be affected by a contamination because only the people in that area are consuming the food. Because the larger industries are trting to accomplish a lot in a short time period, the risks of contamination are greater and can cause many more problems than for local farmers. Also, the produce does not have to be transported far or keep fresh for a longer period of time. As for the E. Coli found in the cattle, by keeping the cattle in a field eating grass, we are reducing the risk of contracting E. Coli. These microbes cannot survive in the stomach of a cattle eating grass. Also, the manure produced becomes a part of the natural cycle, the crops feed the cattle while the cattles' manure feeds the crops. By returning to the way things used to be, many health issues are avoided.