Our Food is Killing Us

for most of the growing season Kip Tom has been hard at work on

his form but he's not planting corn and soybeans with his hands or weeding

out invasive plants with a stirrupo instead the 59 year old farmer is on

his computer monitoring and analyzing

data streams that are pouring off of the sensors around his 20 000 Acre

Farm for Tom much like most farmers and Imperial core countries like the United

States sowing Fields with crops is a multi-million

dollar gamble because the 21st century Farm looks

nothing like its pastoral

ancestor it's highly mechanized steeped

in Market forces encoded

in fossil fuels so

how did we get here how

did our food systems

transform from supplying food to Regional hubs to ones that leverage the latest Technologies

and massive amounts of fuels to get the highest price on the global commodity

Market when did we stop growing food and

start growing products today

we dive into the Imperial Corps industrial

food system in order to uncover some answers to those very questions and

figure out whether there's actually a way to feed the world with food that

nourishes both humans and

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the climate crisis the

world needs a lot of food every

day 8 billion people consume

thousands of calories just

to survive which means that Farms

the very place where we harness the power of the sun to nurture life

are crucial to our survival today's Farms

however look like this massive

fields of crops as far as the eye can see and in the United

States Farms like these usually grow to plants

soybeans and corn at first glance you might think that these Farms are feeding

the world yes these fields of green are growing crops but they aren't necessarily

for human consumption most corn and soybean

is converted into everything from biofuels

to animal feed indeed

the average corn farm in the U.S is now over 700

acres and across the country 38

percent of the corn grown

is converted to ethanol

for fuel while another 38 percent gets

processed into animal food so the majority of the 767

billion pounds of corn that

American farmers grew in 2022

wasn't made to feed the mouths of The Hunger it would instead into the

mouths of cows into the gas tanks of cars so when someone says that

we need this farming system in order to feed the world they're

wrong the industrial Farm system's

main focus is commodity crops to fuel our transport and

our animal its focus is not food that we can put directly

in our mouths in part this is because farming

has increasingly been engulfed

by our Global capitalist

economy agribusinesses and farmers are no longer focused on growing food for humans to

eat but instead they are producing Commodities

that can hopefully turn them a profit this process of seeking more value from

every acre planted has led to a veritable arms race on Industrial

Farms one that pushes Growers to get bigger and more specialized

these days in order to produce all that corn and soybean Farms have been

kitted out with a whole range of Technologies

Technologies like herbicide resistant

genetically modified seeds that allow Growers to indiscriminately

spray chemicals on their crops or synthetic fertilizers

that help farmers mask the need for healthy soil or five hundred thousand dollars

combine Harvesters that dramatically decreased

Harvest Time through mechanization

while there is nothing wrong with these Technologies

in theory indeed minimizing the need for backbreaking labor is crucial we

will soon see that they enable and entrap Farmers into a narrow vision of

Agriculture a monoculture commodity

farm that has devastating

consequences for the planet growing

food has increasingly been wrapped up in the forces of capitalist commodity

production and as our food transformed

from sustenance grown for our survival to

products sold for profit so

too did our Farms

to the point where the very food we eat drips

with oil and fossil fuels

in 2013 a warehouse in West Texas exploded

with brutal force injuring

over 160 people and killing 15 the

explosion wasn't an act of Terror or a bombing it was instead caused by

our current food system the warehouse was full of fertilizer

more specifically ammonium nitrate one of the most used chemical nutrients

for growing plants across the world and also a core ingredient for

bombs the very stuff we sow into our soil is the very stuff we

use to sow seeds of Destruction but

as much as modern Agriculture

and agribusiness is born out of chemicals of War it

also has another toxic

Muse oil and gas fossil

fuels are intimately intertwined

with every level of our food system to the extent that oil shocks from

the Russian Ukraine war shock

or agriculture directly the ongoing conflict in Ukraine

could see International Food

and fade prices rise

by up to 20 percent but

why is our farming system so closely linked with fossil

fuels you might think it would be the plethora of gas guzzling machines now required

to grow and transport crops

but that's only a slice of the fossil fuel demands of industrial agriculture

the real culprit is synthetic

fertilizer specifically nitrogen fertilizer

which accounts for roughly 56

percent of all fertilizers

used worldwide the very same substance

that packed that Texas Warehouse

before it blew up nitrogen

fertilizer is synthesized through What's called the Haber Bosch process an

extremely energy intensive operation

that converts hydrogen into ammonia

which is then combined with carbon dioxide to create urea to spread over soil

for plant production while it might sound like a relatively harmless and straightforward process

under the hood this

operation drips in greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels 98

