industrial farming
Large-scale crop production
Industrial farming is large-scale agriculture that treats food production like manufacturing—emphasizing efficiency, standardization, and high output.
Animals are raised in concentrated feeding operations; crops grow in vast monocultures dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Critics associate the term with environmental damage, animal welfare concerns, and the decline of small family farms: Industrial farming has transformed the American landscape.
Also called factory farming, particularly when referring to livestock.
- factory farmIndustrial-scale livestock facility
- monocultureSingle-crop agricultural system
- agribusinessCommercial farming sector
- corporate farmsCompany-owned agricultural operations
- feedlotsCattle finishing facilities
chicken houses · pesticides · herbicides · cattle · corn · soybeans · cash crops · tractors · silos · fertilizer · livestock · mass production · GMO · irrigation · harvest · subsidies · manure · antibiotics
- farmingfarm, farms, crop, crops, harvest
- poultrychicken, hen, turkey, duck, goose
- farm problemssoil erosion, soil depletion, water pollution, fertilizer runoff, overgrazing
- Human Impacthuman impact, carbon footprint, ecological footprint, climate change, global warming
- rural declinedepopulation, rural exodus, brain drain, outmigration, dying towns
- Warming Causescarbon dioxide, CO2, methane, fossil fuels, carbon emissions
industrial farmingsmall-scale farming
Agriculture on limited land
subsistence farming · subsistence agriculture · family farming · smallholder farming · peasant farming
industrial farmingorganic farming
Cultivation without synthetic chemicals
sustainable agriculture · agroecology · permaculture · natural farming · polyculture
industrial farmingpastoralism
Mobile livestock husbandry
industrial, farming, industry, industrious, industrialize, industrialization, industrialized, industrialism, industrialist