Seeds used to be produced by a crop and kept from one year to the next. Not any more. Breeding and distributing seeds has been the task of national governments, government-funded universities and institutes - everywhere. Nowadays, seeds are bred to produce pure lines that are crossed to produce "hybrids" and sold throughout the world.

As overproduction of food becomes a more embarrassing problem, increasing demands are being placed on agricultural systems to provide for leisure facilities, including walking and scenery.

Another use of land is to produce "biofuels" (plants for fuel). Cargill is opening a plant in Europe to use rape oilseed for producing "biofuel" - an alternative to diesel. It is interesting to note that Cargill is one of the five companies that dominate the $50,000 million world grain trade.

The others, Continental, Bunge, Dreyfus, and Andre and virtually unheard of, but as powerful as the major oil companies.

Air

Industrial agriculture has led to a significant increase in the production of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Globally, agriculture generates about 45% of total methane emissions, cows sheep and buffalo accounting for 15% of the total. Animal waste is now a major source of methane emissions.

Agriculture takes in air as nitrogen to produce fertilisers. Natural systems use bacteria whereas modern systems utilise nitrogen through industrial processes. Nitrous oxide is produced by bacteria in soils. Fertilised soils produce 2-10 times the amount of nitrous oxide.