High quality food is packed with nutrients and is the primary factor in our physical health, and raw (unprocessed) food keeps the nutrients intact. Large agri-business, consisting of farms that are 1000 acres or more, generally wants to increase profits and they have found methods to do this that end up causing less nutrient density in the food. What they produce still looks like food and sometimes even tastes like food, but is not good for nutrition. They operate with the following principles in mind: economy of scale, long shelf life, and the ability to transport their products long distances. They are not interested in sustainability because in their business model, sustainability is less profitable. The focus on economies of scale in agriculture has introduced two products to the farm: the tractor and chemical additives in the form of fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, herbicides and pharmaceuticals.
The antithesis to this is organic food that is grown for nutrient density and flavor, left in it's raw state and sold locally directly from the farmer to the consumer, usually through a farmer's market or CSA. This approach leaves out the big business costs of the chemical inputs, expensive machinery, distributors, marketers, packers, transportation, extended periods of refrigeration, load rejection from USDA inspections, retail shrink and retail markup. It leaves in all the nutrients and flavor, and often for the same or lower cost. The farmer tends to do more manual labor in this scenario, but can make a living on 5-20 acres without any loans to own the minimal equipment needed. The soil, air and consumers are healthier, and the system is sustainable.
How is it that these antithesists* are able to get by without chemical inputs -- "fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, herbicides and pharmaceuticals"? What makes them need those, since presumably if they could do what they do without the expense and time of the cheemicals, they would.
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They are able to get by without the chemical additives by putting more thought into it. They focus on the health of the soil, nearby companion plants, and more complex crop rotation in order to build better immune systems in the plants. The healthier plants generally don't attract as many of the predatory insects and funguses that unhealthy plants do, and are able to fight off many of the diseases that the chemical substitutes also try to prevent. So the trade-off with the not using chemicals is more time and more thought spent on creating healthy plants. The chemical based farmers take the other approach: they want the farm to operate more like a factory with more predictability and less skill.
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