The framework's predictions in [§9.6.3](<9.6.3 What is Predicted.md>) are held against the empirical and theoretical record on agricultural-system performance.

*First.* Industrial animal agriculture generates uninternalized externalities. The FAO *Livestock's Long Shadow* (2006) and the FAO *Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock* (2013) document the greenhouse-gas externalities of industrial animal agriculture. The watershed-contamination empirical literature (Mallin and Cahoon on hog-farm runoff; the dead-zone literature on agricultural runoff into the Gulf of Mexico and similar bodies) documents the watershed externality. The labor-condition empirical record (Human Rights Watch on US meatpacking; the COVID-19 outbreak record in meatpacking facilities) documents the labor externality. The animal-suffering empirical record at industrial scale is the framework's own [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>) derivation visible in field conditions.

*Second.* Subsidy capture produces commodity-overproduction. The US Farm Bill empirical record over multiple decades documents the commodity-tilt: corn, soy, sugar, dairy, and meat receive substantial subsidies; fruits, vegetables, and small-farm production receive comparatively little. The Pollan (2006; *The Omnivore's Dilemma*) and Patel (2007; *Stuffed and Starved*) accounts document the political-economy of the subsidy capture. The OECD agricultural-policy comparative reviews document similar patterns across developed economies, with the EU's Common Agricultural Policy as the parallel case.

*Third.* Concentration produces structural extraction at every link. The US empirical record on consolidation in seed (Bayer-Monsanto; ChemChina-Syngenta), in processing (the four-firm concentration of meatpacking; consolidation in grain-trading at the ABCD-firm level), and in retail (the Walmart and Kroger shares of grocery distribution) documents the concentration patterns. The structural-extraction prediction is confirmed in the rent-pattern literature on each link. Howard's *Concentration and Power in the Food System* (2016) is the analytic synthesis.

*Fourth.* AMR tracks industrial animal-agriculture density. The O'Neill Review (2014–2016) on antimicrobial resistance identifies agricultural antibiotic use as a major driver of resistance pressure; the frequently cited approximately-70-percent figure applies to medically important antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals in the United States, while the global claim is broader and more cautious: animal agriculture is a major and growing share of antimicrobial use. The WHO and CDC consensus statements identify agricultural antibiotic use as a primary driver. The empirical literature on AMR-emergence patterns in jurisdictions with high-density industrial animal agriculture confirms the density-tracking prediction. The 2017 WHO guideline calling for substantial reduction in agricultural antibiotic use is the policy-side acknowledgment of the empirical record.

*Fifth.* Topsoil depletion and monoculture vulnerability. Montgomery's *Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations* (2007) and the FAO *Status of the World's Soil Resources* (2015) document the topsoil-depletion empirical record. The pollinator-collapse literature (the colony-collapse-disorder research; the broader insect-decline literature) documents the genetic-diversity-and-monoculture vulnerability. The Irish Potato Famine, the 1970 Southern Corn Leaf Blight, and the Panama Disease threat to Cavendish bananas are historical confirmations of monoculture vulnerability; current concerns about wheat rust and rice blast are contemporary cases.

*Sixth.* Food deserts track structural-extraction patterns. The USDA Economic Research Service food-desert mapping documents the empirical pattern in the US. The empirical literature on retail-chain site-selection optimization (Bitler and Haider on supermarket access; the redlining-and-food-access literature) documents the structural mechanism. Food deserts track structural-extraction patterns at the distribution interface as the framework predicts.

*Seventh.* Regenerative practices improve long-run resilience and soil performance. The Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial documents the long-run yield-and-soil-health pattern across decades, including cases where organic systems match or outperform conventional systems under stress conditions. The empirical literature on regenerative-agriculture practices (cover cropping, no-till, agroforestry, rotational grazing) supports long-run soil-health, resilience, and economic-performance advantages in many configurations, while yield outcomes vary by crop, region, practice mix, and transition period. LaCanne and Lundgren (2018) on soil-health-and-economic-performance documents the integrated long-run picture.

*Eighth.* Animal-welfare considerations scale with capacity for suffering. The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (2012) documents the empirical convergence on non-human-animal consciousness. The animal-welfare science literature (Broom; Dawkins; Mendl on animal-emotion) documents the species-by-species evidence. EU animal-welfare regulation tracks the empirical pattern more closely than US regulation, providing a comparative confirmation of the policy-tracks-science prediction. The framework's [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>) derivation lands in the policy register through this prediction.

*On theoretical convergences.* The framework converges on conclusions independently reached in: animal-ethics scholarship (Singer 1975; Regan 1983), capabilities-approach environmental ethics (Nussbaum 2006 ch. 6 on animal capabilities), agroecology (Altieri; Gliessman), the food-sovereignty movement (La Vía Campesina), Indigenous land-management traditions, and ecological-economics (Costanza; Daly). The convergence supports the robustness of the conclusions.

*What does not confirm the framework.* Strong-form free-market-in-agriculture accounts predict that industrial-agriculture configurations represent efficient outcomes; the empirical record on externalities, subsidies, and concentration refuses the prediction. Strong-form animal-rights accounts that ground rights in pre-political moral facts independent of empirical animal-consciousness findings predict policy outcomes the framework does not endorse; the framework grounds animal welfare in the empirical record on capacity for suffering, not in pre-political rights. Strong-form anti-technological-agriculture accounts that preclude technological agricultural improvement on principle predict regenerative-only futures; the framework precludes industrial-extractive agriculture but does not preclude technologically-augmented sustainable agriculture. The confirmations stated in this subsection are made under engagement with the contested agricultural-tradition objections [§9.6.1](<9.6.1 What is Disputed.md>) names at premise: animal-rights abolitionism (Regan 1983; Francione 2000; Singer 1975), the agribusiness-productivity tradition (Borlaug's Green Revolution legacy; the contemporary 'feed the world' defense), and the cultural-tradition objection (Jewish shechitah and kashrut; Islamic halal; Indigenous foodways; regional culinary traditions). Those traditions are engaged at section length in [§9.6.1](<9.6.1 What is Disputed.md>), and the confirmation record stated here applies under that engagement.

*What is confirmed.* The empirical record across agricultural externalities, subsidy capture, structural concentration, antimicrobial resistance, topsoil depletion and monoculture vulnerability, food deserts, regenerative-practice performance, and animal welfare supports the [§9.6.3](<9.6.3 What is Predicted.md>) predictions, and multiple independent traditions converge on the framework's conclusion. The institutional-design implications are drawn at [§9.6.5](<9.6.5 What is Concluded.md>).


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← [9.6.3 What is Predicted](<9.6.3 What is Predicted.md>) | [9.6.5 What is Concluded](<9.6.5 What is Concluded.md>) →
