In fact, organic farming has simply become another branch of the industrial food-distribution system. Pollan argues that Americans should attempt to return to a pre-industrial agricultural system. Food would be sourced locally, from family farms such as Joel Salatin's minor ecological rotation farm (Pollan, 229). He recommends "Relationship Marketing," a food distribution system centered around the relationship between consumers and local farmers like Joe Salatin. (Pollan, 240). Such a localized food distribution system will reduce artificial costs as well as allow consumers to know what they are eating.
The Economic Feasibility of Local Production.
Pollan certainly makes valid points regarding the toxicity of our current food production system. Our system of food production has much room for improvement. However, the solutions that he proposes for improving food production and distribution are not economically feasible. The current food distribution system exists for economic reasons, not of pure malice. The current food distribution system "does involve transportation costs, but it also puts food production where it is cheapest," in the most fertile areas of the country and away from urban centers (Cowen). Putting them near areas where people actually live would not only be an inefficient, sub-optimal use of that land but would also reduce the amount of land available for housing. Under Pollan's system, urban areas in regions with relatively limited amounts of arable land will have a scarcity of affordable food. The use of fossil-fuels is what allows the world to sustain a population nearing 7 billion people. Norman Borlaug, founder of the green revolution, "estimates that the amount of nitrogen available naturally would only support a worldwide population of 4 billion souls or so" (Hurst). Thus, about 40 percent of the world's current population would not be alive if not for the use of artificially synthesized nitrogen, as Pollan himself noted (Hurst).