Well, the unintended consequences of agriculture might even include the end of human life on our planet, if the environmental degradation from meat animal production (including rain forest destruction) and other farming practices like pesticide contamination continue unabated. Who knows? I am more and more convinced that small organic family farms are what is sustainable.
Reminder to anyone who wants to find out more about the stark differences between organic and pesticide agriculture should watch Link TV tomorrow for their organic farming program. The website for Link is linktv.org. Channel 375 on DirecTV. I wish someone would watch it, because I'd love to discuss it.
Look what I found! Isn't this a trip?
"Corpse-food was on the way out even in your time," Anderson explained. "Raising animals to -- ugh -- eat them became economically impossible. I don't know how many acres of land it took to feed one cow, but at least ten humans could survive on the plants it produced. And probably a hundred, with hydroponic techniques.
"But what finished the whole horrible business was not economics but disease. It started first with cattle, then spread to other food animals -- a kind of virus, I believe, that affected the brain, and caused a particularly nasty death. Although a cure was eventually found, it was too late to turn back the clock -- and anyway, synthetic foods were now far cheaper, and you could get them in any flavor you liked."
from 3001: The Final Odyssey
by Arthur C. Clarke
Ballantine Books (March, 1997)
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