of the hydrogen used during the fertilizer

creation process is derived from fossil gas and

coal which means that quite literally the very nutrients we put into our soils

are products of the fossil fuel industry

and the ammonia conversion

process itself produces an estimated

450 million tons of CO2 per year and that's just the start after

all this chemical fertilizer

is produced by chemical companies it's pushed onto farmers who spray that fertilizer

indiscriminately across their fields and when that nitrogen makes contact with the soil it

releases nitrous oxide a gas that has a warming potential

265 times that of carbon dioxide indeed

the emissions from nitrogen fertilizer

synthesis use and transport accounts

for 2.1 percent of

all total Global greenhouse gas emissions which

is roughly the same as all of the aviation sector yet Farmers continue to

pump more and more fertilizer

onto their soils stripped

of nutrients in organic matter from minimal crop rotation and constant chemical interventions

soils ruined by commodity production Force

Farmers onto a vicious treadmill

the more they till the more they spray and the more they leave their

fields uncovered the more fertilizer

they will have to inject in into the dirt next season so every year

they need a larger amount of fertilizer

one of the few factors under their control to

get their next big yield indeed

nitrogen fertilizer production has increased 10

fold over the last 60

years in the capitalist profiting

off of these chemicals are the very same accumulating

wealth from planetary destruction one

study on the connection between the fossil fuel industry and agrochemical

companies found that seven of eight companies examined

showed extensive past or current ties to the fossil fuel industry through board interlocks

corporate ownership structures or direct engagement

in fossil fuel production the companies making fertilizer

are the very same companies extracting

fossil fuels this is concerning

especially when considering that nitrogen fertilizer

production has increased 900

from 12.9 million tons in 1961

to 123 million tons in 2020.

so much like oil-derived

Plastics synthetic fertilizers are a gold mine for fossil fuel companies under attack from

climate initiatives and carbon-cutting

policies fossil capitalists are looking to maintain profits

by funneling their fuels into our soils and food in their study on fossil

fuel-derived fertilizers the center for international environmental

law puts it bluntly the fertilizer

and fossil fuel Industries are increasingly

collaborating to launder fossil

fuels particularly gas as

an ever-expanding source of both clean energy and

clean agrochemicals it is neither in a world where the U.N food and agriculture

organization projects nitrogen fertilizer

use might grow by 50 percent by 2050 this

is concerning as Farms increasingly become factories

their ties with the fossil fuel industry

become tighter in some instances literally

protecting and perpetuating the fossil economy like in the case of the U.S agribusiness's

long history of blocking climate policies through aggressive Lobby according

to inside climate news the Farm Bureau

which is industrial agriculture's

lobbying appendage helped block the Senate ratification education of the Kyoto Protocol in 1999

opposed the American clean energy and Security Act 10 years later and

backed legislation that would prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse

gases and outside of policy roughly two-thirds

of oil and gas is

produced on leased out Farmland

in short where you find industrial

agriculture you'll find oil and vice versa

but this isn't the inevitable conclusion

of growing food instead

it is driven by the logic of capitalism

forces that push Farmers to consolidate

exploit and commodify the plants and animals that sustain Our

if we take a trip back to the farm of kiptom

we can see The Logical conclusion

of a farming system operating

within a capitalist market system Tom

Farms manages an immense amount of information through its cloud computing

system it's all geared towards increasing yield according

to the New York Times Tom's

Farm consists of 20

000 acres of corn and soybean harvested by GPS driven

combines and data trackers are everywhere giving minute to minute reads on irrigation

levels and soil fertility for Tom a 7th generation Farmer

in the U.S this

is now what it takes to stay competitive

and profitable an increasingly mechanized

and technology-laden farm that

is specialized on just two crops to eke out as much profit as possible

from each Harvest as

professor of plant and soil science Fred magnoff

writes agriculture under capitalism

is highly irrational instead

of seeking its core mission to feed people our

food system is now built around profit

in the exchange of products in the most profitable crops in the agribusiness capital

of the world are soybeans

and corn not because individual

consumers are willing to pay top dollar for corn and soy at the grocery

store but because those

are the most readily

commodified and synthesized plants

but to grow those crops and more importantly to make any money selling

their Harvest Farmers must get bigger while getting simpler

a vicious spiral that leaves big monocrop

farms vulnerable to pests floods

and weather shifts over the last 40 years in the United States the

number of small farms and mid-size Farms has shrunk while the amount of large

Farms has grown part of this consolidation

is due to Farmers retiring

as the average age of the American Farmer

continues to get older and older but older Farmers aren't passing off land to

younger Farmers instead they're selling it to investors and speculators

or larger Farms creating a consolidation

effect that further increases

the barrier to entry larger

Farms are able to maximize their profits with massive harvests

they can out-compete smaller Farms through data analytics

and five hundred thousand dollar GPS driven

Harvesters Farmers aren't growing more Acres because they enjoy it or are buying herbicide

