Why medicine needs Agriculture

Abstract

The refinement of agricultural production methods had the unintended effect of severing the relationship between most of society and the soil. In the United States, the largely rural population of the turn of the twentieth century has been whittled down to fewer than 2% of the general population now living on farms with direct contact with food production. Food and dietary behaviors in the modern developed world are driven far more by cost and convenience than they are by perceived or presumed health benefit, despite a rich literature that suggests significant health functionality derives from a diet rich in whole foods and vegetables. Rather, the American public in particular seems to favor single source dietary supplementation, a mode that also conforms to the one-disease-one-pill model of medical practice