Modern Agriculture

As the novel continues into the second chapter, Bill McKibben begins to write about the advances in modern agriculture and its relationship with the economy. In this art he is pretty much praising the agriculture system of today, because they have been able to accomplish something that has been trying to be done for a long time now. Our system today is fast and efficient, in other words we produce a lot of food for a very small price, allowing more room for companies to profit. In this part of the novel, I really enjoyed how McKibben referenced back to other companies such as Wal-Mart and told parts of their stories. "The same forces that have created giant farms and processing plants have also worked to consolidate the retail end of the food business. As one Wal-Mart 'meat procurement officer' said, 'We've tried to apply our value proposition to all the meat products that we sell. The same principles of value, price, and quality that apply to things like television sets also apply to food" (McKibben 53). Overall I found this part of the novel to be one of the most fascinating, learning about all of the statistics of agriculture and companies such as Wal-Mart, was very eye opening.