Agriculture has long been a contributor to the global climate crisis, and it’s intrinsic to how industrial agriculture operates today. In 1990, half of the farms in the United States were small or medium sized. By 2019, that number has shrunk to less than a quarter.

Today, agriculture is dominated by a select few – namely, large, corporate companies that employ mass-industrialized methods of growing livestock and crops. The United States Research Economic Service found that in 2021, large-scale family farms accounted for just 3 percent of all farms, but produced 47 percent of production value.

These farms, coined ‘corporate farming’, allows corporate ownership of farmland to drive out competition and outsources small, communal – and often more sustainable – farms.

While there certainly are large-scale farms that manage to implement sustainable practices and operate ethically, they are few and far in between. To such corporations, the trouble of dealing with enraged workers and activists demanding humane working conditions and wages is much easier than losing millions of dollars in profit to competing corporations that would be willing to put communities at risk.

Another hurdle that small, sustainable farms are forced to face is the dilemma of whether to use agrochemicals, such as pesticides and fertilizers. Once again, large corporate farms manage to edge out smaller competitors through the extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers with chemical compounds that catalyze extensive environmental destruction.

Corporate farms are no stranger to animal cruelty, either. The Animal Welfare Institute highlighted treatment of livestock in ‘factory’ farms, where unsanitary living conditions, inhumane mutilation, and animal neglect are commonplace.

It isn’t hard to deduce why local small farm owners are driven out of the market from competitors who can grow faster, larger amounts of crops, often unethically. Ultimately, agribusiness is dominated by supply and demand, and it lies in the hands of corporate farms that spray their fields with fertilizer and wield the power and influence to sway public policy in their favour.

Clearly, the agricultural industry is in need of a better solution, and it has one: shift our current system to small-scale, sustainable, community farms. There has been a growing movement in support of communal gardens that bring freshly grown produce onto tables. Not only does locally sourced produce tend to be fresher and cheaper, it also supports the farmers who rely on that as a source of income.

Under this model, farmers are able to tailor their growth to the individual needs of their communities. Through the use of innovative technologies and grassroots funding, they can both budget for sustainability and champion equity– especially in areas vulnerable to food insecurity.

Read the full article about corporate farms by Peggy Chen at Alliance Magazine.