motherjones:

Going to a farmers market today? (Or ever?) Read this from Tom Philpott: “The local food economy in two charts.”

Do some research on factory farms. It’s terrifying. Factory farms are doing this to the economy (from here) —

(1) Almost 30% of agricultural subsidies go to the top two percent of farms
and over four-fifths to the top 30%.

(2) In 1970, there were approximately 900,000 farms in the United States;
by 1997, there were only 139,000.

(3) Between 1969 and 1992, the number of producers selling 1000 hogs
annually or less declined 73%. Producers selling more than 1000 annually
increased 320%, according to the US Census of Agriculture.

(4) Estimated inputs to produce a pound of: Pork: 6.9 pounds of grain, .44
gallons of gasoline, 430 gallons of water Beef: 4.8 pounds of grain, .25
gallons of gasoline, 390 gallons of water

(5) Meat production has grown worldwide from 44 million tons in 1950 to 211
million tons in 1997.

(6) The price of meat would double or triple if full ecological costs -
including fossil fuel use, groundwater depletion and agricultural-chemical
pollution - were factored in.

(7) 90% of the nation’s poultry production is controlled by 10 companies.
(8) In Maryland, chickens outnumber people 59 to 1.

(1) Horrigan, Leo, Lawrence, Robert S., Walker, Polly, “How Sustainable
Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of
Industrial Agriculture,” Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable
Future, July 9, 1999
(2) Drabenscott, Mark. “This Little Piggy Went to MarketÖ”, Economic
Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Vol. 83, No. 3, Third Quarter,
1998, pp. 79-97
(3) Swine Strategies, State of Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and
Budget, Summer 1995
(4) Alan Durning, “Fat of the Land”, World Watch Institute, 1991
(5) Earth Times, July 1, 1998
(6) EarthSave, November 1997
(7) Zakin, Susan. “Nonpoint Pollution: The Quiet Killer,” Field and Stream,
August 1999, pp. 84-88.
(8) Ibid.