Title: Organic Industrial Agriculture | Mission 2014: Feeding the World
Headings: Organic Industrial Agriculture
Organic Industrial Agriculture
Definition
Pros and Cons
PROBLEM 1: Use of Monoculture
PROBLEM 2: High Reliance on Artificial Pesticides/ Fertilizers
PROBLEM 3: Poor Soil Quality
PROBLEM 4: Extreme Water Consumption and Pollution
SOLUTION 1: Use of Monoculture
SOLUTION 2: High Reliance on Artificial Pesticides/Fertilzers
SOLUTION 3: Poor Soil Quality
SOLUTION 4: Extreme Water Consumption and Pollution
Target Regions
Implementation
Existing Organizations Acting in this Field
What is the Timescale for this?
Works cited:

Content: Badgley, 2006)
Although both organic and industrial agriculture have their strengths and weaknesses, there are certain problems with industrial agriculture that necessitate the need to combine both methods. PROBLEM 1: Use of Monoculture
Industrial agriculture relies on monoculture, the planting of one crop in mass amounts. This decreases biodiversity within the ecosystem within both plants and animals. "Today as more and more farmers are integrated into international economies, imperatives to diversity disappear and monocultures are rewarded by economies of scale. In turn, lack of rotations and diversification take away key self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures into highly vulnerable agroecosystems dependent on high chemical inputs. The technologies allowing the shift toward monoculture were mechanization, the improvement of crop varieties, and the development of agrochemicals to fertilize crops and control weeds and pests. Government commodity policies these past several decades encouraged the acceptance and utilization of these technologies. As a result, farms today are fewer, larger, more specialized and more capital intensive. At the regional level, increases in monoculture farming meant that the whole agricultural support infrastructure (i.e. research, extension, suppliers, storage, transport, markets, etc.)