At the same time, industrial/conventional/productivist agriculture has ignificantly upset the land tenure of peasants and indigenous communities, since those who cannot become incorporated into this type of agriculture and are unable to compete are forced to sell their lands and seek jobs as wage workers or emigrate to the cities, which means that the concentration of landholdings in just a few hands produces greater stratification and therefore greater inequality and economic and social insecurity.

     The technological changes in agriculture have resulted in a diminution of the number of small-scale producers and an increase in the number of agricultural workers. The workers employed by the agricultural enterprises have suffered deterioration of their social and working conditions: mainly low wages, unstable employment, the lack of social security and exploitation at work (Ahumada, 2000).      

      Giberti (2002) suggests that the impoverishment and unemployment of many agricultural producers that has been caused by the development of industrial agriculture favored the hiring of workers in unjust conditions, often disguised in pseudo-associative forms, as often happens with horticulture around large cities. This rural worker is extremely vulnerable: he or she practically lacks medical coverage and the possibility of retirement, as indicated by the tiny numbers who attain such benefits.

     Another sociocultural effect has been on local knowledge and how it is disseminated. FAO (2000) suggests that since the design of the new means of production happens at research and development centers and relatively concentrated industrial and services enterprises, training for farmers and agricultural workers no longer happens directly in the countryside, but rather in public and private institutions and through technical and economic information services. In a broader perspective, the rural cultural patrimony of the past, locally developed and managed, has given way to a relatively uniform culture disseminated by the educational system and the media.

     In addition, conventional/productivist agriculture has meant, for rural producers, scant participation in the choice of the technologies that have been applied, since the approach has almost always been imposed vertically, resulting in barriers to the acceptance of technology. As a result, cultural integration, specifically of local or traditional customs and knowledge, has been scant or nonexistent (Altieri, 1992). Modern agriculture has impoverished and deteriorated the cultural aspects of how we feed ourselves. First, food customs and diversity have been lost, since numerous traditional foods have disappeared from the markets and from the rural kitchen, having been replaced by those produced by industrial agriculture and food imports. In addition, due to the whole social transformation that has taken place in the homes of peasant families, the kitchen has disappeared as the central space of the home and with it a culture whose values were quality food, sociability (convivencia), associated with the fact of obtaining nutrition and enjoyment of variety (Riechmann, 2003).

1.7.4.3 Impacts on health and nutrition.
Health effects of diminished biodiversity. Biodiversity is essential for nutrition and food safety and offers alternatives

       for improving the standard of living of communities, thus improving the overall health of human beings. Today certain communities continue using some 200 or more species in their diet, but the world trend is towards simplification, with negative consequences for health, nutritional equilibrium and food safety. Biodiversity plays a crucial role mitigating the effects of micronutrient deficiencies (iron, zinc, copper, magnesium and calcium), which weaken hundreds of millions of persons. A more diverse diet is crucial for diminishing the trend towards malnutrition and for living a healthier life (Barg and Queirós, 2007).

     The loss of traditional varieties, soil degradation and contamination, the loss of biodiversity due to the establishment of large, genetically uniform expanses of single-crop agriculture and the elimination of their organic management all resulted in deficiencies in essential micronutrients and vitamins in conventional food crops. Our foods are nutritionally unbalanced, since they are fertilized generally with one to three elements (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium), yet it is known that plants need 42 to 45 minerals to grow healthy and with this type of reductionist agriculture very
few nutrients are provided to the plant (Barg and Queirós, 2007).

     Statistics from the governments of the United Kingdomand the United States indicate that the levels of minerals in fruits and vegetables fell up to 76% from 1940 to 1991. By way of contrast, there is mounting evidence that organic fruits and vegetables may have a greater vitamin and mineral content (Cleeton, 2004), from 40 to 60% more (Barg and Queirós, 2007), although some recommend that additional research be done (Table 1-11) (Soil Association, 2005).

Acute and chronic toxicity due to agrochemicals. Poisonings and deaths. Pesticides account for more poisonings than any other cause worldwide. In 1990 the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that each year three million severe cases of poisoning occur, with likely mortality of 1% (WHO, 1990), whereas others calculated 25 million poisonings that same year, estimating that an average of 3% of workers were intoxicated that year. Such figures reflect only the most severe cases and significantly underestimate unintentional poisonings due to pesticides, because they ar based primarily on hospital records. Most of the rural poor do not have access to hospitals and physicians and workers in the health sector often fail to recognize and report cases of poisoning (Murray et al., 2002). In a research study on the incidence of acute intoxications due to pesticides in six Central American countries, done in the early years of this decade by PAHO, WHO, DANIDA and the ministries of health, within the project known as PlagSalud, 98% underreistration of intoxications was estimated (Murray et al., 2002; OPS, 2003).

     It is estimated that 99% of the deaths occur in the countries of the South, i.e., Latin America, Africa and Asia (WHO, 1990). These data are more alarming if one considers that in Latin America, where the use of pesticides has risen the most in recent years and with it cases of poisoning, a large number of women of reproductive age and children work in agriculture, exposed to pesticides in conditions that are very dangerous in which they are highly susceptible (Nivia, 2000).