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research paper on natural farming
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A very serious issue in agriculture today is the topic of land degradation. Land degradation is not talked about among people because it is not a very well-known problem, although very serious for everyone in the short future if nothing is done to help. This is an issue that needs to get out to people more than it is right now or it might be trouble in the future. There are many different problems that can occur from land degradation and I will be explaining those and my proposal on how it might be a way to help with the issue. Land degradation is the human and environmental impact on the land. To explain this a little better, different impacts such as wind and water are major factors in soil erosion. Soil erosion is not good because it doesn’t only effect farmers and they’re crops, but affects everyone because the world’s population is on a drastic rise. If the problem with soil erosion keeps …show more content…
According to David R. Huggins and John P. Reganold, “Leaving crop residues on the soil surface helps to increase water infiltration and limit run-off.” (Huggins, Reganold, 2008, pg.4) Using this method will preserve more crop residue in the field and help keep more moisture in the ground for the crops to use by not letting as much water to be evaporated. This is beneficial to both the crops and the soil, while not allowing nearly as much of the soil to be eroded away by the wind on dry years or droughts. With this process keeping more of the old crop residue and not letting as much of the soil to be eroded and run off, comes one of the most beneficial pros to no-till farming. No-till farming stops the loss of the valuable top soils which contain the most important nutrients that the crops flourish from. When more of the top soil is saved the more nutrients the crops will have and that means a better yield from the crop without the farmer having to spread more fertilizer than they should have
Due to the populations’ spartic increase population expansion became an issue. Humans were forced to take land from surrounding habitats in order to create their own. The destruction of forests and greenlands caused deforestation, animal endangerment, and extinction, “Agriculture is estimated to be the direct driver for around 80% of deforestation worldwide” (Wageningen University). While this occurred crops gradually depleted almost all the nutrients from the soil leaving areas bare and unable to unable to sustain plant life. Making acres useless to humans or animals and in return humans had to reach farther into inhabited areas in order to find fertile land. The sudden environmental burden in carbon dioxide from increased population and decrease in forest a plants to convert the high carbon dioxide levels produced an environmental issue which affects climate and the seasonal cycles. Recent research shows that “In Latin America, commercial agriculture is the main direct driver, responsible for 2/3 of all cut forests, while in Africa and tropical Asia commercial agriculture and subsistence agriculture both account for one third of deforestation”(Wageningen University).When viewing the change from hunter-gathering to farming from a global perspective the transition was very selfish of
The administration also began educating farmers about soil conservation and techniques to prevent erosion, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices. In 1937, the federal government began encouraging farmers to adopt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid farmers a dollar an acre to practice the new methods of soil conservation. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular rainfall finally returned to the region. The government still encouraged continuing the use of conservation methods to protect the soil and ecology of the
There are two theories that holistic management advocates swear by. One is that grazing can be beneficial if preformed in the correct way. The other is that resting land is not good for it. Both theories basically state that land can and should be grazed. To understand these theories some background information must be given as to how land works. Land can be identified on a scale of how hydric or xeric it is. Every piece of land falls between those two points. Hydric lands get a great deal of rainfall and have high humidity. As a result they have much more vegetation on the ground and therefore many more organisms to break things down. Xeric lands are just the opposite; they are much drier. They have less rainfall, less humidity, less vegetation, and fewer organisms. When vegetation dies in hydric system, the great numbers of organisms quickly decompose it. When vegetation dies in a xeric system the decomposition is a much longer process. Savory also compares these landscapes using the terminology of brittle and nonbrittle environments. The more brittle the land is, the more xeric it is. Oppositely, the more nonbrittle the land is, the more hydric it is.
increased levels of proteins in crops. It is also beneficial by helping the plants to be
The first piece of evidence that the continual cropping system is inefficient, is that it is the least productive growing system. In experiments done in Wooster, Ohio, it was found that a field where crop rotation was used could produce 27.62 bushels of corn per acre, a field with continual cropping produced only 13.33 bushels per acre, and where chemical fertilizer was used on a continuous cropped field, 30.53 bushels per acre were produced (Weir, 1936,p. 502). Though it interesting that these facts are fundamental enough to have been discovered before 1936, it should also be noted that a recent eight year study done at the University of Nebraska, where scientists compared thirteen cropping systems, "the results confirmed the findings of studies done in the first half of the century"(Committee on the Role of Alt. Farm. Methods, 1989, p.229). If continual cropping is the least effective method o...
