Industrial agriculture may cause extinctions of life

Donna Crane
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First of two parts –
The Independent newspaper in London, England published the following article written about professor Raj Patel, who stated: “Re-imagining a world with less stuff, but more joy is probably the way forward.”

Industrial agriculture is bringing about the mass extinction of life on Earth, according to a leading academic.

“Professor Raj Patel said mass deforestation to clear the ground for single crops like palm oil and soy, the creation of vast dead zones in the sea by fertilizer and other chemicals, and the pillaging of fishing grounds to make feed for livestock show giant corporations can not be trusted to produce food for the world.

“The author of bestselling book The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy will be one of the keynote speakers at the Extinction and Livestock Conference in London in October.

“Organized by campaign groups Compassion in World Farming and WWF, it is being held amid rising concern that the rapid rate of species loss could ultimately result in the sixth mass extinction of life. This is just one reason why geologists are considering declaring a new epoch of the Earth, called the Anthropocene, as the fossils of soon-to-be extinct animals will form a line in the rocks of the future.

“Humans are ushering in the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.

“Humans could cause mass extinction of life in oceans, scientists warn.

“Is climate change the Great Filter of human extinction?

“How pesticides can increase extinction risk for bumblebee populations

“The last mass extinction, which finished off the dinosaurs and more than three-quarters of all life about 65 million years ago, was caused by an asteroid strike that sent clouds of smoke all around the world, blocking out the sun for about 18 months.”

“Prof Patel, of the University of Texas at Austin, said: ‘The footprint of global agriculture is vast. Industrial agriculture is absolutely responsible for driving deforestation, absolutely responsible for pushing industrial monoculture, and that means it is responsible for species loss.

“‘We’re losing species we have never heard of, those we’ve yet to put a name to and industrial agriculture is very much at the spear-tip of that.’

“Speaking to The Independent, he pointed to a dead zone, an area of water where there is too little oxygen for most marine life – in the Gulf of Mexico that has grown to the same size as Wales because of vast amounts of fertiliser that has washed from farms in mainland U.S., into the Mississippi River and then into the ocean.

‘“That dead zone isn’t an accident. It’s a requirement of industrial agriculture to get rid of the sh*t and the run-off elsewhere because you cannot make industrial agriculture workable unless you kick the costs somewhere else,’ he said.

‘“The story of industrial agriculture is all about externalising costs and exploiting nature.’

“The Amazon and surrounding lands in South America are under increasing pressure from soy plantations.

“Extinction is about the elimination of diversity. What happens in Brazil and other places is you get green deserts, monocultures of soy and nothing else.
Continued next week

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