Intensive Agriculture

7/17/2019 Intensive Agriculture

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The "faster, bigger, cheaper" approach tofood is slowly draining dry our planet's

resources and compromising your health. TheEarth's soil is depleting at more than 13percent the rate it can be replaced. We havealready lost ! percent of the world's cropvarieties over the last century. #ver the past

1$ years, we've had 1$$ million tons ofherbicides dumped onto our crops, pollutingour soil and streams



%ntensive&gricultureeast or amine(



)e*nition of terms %ntensive arming + is an agricultural intensi*cation and

mechaniation system that aims to ma-imie yields from available landthrough various means, such as heavy use of pesticides and chemicalfertiliers.

onoculture + the agricultural practice of producing or growing a single

crop or plant species in a *eld at a time. %rrigation + the arti*cial application of water to the land for various

purposes, such as growing crops, maintaining landscapes and for use indry areas and during periods of inade/uate rainfall.

0lash and urn+ the process of cutting down the vegetation in aparticular plot of land, setting *re to the remaining foliage, and using

the ashes to provide nutrients to the soil for use of planting food crops. 0ustainable arming + is the production of food, *ber, or other plant or

animal products using farming techni/ues that protect theenvironment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare. This form of agriculture enables us to produce healthful food withoutcompromising future generations' ability to do the same.



%ntensive arming %ntensive farming practices produce more and cheaper food per acre andanimal, which has helped feed a booming human population and mayprevent surrounding land from being converted into agricultural land, but hasgrown to become the biggest threat to the global environment through theloss of ecosystem services and global warming, has led to the emergence ofnew parasites and re+emergence of parasites previously considered to be

'under control' by creating the conditions for parasite growth and isresponsible for 2$ of tropical deforestation

urthermore, intensive farming 4ills bene*cial insects and plants, degradesand depletes the very soil it depends on, creates polluted runo5 and cloggedwater systems, increases susceptibility to 6ooding, causes the geneticerosion of crops and livestoc4 species around the world, decreasesbiodiversity, destroys natural habitats and, according to WW, "armingpractices, livestoc4, and clearing of land for agriculture are signi*cantcontributors to the build+up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."7owever, certain aspects of intensive farming have helped ease climatechange by helping boost yields in already cleared land that may be under+performing, which prevents the clearing of additional land.



&dvantages #ne of the ma8or advantages of this farming techni/ue is

that the crop yield is high.

%t helps the farmer to easily supervise and monitor the land

and protect his livestoc4 from being hurt or hounded bydangerous wild animals.

With the introduction of intensive farming, farm produce,such as vegetables, fruits, and poultry products havebecome less e-pensive. %t also aids in solving the worldwidehunger problems to a great e-tent. This means that common

people can now a5ord a balanced and nutritious diet. &nother advantage is that large productivity of food is

possible with less amount of land. This leads to economiesof scale and directly contributes towards meeting the ever+growing demand for food supplies.



)isadvantages %ntensive farming involves the use of various 4inds of chemical fertiliers,

pesticides, and insecticides. &part from this, it is also associated with farms that4eep livestoc4 above their holding capacity, which in turn leads to pollution,various diseases, and infections brought about by overcrowding and poor hygiene.

9eports and studies reveal that intensive farming a5ects and alters theenvironment in multiple ways. orests are destroyed to create large open *elds,and this could lead to soil erosion. %t a5ects the natural habitat of wild animals. :se

of chemical fertiliers contaminates soil and water bodies, such as la4es and rivers. The environment is altered with the creation of large open *eld to facilitate

e;ciency and pro*ts. ut this upsets the natural habitat of the animals that livethere.

assive amount of nitrogen based fertiliers contaminate the rivers and la4eswhich will eventually destroy our environment

ruits and vegetables purchased from farms that promote intensive farming arecovered with invisible pesticides. These cannot be washed o5 easily. E-ceeding theuse of pesticides a5ects the health of human beings severely, leading to s4inallergy, physical deformity, and congenital disease.

<ancer rates are increasing and research shows direct relation to intensive farming



&ctivities

&. 0lash and urn

. onoculture<. %rrigation



0lash and urn

0lash and burn agriculture, which is used by =$$ to !$$ millionpeople worldwide, involves the cutting and burning of forests orwoodlands to create *elds.

ollowing slash and burn, the cleared area, 4nown as swidden, isused for a relatively short period of time and then left alone toreturn to a more natural state, however, in many cases, soil loss

and erosion is so high that recovery time can ta4e millennia. lash and burn agriculture may be sustainable when practiced by

small populations in large forests, as it has been for about 1=,$$$years, where *elds have su;cient time to recover before againbeing slashed, burned, and cultivated, which allows for people tofarm in places where it usually is not possible and providescommunities with a source of food and income.

7owever, this techni/ue is not sustainable beyond a certainpopulation density because, without the trees, the soil /ualitysoon becomes too poor to support crops, which leads the farmershaving to move on to virgin forests and repeat the process.



