Part of this course has been focused on the understanding and practice of rhetorical terms such as research question, interpretive problem, purpose, audience, and so on. My RCA final shows my understanding and practice of several rhetorical terms. The first instance of a rhetorical term is a research question. My RCA Final was designed around the following research question: In what ways does industrial agriculture, or the practices of the agriculture industry, contribute to climate change? What are the consequences? Having a research question helped me develop my motive or purpose.  As we know, the agriculture industry provides the population with food, livestock, medicinal plants, and so on. However, what is often overlooked is that it is also a big contributor to Green House Gas emissions. Agriculture and the common practices linked to agriculture add to, and even worsen, the state of climate change. Therefore, it is important to be informed on how such a large and significant industry contributes to the change in our climate and the effects that come along with it. The explanation of my motive, in turn, gives me a better sense of the interpretive problem: the intensive farming practices linked to industrial agriculture contribute to climate change through GHG emissions. Moving on, my audience were my FIQWS professors; one of which is knowledgeable about science and the other which is knowledgeable about writing compositions. This differentiation impacted how I approached my writing. The above are just a few of the rhetorical terms recognized and practiced within my RCA Final.

Industrial Agriculture & Climate Change: A toxic Relationship

Industrial agriculture is one of the most prominent industries today. The current system utilizes vast acres of farmable land to provide a good portion of the rising population with food, livestock, medicinal plants, and much more. While its output of food is duly recognized, the industry’s significant contribution to a global environmental crisis is too often overlooked. The agricultural industry relies on intensive farming practices that contribute to climate change through significant levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Agriculture wasn’t always harmful to the state of the climate. In fact, traditional agriculture relied on methods of farming that were environmentally friendly in comparison. These methods included crop rotations, irrigation systems, open-field systems, and manure fertilizers, all of which generated output without releasing massive amounts of GHG’s. Conventional farming methods were utilized for decades with success. However, things changed once fear of famine and starvation led to the modification of traditional agricultural methods as populations around the world began to rise rapidly.

The perceived dilemma of food security set the stage for the “Green Revolution”. As populations grew, so did the demand for food; paving the way for a movement focused on the worldwide expansion of agricultural production. The movement began in Mexico in the 1940s where it was led by Dr. Norman Borlaug, an agronomist dedicated to the acceleration of agricultural productivity, specifically in the developing world (“Norman Borlaug”). To accomplish this, Borlaug developed a plant breeding program that focused on hybridizing a variety of crops as a way of maximizing their yields, increasing their pest resistance along with their disease resistance, and enhancing their ability to withstand intensive cultivation (“Green Revolution Fails”). This resulted in successful hybrid strains of commodity crops such as wheat, corn, and rice. Fields that grew these new seeds indeed experienced higher yields. Soon, farmers were encouraged to replace conventional farming methods with the new and improved methods of the “Green Revolution”.

However, these new and seemingly “improved” methods came with a condition. The new seeds demanded heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in order to ensure successful harvests; this requirement ultimately altered agriculture, transforming it into the industry we know today. Taking advantage of the need for intense chemical farming, agrochemical industries promoted the idea that switching to single-crop monocultures, with aid from an abundant use of chemicals to manage weeds and pests, would be much more profitable to farmers (Capra, “Industrial Agriculture”). The large dependency on chemicals led to the mechanization of farming, making it more energy-intensive than what it originally was (Capra, “Industrial Agriculture”). These dramatic changes gave way to the corporate takeover of farming; encouraging large corporate farms, while discouraging small family farms. This shift also affected traditional methods of raising livestock; moving them away from open fields, to factory farms.

The evolution of agriculture from the conventional to the intensive created an industry that is heavily dependent on unhealthy practices in order to properly function, making industrial agriculture a major contributor to the current climate crisis. Through intensive farming practices such as the application of synthetic fertilizers and the management of waste from livestock, industrial agriculture is a significant producer of greenhouse gas emissions that end up in the atmosphere and worsen the state of climate change. While other aspects of this intensive farming system result in emissions (e.g. deforestation, mechanization, and food miles), chemical fertilizer application and waste management are considered the main agricultural activities that result in high GHG production.

Monoculture, the core of industrial agriculture, involves intensive soil management that often takes the form of chemical fertilizer use. Soil management through the abuse of chemical fertilizers is a substantial contributor to nitrous oxide levels in the atmosphere.  As it is well known, monocropping encourages soil depletion. The act of cultivating a single crop, on the same plot of land, year after year is known to strip the soil of its beneficial nutrients; the most notable being nitrogen. In response, monocultures rely heavily on synthetic, nitrogen-based fertilizers in order to remedy the damage and restore the soils fertility. While the goal is to restore nitrogen into the soil to increase crop yields, chemists have identified the excessive use of these chemical fertilizers as the culprit for the dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide (N₂O) (Sanders, “Fertilizer Use”). Data collected by the EPA solidifies this discovery, demonstrating that nitrous oxide emissions have increased over the past years: “Nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soils have varied during this period and were about 13 percent higher in 2016 than in 1990” (EPA, “Overview of Greenhouse Gases”). N₂O is a potent greenhouse that has about 300 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide and an average lifespan of over 100 years (EPA, “Atmospheric Lifetime”).

