Agricultural Reform

Monoculture: Intensive monoculture, or the use of only one crop variety, has become the main form of large-scale agriculture. While productivity can be high, the costs can be high, too. First, is increased soil erosion. Second, is pesticide dependency, as the pests favoring a single crop can establish themselves year-round. Third, is increased need for fertilizers. Fourth, is the loss of genetic diversity in using only one or a few different varieties of the crop. All of these costs compromise the long-term sustainability of farming.

It is important to reverse our dependency upon monoculture crops. Subsidies have to be eliminated for this kind of farming. Pesticide enforcement needs to be strengthened. Most important, genetic diversity needs to be promoted, or even required.

Factory Farming: Factory farming is heading for a dead end. Raising chickens and hogs, and fish and dairy farming under crowded conditions, increasingly rely upon constant low level doses of antibiotics. Unfortunately, such antibiotic use virtually guarantees development of resistant microbes, and increased cases of widespread disease. Rain runoff contaminated with low level antibiotics help to spread resistant organisms downstream. Farming methods which require constant antibiotic dosing need to be banned.