Reflect on conventional agriculture and how it impacts the environment and ultim
ID: 153768 • Letter: R
Question
Reflect on conventional agriculture and how it impacts the environment and ultimately our health. Make sure you answer the following questions: Conventional fertilizers and pesticides are derived from fossil fuels, what problems does that create for water resources economy, food Supply and health? How do fossil fuels replace human labor with respectito agriculture? (hint- compare modern to older agriculture) What other environmental problems does conventional agriculture cause? What are GMO'S. are they currently labeled and why are people concerned? What are some solutions, global and personal that you can put forth for the group discussion (make sure you comment on each other's solutions) :tr:Explanation / Answer
Reflect on conventional agriculture and how it impacts the environment and ultimately our health. Make sure you answer following questions. Conventional fertilizers and pesticides are derived from fossil fuels, what problems does that create for water resources, economy, food supply and health?
The high usage of fertilizers and pesticides pollute the surface water and ground water. The contaminated water mix with the surface river water by runoffs from the farm. Contamination of ground water due to these pesticides became a worldwide concern for most developing and developed countries as cleaning up the ground water is not possible economically.
As the dependency on machines and artificially manufactured manures (which are directly controlled by the cost of natural fossil fuels like hydrocarbon and coal) is increased in the agriculture industry, the farm workers are losing their job. In the other hand, the production cost of the food is increasing day by day as the price of the fossil fuel is increasing. Ultimately the cost of the agricultural products is increasing, which is impacting the economy.
As the oil price increase the food yielding capacity of the farmers decrease which directly lower the food supply and increasing of food items.
The conventional fertilizers and pesticides are now mostly replaced the natural fertilizers like dung. As the manufacture of these fertilizers and pesticides highly depend on the fossil fuels these are ultimately impacting the human health directly and indirectly from the manufacture site to the farm workers. Due to the involvement of highly toxic materials the workers in the manufacturing site are at a high risk. The organochlorine compounds are highly impact the tissues of every organism, endocrine impacts human hormone system which ultimately impact our immunity system and reproductivity.
How do fossil fuels replace human labor with respect to agriculture? (Hint-compare modern to older agriculture).
Early agriculture was totally depending on human labor starting from the cultivation to the food processing. The dependency on machines gradually increases in every stage of agriculture.
Earlier farmers were relaying on natural composts (cow dung) which is the best natural fertilizer. To harvest dung, they were keeping domestic animals from which farmers were getting direct and indirect benefits. Now this is totally replaced by artificially manufactured pesticides and fertilizer which are prepared by using natural energy sources like coal, oil. They were using ox which is now replaced with tractors. Bullock carts which were used as a transport media are now replaced with vehicles running by oil.
What other environmental problems does conventional agriculture cause?
Apart from the water resource and health, soil also impacted due to these pesticides. Heavy usage of pesticides adversely decrease the useful bacteria and fugi in the soil. These are are also contaminate our surrounding air directly. Use of these fertilizers cause the death of the nearby non-target plants and organisms.
What are GMO’s, are they currently labeled and why are people concerned?
GMO stands for “Genetically Modified Organism”. Scientists remove genes from one plant and insert into other plant’s DNA. This is not a safe engineering as while inserting the genes in to the DNA of other plant, scientists do not sure where these genes go in the plant. This may adversely affect the genes and their functionality in the plant they want to alter.
What are some solutions global and personal that you can put forth the group discussion (make sure you comment on each other’s solution).
The problems can be minimized by using the biodegradable energy sources. Agricultural land management tools and spatial zoning can improve the food yield. Government should encouraging advanced technology to minimize the usage of natural energy sources. Minimzsing the fertilizers and pesticides and using natural composts.
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