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Effect of agriculture
Agriculture and population increase
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The Folly in the Nature of Agriculture
Clever Hans would go to see his fiancée named Gretel in the morning and ask for something, when Gretel gives him a gift he mishandles it and loses the gift. Foley interprets the information of numerous sources and presents his data in a professional manner. He conveys his ideas about the nature of agriculture with a high degree of education, identifying the issues in agriculture, and stating solutions to rectify imperfections in the agriculture system.
Foley presented his journal for an educated audience. The readers must be intelligent enough to understand the gravity of the situation the human race is in with no easy solution or tactic to solve the problems facing humanity. This includes understanding
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Foley uses copious citations throughout his essay displaying through research. This is a sign that his opinions and thoughts can be taken seriously because there is substantial evidence to back up his points. Foley also appeals to human nature and thought process. Most people are altruistic at the core and want to help others. People also want the simplest explanations, to be able to comprehend concepts. By summarizing his research to “In short, new agricultural systems must deliver more human value, to those who need it most, with the least environmental harm” (Jonathan & Navin, 2011, p. 341), Foley complies with human tendencies in that …show more content…
337). Using statistics, he illustrates how much land is used for agriculture compared with other terrestrial environments. Agriculture occupies a big portion of our environment. This “Agricultural expansion has had tremendous impacts on habitats, biodiversity, carbon storage, and soil conditions. In fact, worldwide agriculture has already cleared or converted...” (Jonathan & Navin, 2011, p. 338) large portions of various thriving ecosystems. Despite that fact productivity is not increasing and “The allocation of crops to non-food uses, including animal feed, seed, bioenergy and other industrial products, affects the amount of food available to the world” (Jonathan & Navin, 2011, p. 338). This allocation occurs more in developed countries. In developing countries the majority of crops are for human consumption. In the developing countries yield gaps occur, these gaps can be filled if the people adopt sustainable methods of producing crops. Once the gaps are filled there will be no reason to expand agriculture further into other
(Tilman D, Balzer C, Hill J, Befort BL. 2011. Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. PNAS 108(50):20260–20264. )
Traditional agriculture requires massive forest and grassland removal to obtain land necessary to farm on. Deforestation and overgrazing has caused erosion flooding, and enabled the expansion of deserts. But with drainage systems, leveling, and irrigation provided by the Green Rev, all this terra deforming will unlikely happen again. We can retain clean air and lessen the global warming effect caused by deforestation.Many people argue that a revamp in agriculture will be way too expensive and unrealistic especially for those poor farmers in third world countries. However many times, they exaggerate the price.
Chapter four of Who Really Feeds the World?, focuses on how Biodiversity is one of the main components of how the world gets fed. Shiva states how over the course of history over seven thousand species have fed the world. However, today on roughly thirty species make up roughly ninety percent of the calories in the typical human diet, yet only three species make up fifty percent of this ninety percent. These three species include, rice, wheat and maize which can be found in many varieties of foods consumed by the human race. The production industries in the world have strayed away from biodiversity systems due to the perception that they are negative due to low production, however, the mass production farms are destroying biodiversity and causing
Every day, thousands of babies are being born all around the earth, meanwhile our homeland earth is running out of enough space for living, farming and running out of clean drinkable water; Millions of people are desperate for any job opportunities. ’’ By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers’’ . It is estimated that the population of the earth will increase by about 3 billion people by that time and 80% percent of the usable lands for raising crops will be in use . Vertical farming is one the ideas to move forward towards a healthier and more manageable future for all the human, as well as wildlife and our environment. “Ecologist Dickson Despommier argues that vertical farming is legitimate
Take, for example, that livestock agriculture and the plant-based agriculture specifically used for feeding that livestock utilizes 30 percent of land on Earth. With crops in high demand to feed the many animals that are slaughtered or otherwise used by humans, it's been found that the soil has lost a great deal of its nutritional value and has eroded to the point that, in the United States, nearly 33 percent of topsoil is diminished.
