Thanks to a complex international system of production, processing, shipping, and marketing, people today can eat a vast selection of out-of-season and out-of-region fruits and vegetables year round. In addition, modern farming practices have provided an abundant, not just a varied, food supply. However, the availability of abundant and varied food relies on energy-intensive, nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels, and many practices associated with agribusiness have had a detrimental impact on the environment.

Agribusiness

Agribusiness looks at farms as factories to be run as profitably and efficiently as possible. "How much, how fast" replaces the old values of carrying capacity (how much the land can yield without being depleted) and a season of lying fallow. Monocropping (fields used for only one crop, the same crop year after year, commonly wheat, soybeans or cotton) and increased field size do away with biodiversity and hedgerows, and thus...