What are the effects of agriculture on the environment and how can we minimize the bad ones and amplify the good ones or create new techniques to prevent further environmental issues?
By Max Auld
Agriculture is evolving, we must provide food for the growing population we have today, but how can we do this without significantly harming the environment? I have come up with a fertile question to which I will research and find an answer. This question is ‘What are the effects of agriculture on the environment and how can we minimize the bad ones and amplify the good ones or create new techniques to prevent further environmental issues?’
I have chosen this topic because I want to see the world as a better and more sustainable place. Looking into the future I want to make sure that the next generation and the generations after them will be able to live in a clean world. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to produce food while not harming the environment.
This inquiry report will go over the effects of agriculture on the environment, ways we can prevent environmental issues, and how agriculture affects us. I will provide numerical data and a PMI analysis as well as information from an expert. I will analyse the data from graphs and my PMI and come up with some ways we can introduce or encourage farmers and agriculturalists to use these ways to prevent environmental pollution. At the end will be a conclusion and thesis, an answer I have arrived at to prevent the environmental impact of agriculture.
Agriculture is the practice of farming through agriculture we grow plants and farm animals. We do this so we can eat and keep warm. We do this to survive. But there is a problem with the way we farm, we create pollution and cause environmental issues. According to environmentguide, these include methane emissions caused by the mass herding of cows and sheep. The Agriculture sector of the planet consumes more than 70% of the world's freshwater. The world isn't going to keep on providing us with enough water, it’s eventually going to run out. When this happens what will we do? The wastewater then gets swept into streams and rivers, therefore polluting them. Worldwildlifefund says that agriculture is the prominent source of pollution in most countries. They say pesticides, fertilisers, and other toxic chemicals can stay in the soil for centuries. This causes the soil to become dry and useless. According to environment.co some different problems caused by agriculture are soil degradation, soil erosion, wetland drainage, and livestock pollution. There are many ways livestock pollution is caused - it can happen when a cow burps and produces methane emissions which adds to climate change. A cow’s feces or urine can get into the waterways and pollute streams and our drinking water.
This quote is from my expert environmental educator, Geoff Reid. “I believe we’re at ‘peak animals’ in terms of animal agriculture. I refer to it as capital gains farming. For the farm to be worth more than what the farmer paid for it, it needs more animals, the irrigators sucking water out of the ground to grow grass, putting in fertiliser to grow more grass, inputs inputs inputs into the land, palm kernel feed from the Indonesian rain forest fed to the cattle because there’s not enough protein in their diet. So just more and more unnatural ways of farming, because we’ve got too many animals and not enough land.”
“Is it for the greater good for us to do this type of farming? Some people get rich, but we all lose out in the end. The cost of us being able to go down to the river on a hot day and go for a swim. Agriculture provides us food but at the cost of our identity.”
NEGATIVE: There are many negative impacts of agriculture as above. These are mainly to the environment, but believe it or not agriculture negatively impacts us humans too! This is mainly health-related issues such as pesticide-related illness, cancer, respiratory disease, and chronic illness. Farming also has its physical risks as well. These include animal bites, physical harm from equipment, and weather-related issues like heat stroke or becoming too cold. We can’t swim in some rivers and streams and in some places, the air isn’t safe to breathe.
POSITIVE: Agriculture makes food available, more cheaply, for more people than just the farmer. We can just go to the grocery store and buy what we need! We don’t have to work really hard in the field to provide our family with food. If you farm in harmony with the environment then you can have good soil health, insects and wildlife, more oxygen for the planet and exceptional production.
2.
Graph one shows how much of the world is used for agriculture. 71% of the earth is water leaving 29% land. ⅓ of the land is inhospitable, so cannot be used at all. This makes ⅔ of our land habitable. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, which is mostly livestock, but also food crops and materials.
The second graph shows how much of the agricultural industry is livestock and food crops. 75% of all of the agricultural industry is livestock this is a massive contributor to climate change and world pollution. The 25% left is food crops. This is fruit, vegetables and things like wine and in some cases materials like cotton.
Geoff is an environmental educator, campaigner, filmmaker and photographer. Geoff is very passionate about the environment and has a unique understanding of agriculture and the environment and how we affect it. When I interviewed Geoff he gave me a lot of information. This infomation has been used to create my report and I am really grateful for him. I definitely think I will keep in touch with him.
There are many sustainable ways of agriculture that we use and don’t currently. If we could use more sustainable practices of agriculture it would not only prevent environmental issues, but in some cases help the earth to recover and speed up the process of rehabilitation.
The list below is some examples of sustainable agricultural practices. These examples were helped by Envirotech.
Organic farming.
At the moment we use a lot of chemicals and fertilises. Through organic farming none of these chemicals and fertilisers are used. Only natural fertilises such as compost, manure, and seaweed. Organic farming is more environmentally friendly, tastes better, and is healthier. At the moment we don't use a lot of organic farming because though it is good for the environment it does not produce a lot of food and is time-consuming and expensive.
Precision farming.
Precision farming is similar to organic farming, but the temperature, climate, soil, humidity, and a range of different variables will be controlled this will allow the plant or animal to have the right climate. By doing this you can alter all the variables and choose how you want to farm or grow your crops.
Better land use.
This is ‘favoring crop rotation’ so farming in sync with the seasons. Planting crops at the right time, making sure the ground is right for the crop your planting. For example you plant tomatoes from March to June or plant potatoes in early spring.
More plants fewer animals. There are far too many livestock animals on this planet. With farm animals growing they are consuming massive amounts of food, water and taking up a lot of land. We need to cut down trees to make more space for the animals therefore ruining the life of other animals like native birds and insects. If we can have more plants the land would be more healthy and there would not be as much pollution. We can still have meat, but not as much and the meat that we do farm can not be on a large scale and can be environmentaly friendly. We should allow our forests to come back to how they once were.
Waste management. Waste is a big part of our society and is a big contributor to pollution and climate change. We need to find a way to get rid of this waste that we have created without harming the environment. We need to stop the pollution that our agricultural industry is creating. This means we need better storage, better processing, and disposal of manure and other waste as well as recycling and reusing whenever possible.
These are some of the practices we can use for sustainable agriculture. Personally, I think we need to use them all. This PMI analysis below shows some of the sustainable practices of agriculture (explained above). Organic farming, precision farming and more plants less animals, these are all ways we can use to prevent environmental issues. Though I think that we should use as many options as possible. Through the PMI down below I found that out of all these options ‘more plants fewer animals’ is best, which is what my expert Geoff said too.
Through this inquiry, I have done a lot of researching and gathering of data. I have come up with multiple ways of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. I have made a PMI table and put some of the ways I think could make a difference.
I analysed these ways and the ‘practice’ I felt was more effective was ‘less animals and more plants’. Livestock contribute to pollution and climate change quite a lot. Based on what I’ve heard from my expert Geoff and the research I’ve done on different methods, we need to start farming in different ways with more plants and less animals, a way that works in harmony with the environment. Put the health of the whenua first. Not just focus on us and money.
Though ‘more plants and less animals’ is the way I found most effective, I think we should use all of these options that I have listed and more. I know that together if we can all put some effort in we can make a change for the greater good.
In conclusion, agriculture is very important to us. As humans, it provides us with the food that we need to live. Life would be nonexistent without agriculture. We need agriculture and there are ways to supply the food the planet needs without harming the environment.
I hope that by sharing this information, people will understand that agriculture is harming the environment and we need to change our farming practices now before it is too late to reverse not just agricultural pollution, but climate change and worldwide pollution.