2003) and already more than half of the land suitable for pastures is subject to overgrazing and erosion, posing a risk for food production in the near future. The erosion level of pastures and rangeland exceeds the erosion rate of cropland by roughly six times, meaning, that the land becomes unusable for agricultural use at higher rates when used for meat production rather than vegetarian foods. Moreover, croplands are not exclusively used for human consumption but animal feed accounts for 40 percent of the harvest. Thus, livestock requires land to graze while also depending on land to produce feed. The FAO (FAO, 2012) estimates, that due to the high land-use of conventional agriculture and an increasing demand for omnivorous products such as beef and milk, more than 10 billion hectares of forest are lost to expand pastures and grasslands to feed
Throughout many years, farming has impacted earth’s food supply. Farmers are the key to supplying food for earths’ outrageous population of 7.4 billion people. America has the greatest amount of farmers on earth that supply a large quantity of food for everyone. Iowa, just one of the top food producing states in America. The biggest question in the midwest for Iowan farmers is how do the change of seasons affect them? In Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter Iowa farmers have to adapt to the change of seasons. Mostly all crop farmers in Iowa plant corn, soybeans, oats, rye, wheat, and hay. In addition, There are also livestock farmers who raise cattle, hogs, sheep, and chickens. Although their differences, they play a great role in our lives to
Agriculture requires the dedication of many of our natural resources, including land, water, and energy. When the quality and quantity of our natural resources degrades as a result of unsustainable practices, it’s not only the environment that suffers–the viability of future agricultural operations is also put at risk. Sustainable agriculture is founded on the premise that our resources can be carefully managed and cultivated to make them last indefinitely.
This leads to the ability to raise many more animals in one acre than by traditional farming, with farmers able to increase profit without acquiring more land. This practice, while at first is seemingly efficient, with less land used and less impact on the soil, is actually making environmental matters worse. These production facilities have grown at twice the rate of traditional farms, and with so many more animals per acre, have vastly increased the resources needed worldwide to continue the upkeep of these operations. This has led to even more environmental problems even though this type of farm was originally designed to reduce
Industrialized food production is the production of large quantities of crops and livestock for domestic and foreign sale. More food is available throughout the world with greater variety and availability, and long shelf life makes food cheaper because of industrialized agriculture. However, industrialized agriculture has harmful effects on soil and human health. It uses large amounts of fossil fuels (natural gas and oil), water, and pesticide to produce food. Industrialized food production is vital because we should know how our food is produced. Also, it is our responsibility to keep the environment sustained because we are dependent on this planet. We can produce food more sustainably by using less high-input agriculture and more low-input
Nowadays, world population growth increase rapidly and about to reach the highest capacity, this will cause increasing in demand for production of food. Since food production main sources comes from agriculture, this leads to agriculture developing faster and better to compensate for increasing demand of a blooming population. Agriculture and environment plays a very importan...
To the farmer, soil is vital to his very existence. Soil is the home of over 400 million acres of crops that the farmer grows and nurtures to feed his family and yours. According to the 2007 USDA Census, there are almost 1 billion acres of farmland being utilized for crops and livestock (“American Farms”). Without the soil, these farmers would not be able to raise the products that we rely on for basic survival. United States agriculture must produce enough food to help feed the world’s ever growing population. At 7 billion people and rising, our soil must remain as productive as ever (“World Population Clock...
Agriculture is quite possibly the most important advancement and discovery that humanity has made. It produces the one thing that we need the most: food. It has been around since 9500 BC, and can be the oldest sign of mankind’s acumen and the development and evolving of our minds and creations. Agriculture has been mastered throughout hundreds of years and is one of our most important resources on Earth, along with water and fossil fuels. Although the older farming methods from ancient times seem somewhat mediocre and barbaric, they were very ingenious and advanced for that time period. Over thousands of years, we have improved the way agriculture is used, how land is cultivated, the various techniques of farming and irrigation, and the tools and mechanics used. Numerous things that we see as aboriginal today, such as using a hand plow, were extremely contemporary in ancient times, and played key roles in the development of man and society, since quick labor was not abundant before this time. We are now extremely advanced in agriculture and irrigation and the tools used to farm and grow and harvest crops. We have learned from our past and ancestors how to grow and evolve in our methods and have advanced forward greatly.
Even though organic agriculture is seen to be safer and healthier for people and the environment, conventional agriculture is more efficient than organic because fertilizers and pesticides reduce the risk of crops failing, however, they may also be detrimental to the nutritional value of the crop. On the other hand, producing organic goods is said to be more expensive and requires more land to produce the same amount of crop yield. With the world’s ever expanding population, rates of starvation are increasing and it is crucial that we understand the consequences of trying to feed the world potentially healthier food rather than just feeding it in general.
Introduction: The word “Agriculture” is derived from Latin ‘agricultura’ where ager mean field and cultura mean cultivation or growing. Agriculture is the cultivation of plants, animals, and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food supplies that nurtured the development of civilization. Over one third of the world’s workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector. Agricultural production is required to feed the present population and keep open the option potential to feed the future growing population. It is a global challenge