Food is nature. As Michael Pollan says, “Monocultures don’t exist in nature.” Making the places where we grow our foods into monocultures invites the destruction of the crop or the animals without providing added benefits. The insects and diseases still destroy 30 percent of the crops while gaining the advantage of becoming resistant to the poisons used to stop them. Animals gathered together in closed areas with populations that reach into the thousands provide the best opportunity for the spread of disease. The wide use of antibiotics allows the diseases to become resistant and to pass that resistance on to other viruses and bacteria.
In order for us to be truly successful, the food industry needs to become less industrialized. Organic farms can produce as much food as an industrial food manufacturing system. By providing a place for animals and plants to live in the ecosystems they are supposed to, farms can be safer, healthier for farmers and provide better results for the health of Americans. Or we can choose to not follow what business and nature deem as wisdom, continue on the monoculture farming practices of the industrial age and face the wanton destruction of our planet and our way of life.