The redneck strike again.

[Confused Ape]

Thanks for the information. All the articles about the drawbacks of factory farming concentrate on how things are today. The reasons why it got started in the first place aren't gone into with any great detail.

Which is unfortunate, because it's generally good to know how one got into a mess, if one hopes to get out of it eh.

I think the people writing the articles tend to assume that everyone knows how it got started in the US. Information is somewhat vague when it comes to Britain as well. Hopefully, we humans might learn not to keep putting all our eggs in one basket.

Actually..Big Ag was once a monolithic block. Most of the players you find now are pieces of that monolith that were forcibly broken apart from the 40's onward for a variety of reasons.

I'm not having much luck finding out the details here. Googling Big Ag has led me to who is regarded as Big Ag today rather than pre-1940's US.

CropLife International

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Big Ag

The dangers of GM are the dangers of any tech, as are the benefits. Risk v. Reward.

I suspect that the real dangers are forgetting that Nature is unpredictable.

I'm an optimist. I figure we'll get it wrong in some pretty dramatic ways here and there..but overall..like rural electrification - we'll enrich our lives with GMos.

I doubt that many US farmers feel that their lives have been enriched by Monsanto's superweeds. How many more disasters will there be before the companies doing GMos get it right? Meanwhile, Monsanto is trying something else which won't be news to you -

MonsantoIs Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie

Agriculture giant Monsanto may be best known for genetic modification—like creating corn that resists the effects of Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup. But when it comes to fruits and vegetables you buy in the store, genetic modification is off the menu. Monsanto thinks no one will buy Frankenfoods, so the company is tweaking its efforts—continuing to map the genetic basis of a plant’s desirable traits but using that data to breed new custom-designed strains the way agronomists have for millennia.

Maybe it's a case of better the devil you know because there's more chance of suspecting how it might turn round and bite you.

Ag will just move with the weather - like it has always done.

It's interesting seeing what ideas there are for the future. In vitro meat production is still in the experimental stage so it's going to take a long time before it feeds the world. Others think that edible insects are the way to go - insect farming is starting to take off and you can already find recipes online. Then there's vertical farming for fruit and vegetables but this, too, is still in the experimental stage. Vertical farming would be great because it can be done anywhere and pesticides won't be needed unless insects are farmed in the same building and they manage to get out and into the fruit and veg. (I don't think that would make a good plot for an exciting disaster movie, though. )

Ape.
That is funny how you criticize me for being some sort of redneck
that is doing so much damage to the veg. cause and then you
yourself slowly slowly get along the same path.
I notice that in the last few pages as you dig more and more in
the damages that the meat policy is doing you get more and more
aware of this problem as per OP issue.
What can i say?
Welcome aboard girl.

I know how much damage the modern meat policy is doing - why do you think I'm a vegetarian? I already knew about the antibiotics, mad cow disease and other stuff and have been looking for reputable sources of information to link to in discussions. The difference between you and me is that I don't talk about intuitional science and reincarnation in my posts.

Modern crop growing policy is also causing damage to the environment. because of pesticides used on fruit and vegetables. There's other environmental issues to take into consideration too such as are rain forests being cut down to produce palm oil for veggie burgers.