Government officials in developing nations often turn to industrial agriculture to solve their nation’s economic woes.
Farmers are told by big agribusiness companies that their methods are old-fashioned, and that to compete in the global market they must forget what they have learned from generations of farming. Traditional small-scale multi-species family farms are being overturned in favor of large monoculture farms that use foreign breeds of livestock, and antibiotics. The anthropogenic change caused by industrial agriculture goes far beyond traditional issues of habitat destruction and climate change, antibiotics reveal a level of anthropogenic change that occurs on a microorganism level as well as a cultural level.
Antibiotics have become the crux of industrial agriculture. In the United States, 80% of antibiotics sold are used on livestock. Antibiotics allow livestock to survive poor living conditions, and reduce the time it takes livestock to reach market size. Although cutting costs and maximizing outputs may appeal to decision makers, there are biological as well as cultural factors that go unturned. The use of antibiotics in our food system affects the biology of our bodies, our surroundings, and something we seldom think about— bacteria. When Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic penicillin in 1928, it was viewed as a miracle drug; curing diseases such as syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis.
Antibiotics are able to interfere with the formation of cell walls and production of essential proteins in bacteria. Given the relatively short lifespan of bacteria, and naturally occurring chance mutations, bacteria can adapt to changes in their environment at a significantly faster rate than humans. Antibiotics create an environment that encourages antibiotic-resistant bacteria to evolve and flourish. In some cases giving rise to multi-drug resistant bacteria. The composition of microorganisms in our intestines and in our waterways is changing.
Although a basic understanding of biology suggests an implicit correlation, it is near impossible to isolate antibiotics as the culprit of such drastic changes. Even in North America, the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics is largely unmonitored. The liberal use of antibiotics is changing the world around us— from tightly spaced pens in warehouses, to the proliferation of new diseases overseas.
Forty years ago, the Philippians’ entire population was fed on native eggs and chickens produced by family farmers. Today, most of the chickens in the country are imported breeds and the native Filipino chicken has practically disappeared due to viral diseases. Diseases like avian flu, leukosis J, and Newcastle disease spread from foreign breeds to the Filipino native chickens. The Filipino chickens’ genetic predisposition mirrors Jared Diamond’s explanation of lethal disease in, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Like the inhabitants of the New World, the native breeds of chicken were unaccustomed to the germs and diseases introduced by incoming foreigners. Raising native Filipino chickens became a biological and economic liability compared to the hearty “white chicken,” that came from the West. The decline of native chickens is due to the introduction of diseases and cheap production from the West. Without factory production, there would be no need to give antibiotics to livestock in the Philippians. The damage caused by industrial agriculture not only spreads to the native fauna of developing countries, but to the native people as well.
The cost of industrial agriculture can be seen in the rising numbers of food-borne illnesses, animal to human diseases, and increasingly overweight populations. Industrial agriculture is lucrative because it provides the growing Filipino population affordable meat. Yet meat once occupied a different dietary role. Meat used to be considered a luxury for special occasions or a complimentary flavour. Due to western fast food giants, the traditional diet of rice, vegetables, and a little meat or fish is changing—and so are rates of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.
The palate of the Filipino people has changed in accordance to the lifestyle propagated by the West. People will always try to improve their quality of life. If consuming meat is synonymous with a better quality of life, people will eat meat. This cultural phenomenon is inspired by the West’s ideal of wealth, which reinforces the expansion of cheap industrial agriculture overseas. The root of industrial agriculture in the Philippians is an unnecessary implementation. The West is not selling antibiotics and breeds to feed the Filipino people, or help them compete in the global market. After all, United States does not profit from selling products, the United States profits from selling culture.
40 years ago, the Filipino people had more than just food, they had culture. Local networks of family farms supplied communities with fresh produce by employing age-old horticulture practices. Farms were self-sustainable, and required certain finesse and an understanding of the land. There was no need to “compete with the global market,” the hot topic for many policy makers today.
Industrial agriculture consolidates these family farms and exchanges their traditions and community for efficiency. Hundreds of farmers lose their livelihoods and a few dozen are paid $5 a day to slaughter ceaseless ranks of uniform livestock. The youth are forgetting the farms their grandparents once tilled and the dishes their parents once savored. Instead, they take a number and stand in line at a western fast food franchise. In the last 40 years, the Filipino people have experienced a Shifting Baseline. The land that past generations once inhabited and cultivated through hardship and history is a distant memory. Parts of the archipelago looks less like tropical rainforests and more like the outskirts of a manufacturing plant. The physical landscape is not only disfigured, but the cultural and biological landscape as well. The anthropogenic change caused by industrial agriculture not only affects the tiniest microbe, but the richest culture.
Rather than improving living standards, industrial agriculture seeks to manufacture a human product. Our relationship with food has been reduced to a thrice daily prescription. A bland amorphous dietary supplement produced in a tightly spaced pen, a 14-hour shift in a slaughterhouse, and a brightly lit storefront.
WRITTEN BY LEON YIN