resistant GMOs because that's what tastes good they're doing it because that's the best

way to turn a profit within

the system they're locked into as

one Iowa farmer Seth Watkins notes in an interview with inside climate

news I don't think any of us wants to get bigger it's just the

curse of a commodity business we

made all the focus on production and

all the economics the subsidies

are tied to production we have a production focused

agriculture policy and all of this consolidation

and simplification means that the industrial processes

of pummeline soil with nitrogen

fertilizer pesticides and planting just a few crops or cementing

industrial farming as the way to farm which means that climate initiatives or ecological

farming techniques face a massive uphill battle to be implemented

at the end of the day industrial

farming is focused on one thing yields

for profit a goal that runs directly counter

to the path agriculture

should be taking in light of the climate crisis because farming

has the power to turn back the tide of emissions it

has the power to Foster biodiverse

and thriving Landscapes and as we will soon see it's

done the exact opposite

for modern Farmers specialization

is King whether it's year-round strawberry

production in California or

corn production on the plains of Iowa Farmers

know that concentrating on just one or two crops allows them a Competitive Edge

in a capitalist system it means they can justify purchasing crop specific expensive

equipment to save time and finally tune a monocrop

farm system to maximize profit margins

we are no longer in an age where Farmers grow food for themselves and

their Regional Community they

now must sell their crops on the global market nearly

three decades ago in the U.S only

33 percent of corn sales came from farms

harvesting just two crops in

short Farms were much more diverse in

just 30 years however that

percentage has grown to 53

percent Farms are increasingly growing just

one or two crops this

specialization and concentration has disastrous

environmental consequences alongside the devastating emissions

from synthetic and nitrogen fertilizers

U.S farm production itself

like the energy consumption

for combines or tractors produces

68.2 million tons of greenhouse gas equivalent

every year and to add insult to injury healthy

soils have the capacity to capture and store carbon dioxide yet large-scale

industrial agriculture has blasted

that capacity to Smithereens

under the current extractive

monocrop Paradigm which plants just a couple of crops over and over again in

the same field using

tillers and chemical fertilizers

to prep the soil nutrients

in organic matter quickly

disappear as a result the soil soon becomes Barren no longer a beneficial environment

for plants to thrive left unprotected

for months on end this dead dirt gets Swept Away by wind and rain

stripping even more minerals

and nutrients that have been built up over decades

if not centuries the UN food and agriculture

organization predicts that this constant

damage will push 90 percent of the Earth's topsoil

to be at risk by 2050.

with a recent study projecting that soil erosion in the U.S is

on track to repeat Dust

Bowl era losses eight

times over under these degraded

and dead conditions soils

aren't able to capture carbon leading

to a massive opportunity

for emissions drawdown wasted

in the pursuit of profit accumulation

and dead soil not only means worse crop yields and less carbon capture but

also less biodiversity as

we carve up more land for soybeans

for animal feed like

in the case of the Brazilian Amazon or

till Prairieland into more fields of corn previously

diverse habitats become deserts

of monocrops inhospitable to insects

and birds desperate for a home in part this is because as Farms get

bigger so too has industrial pesticide

use especially in the wake of chemically resistant

strains of GMO seeds pesticide

use has almost doubled

since 1990 because as soil degrades under the plow of capitalist production Farmers

