After studying a number of agriculture articles relating to the Factory Farming controversy, it appears to me that someone broke this Industrial agriculture article into two sub-topics:

• Industrial agriculture (animals)
• Industrial agriculture (crops)

It also looks like they copied and pasted whole sections from the parent article to the two child articles without removing it from the parent, which resulted in a large amount of duplication. I endorse the split as the parent was getting rather long (46.4KB). (See wiki guide on article length.) However, to improve the split to meet wiki standards, I plan to make the following changes to the parent article:

1 History
2 Challenges and issues
3 Animals Change to a one-paragraph summary below the main topic link to the Industrial Agriculture (animals) subtopic article

3.1 Aquaculture Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

3.1.1 Shrimp Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

3.2 Chickens Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

3.3 Pigs Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

3.4 Cattle Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4 Crops Change to a one-paragraph summary below the main topic link to the Industrial Agriculture (crops) subtopic article

4.1 History Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4.2 Examples Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4.2.1 Wheat (Modern management techniques) Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4.2.2 Maize (Mechanical harvesting) Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4.2.3 Soybean (Genetic modification) Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

4.2.4 Tomato (Hydroponics) Delete -- This text exists in the subtopic article

5 Sustainable agriculture

You can compare a number of the table of contents from several Ag articles here.
JD Lambert 21:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That break into two articles was just a bit of a hack job, so they'll definitely need a cleanup.. There's intensive farming and extensive farming too by the way.. I'd propose that those just focus on the concept rather than the implementation which is industrial agriculture and all the sub articles.. NathanLee 22:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way: I like your tree structures on that linked page.. Think they show a sensible division of the bits and pieces.. But as you say obviously way way too much info to put under one (and the terms deserve to exist in their own right). NathanLee 22:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I quite like having short summaries of each of the subtopics (aquaculture, chickens, etc.) with links to the subtopic articles. I would argue rather for deletion of "Industrial agriculture (animals)" and "Industrial agriculture (crops)." I think the "Industrial agriculture" article should contain a strong general overview, which it will with short summaries of each of the subtopics. Furthermore, the animal and plant aspects of industrial agriculture are strongly linked, so I don't see a great benefit in having a separate article on each. It is a more "natural" division to have articles on each of the separate animals and crops, rather than artificially separating the animal and plant aspects. And I think it would be unnecessary duplication to have "Industrial agriculture (animals)" and "Factory farming." Given that a consensus to delete "Factory farming" is unlikely, I think the best and least divisive outcome would be to retain the following entries: "Industrial agriculture," "Factory farming," each of the "subtopic" articles (on chickens, maize, etc.), as well as "Intensive farming" and "Extensive farming." And to delete the following entires: "Industrial agriculture (animals)"; "Industrial agriculture (crops)." FNMF 01:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of "Industrial agriculture (animals)" and "Industrial agriculture (crops)" serves no good purpose. Let them retain information not included elsewhere. Let them be articles that detail what is merely summarized elsewhere even as they themselves summarize data that is more fully developeed elsewhere. Farming is a big topic. Leave it room to grow. WAS 4.250 07:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to retaining them if that's what people think is necessary. But I'm just not sure what information they will contain that is not included either in "Industrial agriculture" or the more specific entries on chicken farming, maize, aquaculture, etc. FNMF 07:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]