Throughout the tropics, slash andburn agriculture results in nearly a/uarter of the world's greenhousegas emissions

%rresponsible practices of slash andburn agriculture by a large amountof people can lead to a multitudeof environmental issues, such asthe temporary or permanent lossof forest cover, which occurs when*elds are not given su;cient time

for vegetation to grow bac4> soilerosion, which occurs inevitably,but especially when the techni/ueis used on *elds located right ne-tto each other and leads to watershortages and a loss of nutrients>

a loss in biodiversity, which occurs

by destroying or driving o5 variousplants and animals by cutting andburning their habitat, which istypically situated in tropicalregions where biodiversity ise-tremely high and can lead to thee-tinction of a species.



onoculture onoculture, which is the practice of growing one type of crop intensively over a

large area, is at the core of industrial food production.

The chosen crop, most commonly corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton or rice, istypically replanted in the same soil area year after year with no introduction of adi5erent crop, which creates a system with very little diversity.

onoculture bene*ts include limiting waste from ine;cient harvesting and

planting, reducing plant competition, controlling unpro*table organisms andallowing the production to be standardied.

7owever, monoculture farming /uic4ly depletes the nutrients in the soil, reliesheavily on chemicals, such as synthetic fertiliers and pesticides, and can lead toa /uic4er spread of diseases where a uniform crop is susceptible to a pathogen.

%nstead of rotating di5erent crops to naturally restore the nutrients and vitaminsthat are found in the soil, monoculture farming causes the same nutrients to

diminish from the ground. ?itrogen is a 4ey nutrient in crop growth. @lants, li4esoy, are able to A*-B nitrogen from the air bac4 into the soil, where a crop li4ecorn cannot. %f you do not rotate between nitrogen *-ing plants and non+nitrogen*-ing plants, the soil will be depleted of this vital nutrient.



%rrigation %rrigation can create ecological degradation reducing

biodiversity and damaging downstream ecosystems dueto reduced water /uantity and /uality and creategroundwater depletion by reducing the base 6ow and

wetlands and by creating dry drin4ing and irrigation wells. )ue to e-cess water and shortage of air, roots do not go

deep and they remain on the upper surface. @lants are notable to get nutritive elements in su;cient /uantity andshallow roots, because of wea4ness, are neither able to

develop nor are they able to bear swift winds. %t could also reduce availability of industrial, municipal

,household and drin4ing water.



#ver the past 1$$ years, intensive farming has tripledthe levels of phosphorus and doubled the levels ofnitrogen in the environment compared to natural levels.ost of this phosphorus and nitrogen that's used togrow crops washes into rivers and steams or getsreleased into the atmosphere.

or e-ample, only =$ of nitrogen used in agriculture is

actually productive, whereas the rest ma4es its wayinto the environment. &ll of these added nutrients inthe water fuel massive algae blooms, including to-icalgae, which can degrade or destroy coral reefs and seagrasses that provide valuable habitat for marine

species, 4ill *sh and suc4 the o-ygen out of the waterwhen the algae blooms die leading to dead oneswhere *sh and other marine life cannot survive.



#n a global scale, eutrophication of coastal systems hasrisen from fewer than ! systems in 1CD$ to more than 2$$

systems today. #f these 2$$ systems, more than !$$ havee-perienced deo-ygenation or have become dead ones

Eutrophication also results in economic losses to tourismand recreation industries, capture *sheries, anda/uaculture operations. or e-ample, in =$$C, a massive

to-ic algae bloom o5 the coast of aine led to the closureof commercial shell*sh beds, which crippled a !$ millionindustry. The illennium Ecosystem &ssessment predictsthat intensive agricultural practices will release nitrogeninputs by almost another !$ by =$!$.

To protect and maintain healthy, productive water

resources for future generations, it will be important tofocus on developing sustainable agricultural policies thatcan help achieve food security without compromising water/uality.



<onclusionsF0olutionsF&lternatives & comprehensive e-amination of nearly 3$$ studies worldwide

shows that organic, small+scale farming can feed the world.#rganic farms in developing countries outperformedconventional practices by ! and that organic agriculture could

produce enough food, on a per capita basis, to provide =,DG$ toG,32$ calories per person per day, which is more than thesuggested inta4e for healthy adults. &ccording to the study,"With the average yield ratios, we modeled the global foodsupply that could be grown organically on the current agriculturalland base. odel estimates indicate that organic methods could

produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain thecurrent human population, and potentially an even largerpopulation, without increasing the agricultural land base andwhile reducing the detrimental environmental impacts ofconventional agriculture." urthermore, a :nited ?ations 7uman9ights report states that "Eco+arming can double food

production in 1$ years."



With human population growing at a rate ofappro-imately 2 million people per year

with over billion people living on the planettoday and estimates reaching between 2 and11 billion by =$!$ and up to 1! billion by=1$$, humanity faces perhaps our greatest

challenge of 4eeping fed while 4eeping ahealthy, productive foundation to feedourselves with. )espite the odds, this can bedone.

Intensive Agriculture

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