Reprinted with permission from the November, 2009 Ester Republic.

In the powerful book Fatal Harvest, a collection of essays on industrial agriculture edited by Andrew Kimbrell, seven common myths are identified that make up the “big lie” of industrial agriculture. These include such chestnuts as “industrial food is cheaper”, and “industrial agriculture offers more variety.” Each are effectively and systematically disassembled in the book, exposed as entirely ungrounded in reality. But there is a funny thing about myths: you can expose them in a book, or on T.V., but that will not necessarily stop the world from perpetuating them for years and years to come. Windmills have to be visible to everyone before they can be slain for good. So with that in mind, I thought it might be illuminating to take these next seven issues of ER to look at each of these myths in practice. (more…)