Hussam Abou-Rass

Professor Bolak

ENG 1520 - Composition 2

November 2, 2021

Industrial Food Chain

Americans’ diets are extremely diverse and consist of food ranging from the healthy nourishment of nature’s bounty to unwholesome sweets such as the Twinkie. “The variety of food choices have increased over time with the implementation of the industrial food chain in which farmers tend to one crop on large amounts of land through irrigation and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.” (Food System Primer). However, the industrial food chain has put our personal health and the health of the environment at risk by being more concerned with production, profitability and convenience than nutritional requirements. Consumers are simply reaping the benefits of the extremely convenient industrial food chain. Yet, producing food industrially does not benefit everyone.

Being a controversial topic, there’re two sides to this argument and various drawbacks. Quite a bit of the food produced in the industrial food chain contains harmful chemicals and pesticides, the production process is extremely harmful to the environment, the conditions the animals that get slaughtered for meat are raised in are unsanitary thus raising various concerns when it comes to consuming the meat, and this food chain is frankly unfair to the producers who contribute to it. The industrial food chain system isn’t completely counterproductive but in order to argue for both sides, it’s crucial to be well educated on both pros and cons and examine the effects of the consequences while also looking at other alternatives.

Industrial agriculture has evolved over the past decade and with that comes more pros and cons. “Large-scale industrial farms have an advantage over traditional farms when it comes to producing food fast and in larger amounts. This could be a good thing, considering that the world’s population continues to grow steadily.” (mossyoak). Industrial farming is also helpful when it comes to reducing the costs of food and making that food/produce more accessible especially for people with lower-income families. Lastly, agriculture depends on machinery that is mostly operated by humans which in return creates more employment opportunities for those wanting to be in that field.

Although industrial farming makes a great impact on our daily lives, it still takes a toll on many other aspects. The thousands of animals being raised on farms produce an overwhelming amount of waste that is often dumped into bodies of water, which spreads to the surrounding land. “Much of the appeal of the industrial food chain is its convenience; it offers busy people a way to delegate their cooking (and food preservation) to others” (Pollan 259). Those same animals are being kept in confined, tight spaces where they don’t have the space to free roam. They’re also often force-fed vitamins, minerals, and other substances that make them grow bigger and faster.“The antibiotics these animals consume with their corn at this very moment are selecting, in their gut and wherever else in the environment they end up, for new strains of resistant bacteria that will someday affect us and withstand the drugs we depend on to treat that infection” (Pollan 81). The industrial food chain can be detrimental to our health as humans as we continue to consume foods without knowing or reading the nutritional value it holds. Obesity has skyrocketed as prices for naturally-grown food increase quickly; diseases, both behavioral and physical, have increased tremendously in children and youth and it’s putting a lot of risk at their health and well-being.

Work Cited

Driver, Kelly, and JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Industrialization of Agriculture.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 5 Aug. 2016,

Staff, Mossy Oak. “The Pros and Cons of Industrial Agriculture.” Mossy Oak, 30 July 2019,

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2007.