Farming Politics

Everyone knows that a lot of stuff in our world today depends upon politics, but little did I know until reading this part of the book, that even farming can turn very political. This is another one of the major points that McKibben makes, he explains that almost all of the money that goes to the farming industry, is given to the large farms that only focus on producing one crop. By giving these farms these subsidies it is causing them to have a very large advantage, but if these subsidies were taken away, then the playing field would be evened out for the smaller farms. "It's all politics- the farm progrm subsidizes those crops that are geographically concentrated in a few states, and hence, in essence have their own senators: wheat, corn, cotton, soybean, and rice growers get virtually all the federal subsidy payments" (McKibben 87). This quote further explains what I was talking about above, that all the government money is being given to large companies, causing it to be very political.

Working Conditions

A very controversial topic that also came up in the section about agriculture and the economy was the horrible treatment of the workers that have to work in these inhumane conditions. "Problems like these- huge sewage lagoons, miserable animals, abused workers, vulnerability to sabotage and to salmonella- are not, perhaps, inherent problems. You could envision a huge global food system that was willing to trade a little efficiency for slightly more humane working conditions or slightly better sewage treatment" (McKibben 62). Like McKibben said though these conditions can not be changed without completely changing the whole system of how our agriculture works.

When I read this section of the book, I immediately related it to the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. In the book Schlosser also writes a lot about the poor inhumane working conditions that some people have to go through when working for large companies. Overall I found that this part of the novel could be related and compared to many other books such as Fast Food Nation.

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. 

Increasing Wealth

Another part of the novel that I found very fascinating was when the author Bill McKibben was writing about some of the important mistakes us, as humans have made. In the beginning of the discussion on this topic he explains that the only thing we are focusing on is increasing our wealth. "On the list of important mistakes we've made as a species, this one seems pretty high up. A single-minded focus on increasing wealth had driven the planet's ecological systems to the brink of failure, without making us happier. How did we screw up?" (McKibben 43). I definitely believe that this is one of the major points/arguments presented by the author. He is explaining that if we continue just to focus on the increase of our own wealth, our economy is going to take a turn for the worse. Like he said just because this method may have worked in the past does not mean that it is going to work today.