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.
Deforestation in the Dominican Republic has involved burning trees to remove them from the land as opposed to using methods that are more sustainable (Alscher, 2011, p. 14). It is activities like those that had many unexpected damaging effects in the Dominican Republic. One of those effects was land degradation. Land degradation occurs when the land is extremely damaged due to human activity. Damaging the land decreases its productivity and can have very harmful effects (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987, p. 25). Due to deforestation, the land has been subjected to the loss of trees, soil erosion, reduction of farmable land, damage to drainage systems, and “erosion of soil into the sea” (Alscher, 2011,
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.
Organic gardening helps to prevent a loss of topsoil, water pollution, toxic runoff, and soil contamination, death of insects, birds, critters and other beneficial soil organisms, as well as eliminating pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide residues on food from synthetic fertilizers.
Agriculture is an absolute necessity for human life on Earth to continue. There are too many people on the planet for existence as hunters and gatherers to work anymore. That said, it must be realized that concessions must be made to allow such food growth and production to occur. But this does not mean that another important element of life on Earth can be destroyed for it. Unfortunately, that is indeed what is occurring, at an alarming rate. The rainforests of the planet are dwindling as the land they belong on is used more and more for agriculture, all over the world. In the Amazon, ,the most commonly detrimental agricultural practice is the technique of land clearing known as Slash and Burn.
In this essay, the effects of climate change on agriculture and how to manage it shall be discussed. Climate change has and will greatly affect agriculture. As time progresses, the effects of climate change will worsen and become detrimental. Mendelsohn and Dinar (2009:1) state,” if future climate scenarios lead to a widespread reduction in food supply, there could be massive problems with hunger and starvation”. Climate change is a change in global climate patterns which is mainly caused by the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels. The writer chose this topic because climate change is a global problem that will pose a threat to people’s lives around the world and must be dealt with sooner than later.
They take pride in caring for the land, water and natural resources in several ways. One way is by using cover crops which are plants grown to protect the soil and put healthy nutrients back into it, while slowing erosion, controlling pests, and increasing organic matter. They also use crop rotation by planting different crops in the same field but during different times. This keeps the land fertile because not all of the nutrients are being used with each crop. Buffer zones are another technique farmers use to plant strips of vegetation between the fields and bodies of water to keep the soil out of the water source. No till fields are used to keep the soil in place when it rains, helping moisture stay in the
As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labour and less land. Growth of the agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. It, like every other thing, has its pros and cons. Topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and working conditions for farm labourers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of economic and social conditions in rural communities. These are the cons of the new improved agriculture.
Agriculture is one of the most ancient forms of art and science that ties human development and well-being to natural resources and ecosystems. (Fritz J. Häni, 2007) Sustainable Agriculture is the production of food, fibre, plant and animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities and animal welfare. (Sustainable Agriculture - The Basics, 2015) Sustainable agriculture is an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site – specific application that over the long term will:
Today agriculture is the livelihood of most poor underdeveloped nations. This communal life blood provides a majority of the population with a source of employment, nourishment and income. It is considered to be an invaluable skill, that is taught down from generation to generation along with a sense of respect for the environment. However as a nation begins to undergo development, so do their food production systems. The country's newfound development causes significant restructuring of their agricultural production practices. This restructuring leads to poor environmental practices, and adverse agriculture methods. Increased economic development/production negatively affects a country's environmental and agricultural health.