The Omnivore's Dilemma summary

Once upon a time, farmers grew crops and raised cattle using nothing but the sun and soil. However, such traditional farming methods only produce relatively small quantities of local, seasonal food and are no longer enough to feed the world’s population. Hence, farmers have developed industrial-farming techniques and machines to produce food faster and on a larger scale.

Some people would say this is a good thing. In the past, it was expensive to raise, feed and slaughter livestock for food. As a result, meat was expensive; people didn’t eat it every day. Now, however, industrial-farming methods have made raising livestock – and in effect meat itself – incredibly cheap.

Corn is very adaptable and genetically robust. It produces large harvests quicker than other crops, so when Europeans discovered corn when they colonized the Americas in the sixteenth century, it quickly became a staple crop. As technology advanced, farmers began breeding corn hybrids to optimize output even further. Advancements included thicker stalks and stronger root systems that could withstand harsh mechanical harvesting and also stand closer together to fit more plants per acre.

As these varieties were adopted by farmers, corn production quickly increased. In 1920, farmers produced 20 bushels of corn per acre; they now produce 180.

These days, corn is less of a food and more of a commodity. In fact, one in four items in the average American supermarket contains corn in one form or another. Chicken nuggets, for example, are usually made of cornstarch, corn oil and chicken that was fed corn.

So why is corn everywhere?

Besides going into processed foods, much of the corn surplus is also used to feed farm animals that we later eat. From the food industry’s perspective, animals are like machines that turn excess corn into sellable meat, though machines are usually treated better.

Enter concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs for short.

At first glance, CAFOs might even sound like a good thing: Who would object to cheap and delicious bacon cheeseburgers? Unfortunately, they come at the price of animal rights, sustainability and public health.

CAFOs operate by optimizing output to maximize profit. Animals are forced into crowded spaces without access to pasture or space to move around, leading to suffering and the spread of diseases.

Originally, the movement started as a grassroots initiative to solve a lot of the problems caused by industrial agriculture: pollution, pesticides, and the fossil fuel demands of shipping fruits and vegetables around the country. Organic was more expensive than conventional produce, but the process was much better for the environment and the food far healthier for people.

At the beginning of the movement, many farmers started out by selling produce from stands on the side of the road rather than shipping their products across the country. And rather than using pesticides and chemical fertilizer, they used natural, often local compost or manure from nearby farms.

Picture a happy cow grazing on luscious green grass amid rolling hills. This is probably where you imagine your organic milk came from, partially because the image often adorns organic milk cartons. This idyll is compelling – so compelling that customers are willing to pay a higher price for it and food companies know this.

But “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means.

As we’ve already learned, corn plays a major role in creating the myriad problems of the conventional food system, not least of which is the havoc corn wreaks on cows’ digestive systems. But growing corn also neglects many natural coevolutionary relationships that could be taken advantage of.

One of the best ways to optimize production sustainably is to grow grass instead of corn and to use management-intensive grazing – a farming technique that involves moving animals to different pastures every day to promote optimum grass growth using the plant’s natural growth cycle.

Our current system for producing food values efficiency and profits over ethical concerns, environmental sustainability and consumers’ health.

So what can we do? We can buy from small, local farms instead of large, industrial ones.