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Campbell’s Executive “Revelations” Expose the Rot of Capitalist Food Production - Left Voice (www.leftvoice.org)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by reader@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
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So, this article seems like uncontroversial fluff, until you get to this part:

The Myth of “Feeding the World”

But the capitalists and their politicians cry, “We need factory farming and industrialized agriculture to “feed the world”!

But this, too, is a capitalist lie. Far from solving hunger, the industrial monoculture model at the heart of factory farming actively exacerbates it. As Vandana Shiva has noted, “industrial agriculture accounts for only 28% of the world’s food production, [but] it is using up 75% of the world’s resources.” Capitalists constantly frame the system as more “efficient,” but here too we see a system of staggering inefficiency. Industrial agriculture’s reliance on vast single crops like corn and soy — a large portion of the global harvest dedicated to livestock feed — causes varying levels of environmental destruction. Industrial agriculture under capitalism “pollutes the environment by increasing the use of inputs, accelerating soil erosion, polluting water resources, raising carbon level in the atmosphere, and decreasing biodiversity.” This model then often drives deforestation to clear land for more monocultures or cattle, further damaging biodiversity and fueling climate change.

I'm on board with the latter section, I think that's clearly true, but is it really the case that industrial agriculture is less than 1/3 of global food supply? Anyone have any idea how that's measured? And where's the line, is it just mechanized farming/mass raising of livestock? It seems like if this stat has any basis in reality it's mostly because of feeding animals for livestock, not because large mechanized farms don't work (though as discussed they have major flaws and downsides)

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[-] fort_burp@feddit.nl 3 points 7 months ago

Anyone have any idea how that’s measured?

I don't but I've been confused by this too. There must be an academic or professional definition of industrial agriculture that I'm not aware of because I've read something along the lines of 70% of food is produced by small farms but then you check what the small farms are doing and it's just tilling, monoculture, and chemically produced nitrogen fertilizer, which is MY definition of industrial farming.

this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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