doused their plants and herbicides

and insecticides in an ever-increasing

arms race against weeds

and pests once Farmers begin to spray their crops weeds

and pests build resistance

and more and more chemicals

are needed and these excess chemicals

don't just stay on the farm they

slip into our waterways

harm Farm Workers and reach into our wells and food one study found that

80 percent of Americans have detectable

levels of pesticides or their byproducts

in their bodies and about

385 million cases of pesticide

poisoning are reported every year most

of which come from Farm Workers in close contact with

toxic chemicals poured onto Fields

while studies like this and this reveal that birds and wildlife have now become

collateral damage in the hunt to produce the maximum amount of commodity crops

the Silent Spring that Rachel Carson grieved

for in the 1960s

is still very much happening

today and is driven by the logic of capitalism

demanding monocultural production monocultures

which are highly susceptible to failure in the face of hardship hardship

which will certain certainly

come with a growing climate crisis because farming

under a profit-based system is

a high-stakes gamble to get the most from your field it's best to plant

just one crop but if a hail storm or a wave of pests flattens

your 1000 acres of corn you've

lost it all all

your chips are stacked onto one bed and if it doesn't pan out it

can mean bankruptcy and ruin a fact which looms

over the increasing rate of suicide amongst farmers in the U.S a

rate which is now 3.5

times higher than the general population

so under capitalism farming

kills the soil kills

plants kills wildlife and

kills people we desperately need

an intervention we need a means of farming that focuses not on commodity

production for profit but instead growing

food for nourishment and

long before there was the Harvest combine

or Kip Tom's GPS tracking

devices Karl Marx declared

that capitalist agriculture was already steeped

in the co-exploitation of workers and nature he writes in the third volume of

capital all progress in capitalist agriculture

is a progress in the art not only of robbing the worker but of

robbing the soil as the years march on from when Marx penned those words

they only became more Prussian

capitalist agriculture is driving us into an increasingly fragile

food system that prioritizes

commodity production over food degrade

soil endangers wildlife and drives climate

change but as much as our food system today is a snapshot of the

destructiveness of capitalist extraction food

and farming has the potential to be the exact opposite

agriculture has the ability to create resilient

communities Foster thriving biodiverse

Landscapes capture carbon and turn back the tide of climate change all

while growing delicious food and

it all starts with emphasis

on diversification there is no one correct way to farm growing

food well means paying attention to and understanding

your local environment but regardless of locations

we can't continue on with monocultural

production we must Embrace a farm of many plants

a polyculture that builds resiliency

through diversity but just changing what crops we grow or

how many crops we grow is not enough so what would it mean if

agriculture actually focused on growing food for people and the planet instead

of growing products for Market completely

Transforming Our Food system won't

happen overnight but we can take steps right now to minimize the damage of

crop production immediate interventions

within our current systems could look like replacing

synthetic fertilizers with green manures cover

cropping and crop rotation strategies

in addition growing the number of community supported

agriculture or CSA Farms will be crucial csas

are a small glimpse of what Farms might look like under a biodiverse

socialist farming one where farmers and community members

are directly tied to each other both are invested in the success of the

Farm's capacity to create a wide range of good and

tasty food today csas

not only provide Farmers with needed Financial backing

early on in the growing season which

is crucial in our current food system but it also develops

the surrounding communities knowledge

about what's seasonal and what it takes to run a farm but csas

are ultimately Limited in their scope under capitalism

there are over 7

000 csa-based farms in the us alone yet

commodity Crop Production still

dominates agriculture so what would a food system Beyond capitalist

agricultural production even look like One Vision comes from Max Iowa and his book

a people's Green New Deal there he envisions Farms

accompanied by cities and urban centers

adorned with Gardens every

home and Street line Boulevard rooftop

facade Brown Lots should be a communist victory

garden this Urban agriculture

is already happening in cities like Havana and Cuba

which produces roughly 70 percent of the city's fruit and vegetable needs on

site showing us the possibility and power of collective and Community Gardens

held in common but we will also need to grow staple

grains and yes even corn and soybean

but crucially these crops must not fall back into the old ways of 20

000 Acres of fields

and the same crop in a biodiverse

farming system Democratic planning will be an essential task one

where local and Regional communities will

work with Farmers to grow the food that's needed instead

of producing as much as possible for profit A system that might set carbon

capture goals for Farmers while also giving them the tools and the training to

create a thriving biodiverse

Farm allowing them to grow corn but interspersing

those plants with cover crop regimes or other agro-ecological

methods this might mean foregoing

some labor-saving devices kiptom's

GPS guided combine harvester might

not be appropriate for the task of a farm with a multitude of crops

but ecological farming methods

don't necessarily have to mean millions

of people toiling away in fields there's so many labor-saving

Technologies appropriate for every size of farm already being implemented

and ecosocialist food system doesn't

mean heading back into the Stone Age what it means is putting food and

the people who grow it at the center of planning

policy and Community it

means doing the rational thing and

growing food for people and

not for money because the food we put on our plates three times a

day can be tied to a system that has the potential to heal ourselves

our community and our planet and sadly instead

we're locked into a system that's Origins

traced back to the capitalist industrial

revolution of 18th century England that

is where fossil fuels latched

on to the forces of capitalist production and

handed capitalism and fossil fuels the Reigns to our world the

origins and birth of fossil fuels are often simplified and misunderstood

which is exactly why

in next month's video I look at exactly why fossil fuels became the dominant

fuel source for our world despite

its cost its energy capacity

and other drawbacks how did Steam and ultimately the fossil fuels that powered it

win the historical Battle of energy and

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thoughts nebula Original Series F is for fascism August

1945 marked the definitive end of the fascist era but

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City beautiful's original video

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massive public transit system there

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completely intertwined with the growth of its Metro system and

on top of all all that nebul has a whole host of classes

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how do we actually

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