You know you're a nerd when...

...you quote the philosopher Adam Smith in a simple 500 word essay on farming. My teachers must love me.

Or hate me.

Either way, the darn thing is done and written, be it fair or foul.

Update: My sister wanted to know how I managed to work a "thus quothe Adam Smith" into my paper, so here's the paper. It was only supposed to be from your point of view and didn't need to include any citations. Just so you know...I can and do write more technical papers but this wasn't required so I didn't expend the effort. I'm so proud of me for letting my OCD slip a little!

Non-sustainable farming practices in U.S. agriculture

Even though the majority of the United States population claims to attempt to be sustainable, the nation’s agriculture industry is far from sustainable. Current farming practices are decimating arable land through over-production. Current market trends favor processed foods with excess packaging over raw goods. And we are dependent on non-renewable energy to produce and distribute crops.

The philosopher Adam Smith noted that specialization of tasks increased productivity in pin factories, avoiding the “Jack of all trades, master of none” pitfall of inefficiency. Current farming practices likewise favor large scale farming operations with each grower specializing in a few crop species, often leading to large tracts of monocultures. However, as we saw in the 1970 corn blight epidemic which destroyed 15% of the nation’s corn that year, planting monocultures can lead to a grower’s, and thus an economy’s, downfall. When a pest affects a portion of planted acreage it will quickly spread through all adjacent plantings of the same species, necessitating pest control measures to be applied to the entire field. Even if the crop is spared and is still marketable, significant amounts of chemicals have now been introduced to the environment. If crops were grown on smaller plots interspaced with different species, control measures would only need to be applied to limited areas, reducing the dependence on wide-spread usage of chemicals.

Planting different crops also introduces multiple root structures which means that nutrient uptake is more efficient because of the different roots’ spreading strategies. Certain crops such as corn and alfalfa can reach soil nutrients up to 1.5 meters down into the soil profile where other crops, such as strawberries and lettuce can only access nutrients in the first foot or so of the profile. By replanting with the same crop season after season, farmers have to apply more and more fertilizers to maintain maximum yields. This fills the soil profile with unused and inaccessible nutrients that are eventually leached away causing potentially severe eutrophication and water quality issues downstream.

Growers are not the only ones to blame in the promotion of poor farming practices. The American market demands fresh produce in the winter time, providing an incentive to grow in an area that naturally would not be arable. The Imperial Valley is a good example of how growers have significantly modified a natural ecosystem to keep up with public appetites. Although the area does not receive any significant rainfall to support farming, they have diverted the Colorado River to provide for the irrigation needs of thousands of acres of winter and early season vegetable harvests. Because the water is so cheap, usually under $20 per acre foot, farmers find it more economical in regards to labor to simply flood or furrow irrigate fields. The excess water is then sent downstream to be disposed of in the Salton Sea, a manmade estuary. The salinity of this estuary is already higher than the ocean and is rising at a rate of about 1% per year because both the soil and the water in the Imperial Valley are highly saline. Because of this fact farmers must repeatedly flood crop land in between harvest and planting to push down and flush out salt accumulation in the soil that can damage crop productivity.

Along with wanting produce available in the off-season, American consumers are moving away from wanting fresh, raw produce and toward more processed products. Greater consumption of processed products means an increase in the use of packaging materials that are filling already overloaded landfills. On top of chemicals used to grow the crops, additional chemicals are used in manufacturing the packaging materials needed to sell the processed foods.

Also aiding in flooding landfills are plastic mulches and hot caps that are seeing increased usage as farmers attempt to gain earlier markets. Although research is being carried out to develop biodegradable plastic mulches, current mulches can only be used once. Then, owing to the caked on soil which is labor intensive or impossible to remove, the mulch cannot be recycled so it too must be added to the materials heading to landfills.

The final, often overlooked aspect of why current farming is not sustainable is our absolute dependence on non-renewable energy to produce and transport goods. Dale of Doug Mellon Farms estimated that they use 10,000 gallons of diesel a day in their farming operations. Then considering that 99% or more of produce travels at least part way to its destination on trucks, our industry would come to a crashing halt if we were not able to use diesel.

The earth has spent millennia developing our arable land and we have managed to go a fair distance in destroying it in only about 100 years. We are already seeing consequences from our non-sustainable farming and marketing practices and if we continue with these habits we will quickly use up any natural resources we have left and render any arable land unusable.