Supporters of industrial farming often claim that sustainable agriculture is not an economically viable way to produce food. They believe large-scale factory farming is the most efficient way to produce huge quantities of cheap food.

What these advocates fail to recognize is that the seemingly low price of industrial food does not take into account the true costs of production. These hidden costs include environmental degradation, use of fossil fuels, damage to human health, and the destruction of rural communities. These costs are not paid for by the owners of factory farms; they are paid for by residents of the communities in which these operations are located, by taxpayers and by consumers.

"Environmental Costs"
Factory farms are directly responsible for a wide range of environmental problems. In addition to creating unmanageable amounts of waste, causing massive topsoil erosion, aquifer depletion, and the reduction of biodiversity, factory farming pollutes our air, water and soil with hazardous gasses, toxic chemicals, and harmful pathogens. The price of industrial-farmed food does not include the cost of this damage. Instead, the burden is borne by the local community and by we taxpayers who must finance government cleanup efforts with their tax money.

Fossil Fuels and Energy Use
As a result of industrial agriculture, food that was once produced locally must now be transported extraordinarily long distances. On average, conventional fruits and vegetables produced in the US travel about 1,500 miles before reaching the point of sale.ⁱ In addition, there are numerous food products imported from foreign countries, which means the average meal can travel even longer distances. Industrial farms also rely on highly mechanized systems, to run livestock operations and produce the feed for their animals.

Transporting and producing food in this way requires an enormous amount of fuel for trucks and machinery. This fuel consumption results in increased air pollution (a problem that is both extremely difficult to fix and essentially immeasurable in terms of cost), as well as a continued reliance on foreign oil. 

Human Health Costs
Many industrial agriculture practices are harmful, not only to the health of individuals living nearby large farms but also to the health of consumers who eat the food they produce. Residents suffer illness resulting from contaminated water supplies and air pollution, while consumers are exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, pesticide residues and outbreaks of food borne diseases. Factory farms do not pay the hospital bills to treat any diseases from contaminated food and water, instead, they are passed directly to the people who miss work when they are sick, and to the taxpayers who help finance the health care system.

Rural Communities
Another hidden cost of industrial-farmed food is its impact on small family-owned farms and rural communities. As a result of the expansion of industrialized agriculture, there are now nearly 4 million fewer farms in the US than there were in the 1930's.ⁱⁱ While small family farms help improve rural economies by creating more jobs and by patronizing local businesses, factory farms operate with minimal labor and generally purchase building materials, equipment, supplies, and feed from outside of the region.ⁱⁱⁱ As a result, rural areas are left with high rates of unemployment and very limited opportunity for future economic growth.

Economic Efficiency
Even if the hidden costs of factory farming are ignored, it's still not clear that industrial agriculture operations are more efficient than smaller, sustainable farms. A substantial body of work within agricultural economics literature suggests that smaller operations are in fact more productive than larger ones.  Large-scale, single crop, industrial farms can produce a large amount of output per unit of labor, but diverse, sustainable crop systems are actually more productive in terms of output per unit of land.^iv In other words, sustainable farms require more workers (and create more jobs), but produce more food on smaller plots of land than industrial farms.

Also, increased food production by industrial farming has not managed to relieve any of the problems related to famine and hunger throughout the world. The University of Essex found that sustainable agriculture increased productivity by an average of 93% in 9 million farms in such places as the Sahel of Africa, the hills of the Andes, the rainforests of Southeast Asia, and other areas where chemical inputs are neither affordable nor successful.^v Meanwhile, industrial agriculture has allowed the US to develop a culture of over-consumption, where we waste about half the food we produce.^vi

Subsidies
Even if it seems like we’re paying less for industrially-produced food at the grocery store, we’re spending our tax money on huge subsidies that the government gives to agribusiness. Between 1995 and 2004, the U.S. government awarded $143 billion in agricultural subsidies.^vii 72 percent of these subsidies were granted to just 10 percent of US farms.^viii These subsidies promote industrial agriculture while allowing big food producers to keep their prices artificially low, making it impossible for small farms that don’t receive subsidies to compete. And it’s our tax money that’s supporting this!

Supply, Demand and Food Prices
A basic economic principle shows that an increase in consumer demand for a product will encourage more firms to supply that product, eventually causing its price to fall. This is good news for the growing community of consumers interested in purchasing sustainable foods.

As more consumers consider the environmental and social effects of food production, the market for sustainable foods has expanded dramatically. According to the USDA, the sale of organic agricultural products increased by 20 percent each year throughout the 1990's and is predicted to grow 9 to 16 percent annually through 2010.^ix It has also become increasingly common to find foods at the store bearing eco-labels like "raised without antibiotics" and "Cage Free."

What You Can Do
The trend towards sustainable food production is the result of concerned consumers making responsible choices. By purchasing sustainable foods from your local farmer or your local grocery store, you are not only supporting the farmers who produced these goods, you are also actively encouraging the future production of sustainable food.

• Don't give your money to industrial agriculture – give it to a sustainable farmer instead! Check out the Eat Well Guide to locate sources of sustainable meat products in your area.
• Buy foods directly from farmers at farmers markets, farm stands, or through a CSA group.

Did You Know?

• In 2002, only one-third of the U.S.'s 2,128,982 farms received government subsidies; two-thirds of all U.S. farmers received no payments.^x
• The percentage of the rural workforce employed on farms dropped by about 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s.^xi

For More Information

• Considering the Rationales for Factory Farming – This report by professor of Economics Dr. William Weida refutes several common arguments used to support factory farming by demonstrating that they are based upon false assumptions.
• The CAFO: Implications for Rural Economies in the US - Written by professor of Economics Dr. William Weida, this paper provides an overview of the economic impacts of CAFOs on rural communities.
• Visit the Economic Issues section of GRACE's Factory Farm Project website.

Reports and Articles

• The High Price of Cheap Food - What cheap food really costs. (Emily Green, LA Times, January 2004)
• Reducing Food Poverty with Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence (Jules Pretty; Rachel Hine, University of Essex, February 2001)

Sources

• Pirog, Rich. "Checking the Food Odometer: Comparing Food Miles for Local Versus Conventional Produce Sales in Iowa Institutions." Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. July 2003.
• Norberg-Hodge, Helena; Gorelick, Steven. “Bringing the Food Economy Home.” ISEC. September 2002.
• Weida, William J. “Considering the Rationales for Factory Farming,” GRACE, February 2004.
• Norberg-Hodge, Helena; Gorelick, Steven. “Bringing the Food Economy Home.” ISEC. September 2002.
• World Watch Institute. “From Rio to Johannesbourg: Ecological Farming – Reducing Hunger and Meeting Environmental Goals.” June 2002.
• Harrison, Jeff, “Study: Nation Wastes Nearly Half Its Food.” University of Arizona, 2004.
• Environmental Working Group. Farm Subsidy Database, “United States: Subsidy Summary.” EWG, (accessed October 3, 2006).
• Environmental Working Group.  Farm Subsidy Database, “Payment Concentration.” EWG, (accessed October 3, 2006).
• USDA Economic Research Service. “Market-Led Growth Versus Government-Facilitated Growth: Development of the U.S. and EU Organic Agricultural Sectors.” August 2005.
• Environmental Working Group. “Farms Getting Government Payments, by State, According to the 2002 USDA Census of Agriculture.” EWG, (accessed October 3, 2006).
• USDA Economic Research Service. Understanding Rural America: Rural Change, February 1997 (accessed August 16, 2006).