The Effect On Corporate Agriculture Of Controversies About Biotechnology

8 Pages 1992 Words

“Agriculture has been transformed into a globally interconnected system that has gone through three revolutionary phases, from the domestication of plants and animals to the latest developments in industrial innovation and biotechnology (Knox and Marston 327). With biotech crops creating new levels of production unseen before by farmers, new productivity has created new profit for the growing corporate agricultural businesses like Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. But Biotechnology has somewhat backfired for businesses like ADM which supplies genetically modified crops and products here in America and to overseas markets like Europe. Europe now is concerned about the dangers of biotech on the environment and human health. ADM and other agribusinesses are feeling the pressure of overseas markets that are against genetically modified crops. ADM stated, "As a key link in the food supply system, we must produce products that our customers will purchase” (Tait, N). Since capitalist businesses must follow the demands of the consumers in order to keep making profits, ADM has been forced to put away there ideals about biotechnology and focus on supplying overseas markets with products that they will purchase. With companies like ADM now paying more money for crops from regular seeds, farmers feel as though they have been taken for a ride by these big agricultural companies since they have had to pay more money for the new herbicide and pest-resistant seeds (Hsu, K).
“The farm has moved from being the centerpiece of agriculture to become but one part of an integrated multilevel industrial process including production, storage, processing, distribution, marketing, and retaining” (Knox and Marston 342). Agriculture has become more than planting and harvesting. It is now a food assembly line where each scale, from the private farm, to the commercial business, to the global market, is part of the food chain. “The industrialization of a...