Term Paper on Review of Chapters

Industrialized farming systems have been made known by government departments and research centers as effective approaches to develop crop yields and to deal with the agricultural environment. On this point of view, chemical, mechanical and genetic engineering improvements are vital to the further expansion of sustainable agriculture and food production systems.

Then again, even if hopeful increased rates of food production and improved monetary income for manufacturers, rivals of industrial agriculture identify the social and environmental problems for farmers, rural communities and agricultural environments that upshot from the industrialization of food and agriculture systems. Industrial farming in addition cuts off food consumers from farmers and rural environment and produces a collection of health hazards. Farmers play against exposure to injurious chemicals and precarious farm mechanism and consumers express concern about food related health hazards linked with genetically modified foods, mad cow disease and chemical deposits in food. These health hazards are sheer verification of the effects of over industrialization of agriculture and increase the need to rethink systems of food production and supply.

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Organic farming looks like an apparent option to industrial agriculture. The organic agriculture and food movement surfaced in Australia and elsewhere during the early part of the twentieth century as a critical assessment of industrial farming techniques and the disintegration of consumers from sites of food production. In its place, movement members anticipated organic farming techniques, counting the use of biological cycles, crop rotations and companion planting, and the supply of food through local food networks.
Because of its past hostility to industrial farming, drive for the organic farming movement cropped up at the fringe of leading agriculture and food systems. Notwithstanding this defiance, membership in the organic farming movement did not merely come together in the denial of leading approaches to agriculture. It also suggested taking up a number of practices that advanced from applied work and research that took place in these borders. During the 1920s and 1940s, for example, the research of several scientists and farmers grew to be the starting point of organic farming and biodynamic farming techniques. Simultaneously, journal and book publications also began to come into sight along with national organic associations.

By the 1960s, a variety of alternative food supply networks, counting nonprofit food companies and communes, had also set up, providing for the local supply of organic food. Over the preceding three decades, health food stores have also improved the multiplicity and quantity of organic foods they vend and particularly organic stores, supermarkets, coffee shops and eateries have rocketed, further mounting the availability of organic food to consumers.

Overwhelming transformations to the structure and constitution of the industry have accompanied the current, brisk development in the organic food market. Most significant is entrance of actors formerly linked with industrial food systems, counting food processors, supermarkets, government departments and scientific organizations, into the organic industry. The consequential revolution of organics from "sandals to suits" has whipped up a good deal of disagreement and discussion in the industry and challenging visions for the future of organics has materialized.

It looks as if development in the area of land under organic farming and amplified rates of organic food consumption suggest both environmental and social advantages by developing the livelihoods of farm families and rural communities and public health. Undoubtedly, countless within the organic industry squabble that the mainstreaming of organics will increase consumer approach to organic food and supply producers with a secure market for their product.

Then again, Australians who consume organic food value a wide range of social and environmental characteristics they connect with organic food and loads of these are negotiated by the industrialization of organic farming systems. For example, scores of organic food consumers value local food production and supply systems that provide minimally processed and packaged foods. Such systems allow them to link up with the social and biophysical environment where their food is produced. These consumers also consider organic food should be fairly traded, that is, producers must obtain the real price of producing food. For them, an industrial organic architecture stands for the direct opposite to local organic food networks by increasing the distance linking sites of production and consumption and disconnecting the producers of food from those who consume it.

The discussions concerning organic food and agriculture are suspended between two opposing prospects for the industry. One: develop nurturing relations of reliance between food, farmers, food citizens and the environment. The contrasting model cuts off consumers from the physical and social environment where food is produced. A few commentators of the industrial organic model argue these opposing architectures cannot survive side by side. They claim the industrial organic architecture will weaken the feasibility of prolonging organic local food networks by eating into the social justice, environmental and philosophical principles that the wide range of members of the organic movement retain.

The freshly unsuccessful suggestion by the United States Department of Agriculture to redefine organic agriculture to comprise genetically engineered seed, toxic mire and food irradiation is instructive of an effort to marginalize such values. The organic farming community has expressed hostility to the liberation of genetically modified organisms on philosophical, ecological and social basis. Despite boosting these points, the pervasive contagion of genetically modified seed and pollen has dared the capability of farmers to guarantee their produce is genetically-modified-organisms-free. Undeniably, the organic industry handles the vision of being powerless to guarantee organic food is free from genetic alteration.

The potential for the organic agriculture industry in Australia and international continues to be uncertain. In order to guarantee the continuing reliability of the organic industry, it will be very important for discussions to distinguish and comprise the values and beliefs of all actors occupied in the industry. If the industry falls short to do this, it may involuntarily wipe out the future feasibility of miscellaneous organic architectures.
 

References

Lawrence, G., Norton, J. & Wood G. (2001) ''Agri-genetics, food cosumption and the environment: science and the Australian public'', in Lockie, S. & pritchard, B. (eds) Consuming Foods, Sustaining Environments, Australian Academic Press, Brisbane, pp. 63-81

Lyons, K. (2001) ''From sandals to suits: green consumers and the institutionalization of organic agriculture'', in Lockie, S. & Pritchard, B. (eds) Consuming Foods, Sustaining Environments, Australian Academic Press, Brisbane, pp. 82-94.