Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be
Intensive agriculture has been focusing too much on short-term yields, and too little on long-term soil performance.<p>Plants need nutrients which they normally retrieve from the soil. Natural soil is rich in organic matter and minerals, a product of microorganisms consuming biomass and excrement. Note that it forms a cycle! 
Nutritious soil -&gt; Growth -&gt; Death -&gt; Decomposition -&gt; Soil enhancement. 
Plants are just the visible part of the cycle. The other part consists of microorganisms.<p>The use of pesticides, monocultures, and an absence of organic waste material and natural decomposition, effectively kills the microorganisms in the soil.  This is what intensive agriculture does. Now, the soil is devoid of nutrients that plants need to grow. So farmers have to use fertilizer to substitute the required organic building blocks.<p>The problem with this, is that fertilizer just provides the most common organic building blocks. This is enough to grow, but not in the most healthy and fruitful way possible. It&#x27;s comparable to humans living on a diet of water and rice. They&#x27;ll survive, but their health will suffer from a lack of nutrients.<p>Now that intensive agriculture has literally killed the soil, there is no easy way back, and we are dependent on fertilizer to produce food of inferior quality.<p>Luckily, alternative ways of agriculture are picking up popularity. See for example, biodynamic farming: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.biodynamics.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.biodynamics.com&#x2F;</a>