With quick industrialization and mechanization, the old ways of doing agriculture changed. As soon as entrepreneurs involved great capital and labor in raising livestock and crops, intensive farming revolutionized the area with its incredible advantages. Large farmers aimed at making the largest possible profit from small areas. The productivity of the land is not so valuable anymore because farmers compensate it with fertilizers and chemicals for protecting plants. Labor was succeeded with highly efficient machines that allowed farmers to optimize human resources of their production. As a matter of fact, intensive farming allowed small lands to produce as much yield as large areas put under the extensive farming.
Despite great financial benefits and optimization of resources, intensive farming involves a range of artificial practices. Cultivating monoculture, excessive irrigation, use of hormones and chemicals in the factory farms sufficiently reduced the quality of production in the biggest stores and supermarkets. A common fact, monoculture exhausts the land that will further be fertilized. Even the poorest lands can become fertile due to synthetic boosters, however, the quality and nutritive potential of yields will suffer. Irrigation is an effective practice for draft-prone areas, on the other hand, it drags salinization and acidification of soils. A Large amount of livestock kept on small areas pollute soils and water with nitrogen and other products of animal farming.
The controversy of intensive farming exacerbates with every decade mainly because social awareness about ecological safety steadily rises. Consumers want organic products of extensive farming for the cost of intensive farming production. Global warming is in progress, and conscious consumers strive to reverse the consequences of agricultural mechanization.