Food & environment III: Agriculture

In this third part about Food & Environment, I will write about agriculture.

Agriculture was always very limited by the natural recourses of the cultivated area (weather, pests, soil, climate…), so only relative small quantities of products were produced. But after the Green Revolution, between the 50’s and 70’s in the 20^th century, there has been a great increment in the agricultural production due to the control of crops and their genetics, of soil fertility via chemical fertilization and irrigation, and of pests via chemical pesticides

Of course, this increment of production is not natural, it is only made possible by converting the agriculture into a industry, which leads to a series of problems of great environmental impact.

Pesticides A wide range of agricultural chemicals are used and some become pollutants through use, misuse, or ignorance. Pesticides can contaminate water, soil and air, and can thereby create a great health risk for the human population. They increase the risk of cancer, birth defects and infertility. Therefore, already many pesticides have been prohibited to use. 

Land degradation. Under degradation can be understood deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, mineral depletion, or chemical degradation. They are all effects of the intensive agricultural industry, and are a good reason to be worried, as already 40% of the worlds agricultural land is seriously degraded.

The map below shows us the soil degradation in 1997. Since then it has increased greatly, but I couldn't find any recent maps of it. 

Irrigation. 70% of the fresh water worldwide is used for agricultural purposes (only 10% is used by us in the everyday life). Since the green revolution, and the introduction of chemical agriculture, the crops have become highly inefficient because they need enormous quantities to dissolve the chemicals; they use between 2 and 10 more water.

Genetically modified food. Some of the transgenic plant products are; soy beans, rice, corn, sugar beet, papaya, tomato. I include this in the list of environmental impacts for several reasons. In the first place, by genetically modifying our food, we have no idea what the long term effects will be, as we place gens from other species in the plant products. And in the second place, G.M. plant products are a risk for the biodiversity and contribute to the loss of it. 


These are the most important impacts, but of course the list is very long. Next time, I will write about Sustainable Agriculture, because of course, if I write about how we do things which create an environmental impact, I must also write about how we can do things right ;)
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