The significant rise in N₂O emissions are due to the rapid conversion rate of nitrogen facilitated by the overuse of chemical fertilizers. When applied, nitrogen-based fertilizers stimulate microbes in the soil, causing them to convert nitrogen into nitrous oxide at much faster rates (Sanders, “Fertilizer Use”). The rapidity of this process is in part due to chemical fertilizer’s fast-acting nature; nutrients in chemical fertilizers are readily available and immediately supplied to the crop (“Chemical Fertilizer”). In addition, chemical fertilizers are packed with more nutrients per pound (“Chemical Fertilizer”). The qualities of chemical fertilizers facilitate the relatively rapid release of high levels of N₂O into the atmosphere. Further, the more the fertilizer is applied, the more atmospheric N₂O will be produced. As reported by the EPA, agricultural soil management is the largest source of nitrous oxide in the U.S. alone; soil management accounted for about 77% of total nitrous oxide emissions in 2016 (EPA, “Overview of Greenhouse Gases”).

Apart from the cultivation of crops, industrial agriculture includes farm factories, better known as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). CAFOs are large-scale facilities used to rapidly raise animals at massive scales for the output and consumption of meat, eggs, or milk (Hribar, “Understanding Concentrated”). Cows, pigs, and chickens are typically the kinds of animals raised within these factory farms at unnaturally high numbers that reach the thousands or even tens of thousands (Imhoff, “CAFO”). Unfortunately, because these facilities aim to operate efficiently and as economically as possible (Green America, “Industrial Agriculture”), the animals are raised under unnatural conditions and practices that later prove to be environmental hazards. Waste management is one of the main practices within CAFOs that contribute to GHG emissions, ultimately adding to agricultures critical role in the discussion of climate change.

It is no secret that CAFO operations are responsible for generating massive amounts of waste in their facilities. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that confined farm animals generate more than 450 million tons of waste annually (HSUS, “An HSUS Fact Sheet”). Taking into consideration the nature of their confinement, this number becomes more worrisome. Large numbers of cattle, chickens, and pigs are packed into pens and stalls that are way too small for their size and number. As a result, their confinement leads to excessive concentration of waste within these cramped spaces.

Due to massive concentration, CAFOs have developed storage systems in order to better manage waste produced by livestock. However, waste management practices have proven to be unsuitable as they produce and even exacerbate methane emissions. Most CAFOs rely on either enormous waste lagoons or pits as methods of storing. Within these lagoons, semiliquid waste is accumulated and left to break down anaerobically. Throughout this process, anaerobic bacteria- referred to as “methane-formers”- convert chemical compounds and gases within the waste slurry into methane gas that then makes its way into the atmosphere (Bowman, “Wastewater Technology”). Methane is a potent greenhouse gas exhibiting a warming potential more than 20 times higher than carbon dioxide over a period of 100 years (EPA, “Atmospheric Lifetime”). Since methane is a short-lived gas -about 12.4 years- its warming potential increases dramatically when observing a shorter time frame, meaning its effects are much more detrimental in the short-term. Manure management in CAFOs account for good portion of methane emissions produced by the agricultural sector. As reported by the EPA in 2016, manure management accounted for 15% of total GHG emissions from the agricultural sector in the U.S. (EPA, “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions”); about 10% of these were methane emissions pointing to manure management as the source (EPA, “Overview of Greenhouse Gases”).

            Although industrial agriculture is a provider of food, its practices are not environmentally friendly; instead, they contribute to a problem that is unraveling quickly and being felt globally. In order to successfully combat climate change, the public and figures of authority alike must recognize the extensive damage caused and perpetuated by agricultural practices that drive our dominant farming system. If left unchecked, the industrial agriculture sector will only help worsen the state of climate change.

Works Cited

“An HSUS Fact Sheet: Animal Agriculture & Climate Change .” The Humane Society of the United States.

“Atmospheric Lifetime and Global Warming Potential Defined.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 26 Aug. 2016, www.epa.gov/climateleadership/atmospheric-lifetime-and-global-warming-potential-defined.

Bowman, Richard, and Mohamed Dahab. “Wastewater Technology Fact Sheet: Anaerobic Lagoons.” Municipal Technology Branch , Sept. 2002.

Capra, Fritjof. “Industrial Agriculture, Agroecology, and Climate Change.” Ecoliteracy.org, Center for Ecoliteracy , www.ecoliteracy.org/article/industrial-agriculture-agroecology-and-climate-change#.

“Chemical Fertilizer vs Organic Fertilizer.” Mountain Bike vs Road Bike – Difference and Comparison | Diffen, www.diffen.com/difference/Chemical_Fertilizer_vs_Organic_Fertilizer.

“Green Revolution Fails.” Living Sustainably, Never Ending Food, 2000, www.neverendingfood.org/articles/how-the-green-revolution-has-failed-to-feed-us/.

Hribar, Carrie, and Mark Schultz. “Understanding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Their Impact on Communities .” National Association of Local Boards of Health, 2010.

Imhoff, Daniel. “CAFO.” Watershed Media , 2010.

“Industrial Agriculture.” Green America, www.greenamerica.org/industrial-agriculture.

“Norman Borlaug.” Celebrating 100 Years of Dr. Norman Borlaug, CIMMYT Web, borlaug100.org/norman-borlaug/.

“Overview of Greenhouse Gases.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 31 Oct. 2018, www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases.

Sanders, Robert. “Fertilizer Use Responsible for Increase in Nitrous Oxide in Atmosphere.” Berkeley News, 9 July 2015, news.berkeley.edu/2012/04/02/fertilizer-use-responsible-for-increase-in-nitrous-oxide-in-atmosphere/.

“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 9 Oct. 2018, www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.