Modern Farming Organic farming
American farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from family-based small businesses dependent on human energy to large-scale factory farms. Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the USA’s total energy supply in the early 1990’s. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the United States of America. Organic farming is still mainly based on labor-intensive practices such as weeding by hand and using green manure’s and crop covers rather than synthetic fertilizers to build up soil.
