Conventional farming is Big Ag’s planned destruction of human and natural food systems. It includes GMOs, patented seeds, silent forests, animals that are tortured for years before being slaughtered, one more India farmer that will commit suicide 30 minutes from now and many other very scary things. Conventional seems like such an innocent word: conjures up thoughts of conventional wisdom, societal conventions which are the underpinning of civilization … but this word, like our food system, has been corrupted by Big Money and their lapdogs, the major media portals, to confound and confuse us, and to obfuscate the truth. L.E.A.F. explains:

Conventional farming systems share many characteristics: rapid technological innovation; large capital investments in order to apply production and management technology; large-scale farms; single crops/row crops grown continuously over many seasons; uniform high-yield hybrid crops; extensive use of pesticides, fertilizers, and external energy inputs; high labor efficiency; and dependency on agribusiness. In the case of livestock, most production comes from confined, concentrated systems.

Philosophical underpinnings of industrial agriculture include assumptions that “a) nature is a competitor to be overcome; b) progress requires unending evolution of larger farms and depopulation of farm communities; c) progress is measured primarily by increased material consumption; d) efficiency is measured by looking at the bottom line; and e) science is an unbiased enterprise driven by natural forces to produce social good.” [Karl N. Stauber et al., “The Promise of Sustainable Agriculture,” in Planting the Future: Developing an Agriculture that Sustains Land and Community, Elizabeth Ann R. Bird, Gordon L. Bultena, and John C. Gardner, editors (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1995)

When it’s good food you crave to feed to your families, look to traditional or family farming – and organics. Although take care with organics, as in recent years that industry has been steadily encroached upon by Big Ag too.