How does agribusiness impact the global climate?
The boom in industrial scaled agriculture is responsible for much of the deforestation that is occurring in the rainforests in the Amazon and Southeast Asia. Large U.S. multinational corporations are responsible for clear cutting much of old growth forests the size of countries like Wales and the Netherlands, to create soybean and oil palm monocultures. Soybean farms are “eating up” the Amazon rainforest while Indonesia’s rainforest, the second largest behind Brazil, and Malaysia’s rainforest, are being swallowed up by oil palm plantations. 75% of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil are due to clearing and buring the rainforest. Brazil is the fourth largest pollution contributer to the environment. In Indonesia’s wet forest, fires are rare, but in 1997 and 1998 fires raged through rural parts of the country and occurred on land dedicated to oil palm plantations. The “slash and burn” method, used by companies to clear land for monoculture farms is a contributer to climate change. The des
