industrial farming needs huge machinesIntensive agriculture is another name people use to describe modern industrial farming. It has been very successful at producing cheap food but there are hidden costs and it depends totally, directly and indirectly, on cheap and plentiful oil and natural gas . It is not sustainable — people won’t be able to keep on doing it — because the oil will run out. And the oil farmers burn to power their machines is damaging the planet by producing greenhouse gases which, in turn, cause climate change. World food production is at risk from farming methods that have degraded soils, over-used aquifers, polluted water and air, and caused the loss of animal and plant species.

"From northern China to the Middle East, from North Africa to the Central Valley of California, a common and unsettling story is unfolding: the effort to produce massive grain and food surpluses that will feed billions and to supply drinking water to the largest knots of humanity on the planet is taxing aquifers beyond their capacity."
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"Agriculture was responsible for approximately 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. It is the dominant driver of tropical deforestation..." The list goes on. Source: World Resources Institute, 2016
Aquifers are underground water sources: groundwater. Many areas of the United States are experiencing ground-water depletion. For more on this, click here.