It’s Time For An Authentic Golden Age Of Agriculture

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A “golden age” is a flourishing period in the history of a nation. It is a period when everything seems really good, peaceful, and successful — not utopian, but a time of extraordinary human achievement. A golden age of agriculture commonly refers to the late 19th century, a time of plant domestication and cultivation, when small farmers took an interest in keeping their soil fertile. They rotated crops to prevent diseases and insects. With the soil supplied with different plant foods, it stayed resilient, year after year.

Then, starting in the early to mid-20th century, the global agricultural sector underwent vast transformations in production, productivity, and resource use. The development of crop genetics resulted in improved yields. Innovations in farm mechanization and automation, along with the use of manufactured inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, agricultural chemicals, animal feed concentrates, and farm machinery, made it easier to produce more with available land and less labor.

Input intensification became linked with the degradation of natural resources, increased risk of excess nutrient runoff into water bodies, elevated greenhouse gas emissions, and a loss of biodiversity. The effects of the transition to industrial agriculture still reverberate today. Decades of industrial farming have taken a heavy toll on the environment and raised serious concerns about the future of food production.

It’s time to build vigorous food systems that rely on local resources for cultivation.

It can be our Belle Époque, our Renaissance, our actual Golden Age of agriculture.

Big Ag costs the environment the equivalent of about $3 trillion every year  — costs which are unaccounted for by the industry. And it’s not like the current model feeds the world or is self-monitoring for its effects on the environment. No, contemporary industrial agriculture is less about producing food and more about generating animal feed, biofuels, and industrial ingredients for processed food products.

As a result, the global food system is in trouble.

• The destruction of wildlife habitat: The world’s grasslands, savannas, and wetlands are being devoured for agriculture at nearly four times the rate as forests.
• The overuse of pesticides and fertilizers: Chemical applications are eradicating natural predators of pests and repressing reliable methods to grow food.
• Intensive livestock farming: Overproduction of livestock is producing genetic similarities within flocks and herds, which makes them more susceptible to pathogens and viruses.
• Pollution, everywhere pollution: Big Ag incorporates large volumes of manure, chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones to increase agricultural yields. These can contaminate nearby water sources and threaten aquatic ecosystems. Humans may be exposed to these potentially-toxic pesticides through the food we consume, resulting in adverse health effects. Some pesticides act as endocrine disruptors, potentially affecting reproductive functions, causing abnormal growth patterns and developmental delays in children, and altering immune function.

The end of chemical agriculture must come quickly. Local and regional food systems need to replace the industrialized global machine.

What’s Needed to Transition to a Real Golden Era of Agriculture

Small holder farms comprise 72% of all farms and use only 8% of all agricultural land to produce their bounties. Did you know that large farms account for only 1% of the world’s farms yet occupy 65% of agricultural land? For decades Big Ag has attempted to squeeze higher yields from the same land. The current system is complicated by land-use datasets, which historically have been unable to adequately distinguish pasture from cropland.

Local agricultural land provides health and sustainability for people in the area and needs to be valued as a precious asset. To protect and enhance local and regional farming, land must be assessed for the value it offers to its neighboring areas. Such value-added strengthening in small holder agricultural land means supply-demand matching efficiency, invigorated agricultural outsourcing services, and agricultural economies of specialization.

New appreciation for small holders shifts control of food systems and gives local and regional farmers incentives to develop technologies so native food systems thrive. Soil integrity and ecosystem biodiversity become held in high esteem. Local infrastructure supports local food so that processing centers, aggregators, transportation hubs, and distribution locations become part of robust community building food system efforts. Food systems attain circularity and success.

Frank Carini of ecoRINews argues that producing more local food requires a series of changes. He offers a series of steps:

• Stop taking farmland out of production;
• Provide better financial support to local and regional farmers;
• Increase funding for federal extension services;
• Approve more bond money for farmland protection;
• Attract young farmers to the profession;
• Make farmland affordable; and,
• Use the land we do have with our future in mind.

Additionally, Economist Impact’s Resilient Food Systems Index offers insights into how countries can build shock-resistant systems while also addressing the environmental and social sustainability barriers that threaten long-term food security. The index ranks 60 countries across four pillars — and no country demonstrates total resilience.

The RFSI shows that food-system resilience is not a fixed outcome but a set of choices. Strategies for resilience, like policy ambition, technological capability, financial tools, and regulatory capacity, are already evident across the globe. The problem is that, by operating in isolation, these strategies fail to convert existing strengths into durable power. The goal is to connect what already works in food systems and deliver it for the good of all. The index highlights three critical areas for action.

1. Create diverse agricultural partnerships and trade to build more stable systems so that access invites better nutrition, dietary diversity, and greater choice to consumers.
2. Scale infrastructure and innovation through investment: equitable internet and mobile access, cold chain capacity, and transport networks — all of which can reduce food loss, expand market access for farmers, and boost sustainable innovation.
3. Translate sustainability research into agriculture-specific adaptation and advance policies that embed climate resilience into food systems.

Final Thoughts about a Golden Age of Agriculture

Georgia Collins writes in Sustainability Magazine, “The vulnerabilities in how we produce and distribute food have never been more apparent.”

• 13.2% of food is lost before reaching retail.
• 19% is wasted within households.
• Climate resilience is a major limitation to food system sustainability.
• Wasted resources, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing food impact the resilience of the overall food system.

There’s a lot of support for the slow food movement. It’s becoming more evident that Big Ag’s run up to profitability can gloss over systems that suppress viruses, unlike local and regional food systems with their home-based, built-in safeguards.

Resources

• “10 things you should know about industrial farming.”James Lomax. United Nations Environment Program. July 20, 2020.Journal of Cleaner Production
• “Advancing cleaner grain production: How can land certification promote the decoupling between grain production and carbon emissions?” Miao Miao, et al. Journal of Cleaner Production. February 2026.
• “Agriculture is consuming grasslands and wetlands at alarming rates.” Georgina Gustin. Mother Jones. February 27, 2026.
• “Building climate resilience in global food systems.” Georgia Collins. Sustainability Magazine. March 6, 2026.
• “Global changes in agricultural production, productivity, and resource use over six decades.” Keith Fuglie, et al. USDA. September 30, 2024.
• “Resilient food systems index: Key insights.” Economist Impact. March 3, 2026.
• “We’re eating on borrowed time.” Frank Carini. ecoRI News. March 5, 2026.