NAME: VERONICA KANDEWO

REG NUMBER: P1952042C

COURSE: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 105

CODE: BSDS 106

LEVEL: 1.2
QUESTION: Examine the impact of agricultural activities on the environment.
Agricultural activities affects the environment in multiple ways like deforestation,water
pollution,monoculture,livestock keeping,global warmimg,floods and land degradation.
One of the primary environmental concerns with modern agriculture has to do with the
chemicals we put on crops and what happenes when these crops end up in the
watershed.Pesticides and other chemicals are often used to used produce more crops and
these pesticides don’t just fall on the crops and stay there they are transported via wind and
water and affect the surrounding ecosystems.The fertilisers are also used in agriculture and
they also end up affect the surrounding ecosystems.Fertilisers,while a nutrient for some
plants,end up in stream and lakes in amounts higher than occur naturally.
The result may be eutrophication,an excessive amount of nutrients in a body of water
resulting in a substantial growth of plants,such as algue and a lack of oxygen in the water of
this increase in plants.There is a finite amount of land on the planent and agriculture practises
take up a lot of land.Forests,grasslands and other ecosystem are converted for farmland.
There is a finite amount of land on the planent and agricultural practises take up a lot of
land.Forests,grasslands and other ecosystems are converted for farmland.When we clear the
land for agriculture.We often lose some soil.The plant species originally on this land are gone
and what we replace those with may be plants that aren’t as effective and retaining the soil
and its nutrients.Thus the soil degrades overtime.If were in areas with heavy
rainfall,replacing forests with crop land often resuts in an increase in flooding.
Another problem has to do with the amount of water some crops required.Agriculture is the
industry with largest water consumption.It takes a tremendous amount of fresh water to grow
crops and feed for other animals that consume.Sometimes we use too much water and
sometimes we try to grow pants in environment that are not suited for them.Using more water
than we would if we had grown them in an environment more like what we had them in an
environment more like what crop would typically be found in.
Deforestation in the United States of alone,over 260million acres of forest have been cleared
to make rooms for crop fields,most of which used to exclusively grow livestocks feed.Brazil
also clearing land to grow chicken feed is responsible for the destruction of about 3million
acres of rainforest.Clearing land to grow soyabeans in the Amazon rainforest is responsible
for clearing over 100million hacters of forest,releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to
increase the rate of global warming by 50percent.
Industrial agriculture is the most unsustainable practise of the most morden
civilisation.Factory farming is responsible for the abuse of land,natural resourses all for the
express purpose of providing cheap,unhealthy food to the large amount of people.Industrial
agriculture only really crept lts way into normative American culture in the 1970s.But in just
four decades,it has spread like a disease across the globe.Our current global food system is
responsible for one third of global greenhouse emission and it completely depends on fossil
fuel for transportation and synthetic fertilisers and pesticides
The other issue is for water pollution in the industrial agriculture sucks up 70percent of the
world’s fresh water supplies.The EPA estimates 75percent of all water quality problems in
America’s river streams.Water polluted with agricuitural runoff can destroy whole ecosystem
and be toxic,if not lethal to human and animals alike.
Fossil fuel and carbon emissions industrial farms begin feeding livestocks petropellets animal
animal food is really concentrated pills of fossil fuel.While this outrageous practise does not
happen in real life,it does highlight how heavily factory farms rely on fossil fuel to raise
animals and grow crops.Fertilisers and pesticides are derived from petroleum crops grown
with use these chemicals are turned into animal feed.
Monoculture in industrial farming poses an incredible threat to future food security across the
globe.To support the livestocks industry,a small group commodity crops have taken up the
majority of the world’s agricultural land.In the United States,corn,wheat,rice and soyabeans
are planted at unprecedented rate,yet only a small percentage of these crops feed people
planting millions of acres of genetically similliar plants has become a global phenomenon
due to the high yield that these plants can produce under certain conditions.This practise also
requires high levels of synthetic pesticides to stave off insects that are attracted to certain
crops.Then crop fields could be populated with a diverse mixture of plant species that can
naturally fix nitrogen into soil and control insects.
The air pollution is over 37percent of methane emissions result from factory
farming.Methane has a global warming potential 20 times higher than carbon dioxide
emissions any less staggering…the fossil fuels used in energy,transportation,and synthetic
pesticides/fertilisers emits 90million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every
year.Factory farming also releases harmful compounds like hydrogen sulphide and ammonia
that can cause immediate negative health effects in humans.
These ‘’factory farm lagoons’’have been known to leak into adjacent
waterways.Nitrates,dangerous microbes,and drug-resistant bacteria run run rampant in these
lagoons.When these by-products get into local blooms which lead to ‘’dead zones’’and
massive fish kills.Bacteria outbreaks from agricultural water pollution is responsible for
several disease outbreaks across the United states.High levels of nitrates in drinking water
can cause spontaneous absortion.
However to stop eating meat,the livestocks industry is a major driver behind 5examples.Only
to purchase local and organic produce to support small-scale that grow crops without
ridiculous amount of petroleum fertisers and pesticides.Grow your own vegetables and
fruits.It is more than clear than industrial agriculture needs to stop.
 REFERENCES
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 Jerrett Michael Buzelli.RichardsT.Burnett,and
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 Hayami.Yujiro and Vernon W.Ruttan.1970’’Agricultural productivity
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 Holdren John P.1991 population and the energy.Population and the
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