IGCSE Global Perspectives (0457)- November Series 2021

Individual Report
[Component 2]

Centre Name : Beacon Academy

Centre Number : ID052

Candidate Name : Junha Lee

Candidate Number : 0253

Topic : Agriculture and ecosystem loss

Research Question : Can the gains from intensive farming

towards reducing world hunger be a good enough reason
to overlook the damages caused by it to our environment
and ecosystem?

Word count: 2000

Introduction

Intensive farming refers to the strengthening of agriculture and mechanizing the system

which includes the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. More economically

developed countries (MEDC) such as "USA and Canada" (Britannica) practice intensive

farming yet although a lower economically developed country (LEDC) India is as well

famous for their practice. Intensive farming affects several global and environmental

issues such as but not limited to: "Deforestation, water pollution, impact on natural

habitats and soil degradation." (Eos) and so we must prioritize this topic to be both

addressed and solved. However, the world could not stop increasing the rate of farming

as 690 million people suffer from hunger. (ActionAgainstHunger, 2015). My aim of this

essay is to research and analyze if the advantages of intensive farming are good enough

to reduce world hunger which outweigh the negative impacts on our ecosystem and

environment.

Analysis

The range of agriculture is growing more and more overtime. By the research of

(Umweltbundesamt, 2019), almost 47% of the land which is 16.7 million hectares of

Germany's surface area is used in farming. Also in 2016, 60% of Germany’s farmland

was used to grow fodder for growing the livestocks intensively , and the other 20% was

used as food crops. The additional 20 % was being used for biogas crops and biofuel

crops. This kind of intensive farming could increase the damage of the farmland. Also,
some pesticides and fertilizers include many metals, pollutants could damage the

ecosystem and the livestock residues give additional damages to the ecosystem. In 2016,

the farm sector is the second largest pollutant source of germany that accounts for 7.3%

of greenhouse gas emissions, after the energy sector which is (83.5%).

For more information about Intensive farming, there are problems caused by Intensive

farming. According to a study, The most affected species from intensive farming are

Insects. The global population of insects has decreased by more than 50 % since 1970

due to the use of chemical pesticides in the farmland. In addition, the intensive use of

pesticides is one of the major drivers of the extinction of insects. If people still uses

chemical pesticides in farming, 40% of the remaining insect species are expected to

become extinct in the near future (Anna Feshchenko, 2019).

Perspectives

Global:

The report of FAO in 2019 about the connection between agriculture and water

pollution states that the major cause of this water pollution is agriculture ‘ In the

European Union, 38 percent of water bodies are significantly under pressure from

agricultural pollution’ continued by agriculture is also one of the major factors that

pollutes the water in America and in China by different ways. Also the use of nitrate in

agriculture activities is the most common chemical contaminant that pollutes the

world’s groundwater. This kind of intensive farming has occurred because of the food

demand of the population's growth. ‘Agricultural pressures on water quality come from

cropping, livestock systems and aquaculture, which have all expanded and intensified to

meet increasing food demand related to population growth and changes in dietary

patterns.’ Coming more into starvation, the United Nations posted that the rate of

hunger is increasing in many countries that have less developed economies which are

mainly countries that rely highly on international trades. The UN also says that 1.3

billion people lack regular access to nutritious food. Also the value of the moderate level

and the severe levels of food insecurity is 2 billion people.

Going on further, this quoted paragraph “The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization,

as “the world’s leading body charged with care of our future food supply”, points at
organic farming as the most obvious alternative to industrialized intensive farming,

Even though, “organic farming often produces less, and more expensive food”. Mr. Rob

Percival, head of Policy at the Soil Association, declares that: “organic farming can feed

the world”, as the yield of organic agriculture is greater than previously calculated, and

that “when the environmental and other damage caused by high energy and chemical

inputs in non-organic farming are factored in, organic food is cheaper for society and

better for the planet”.” (FAO report, 2019) suggests that intensive farming is not the

only option to be made to support and solve the problem of hunger.

But then the information provided by the BBC News gave another answer, that intensive

farming is the 'least bad option' for food and environment.’ “The researchers measured

the environmental costs - including what they term "externalities", such as greenhouse

gas emissions, fertiliser and water use - of producing a given amount of food on both

high-yield and low-yield farms.”, “the report team worked with scientists in 17

organisations and they analysed information from hundreds of investigations into four

large food areas - Asian paddy rice, European wheat, Latin American beef and European

dairy. While the data available is limited, the researchers concluded that many

high-yield systems are less damaging to the environment and use less land.” Also in

Dairy productions “On some measures conventional dairy farming was found to be less

damaging to the environment than organic. When it comes to organic dairy farming in

Europe, the researchers found that for the production of the same volume of milk,

organic systems took up twice as much land and caused at least one-third more soil loss

than conventional dairy farming.” (BBC ,2018) this is suggesting that intensive farming
has advantages and could be better than organic farming which is the opposite response

of the other perspectives.

National:

“Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with a total population of

246 million in 2012 (The World Bank, 2014). Its population growth rate is similar to

that of the global average.2 Agriculture has played an important role in the economic

development of Indonesia. It currently accounts for 14 percent of GDP, provides

employment for 37 percent of the labour force, and approximately 40 million hectares

are under cultivation (Pusdatin Pertanian, 2013; BPS, 2014). Globally, Indonesia is the

leading producer of palm oil, the second largest producer of natural rubber and cacao,

and among the five largest producers of coffee. Major destinations for exported

commodities include Japan (coffee), Malaysia (cacao), the United States (rubber) and

India (oil palm) (FAO, 2011, 2013).” (World Agroforestry Centre, 2015). Also the

exported agricultural products from Indonesia is palm oil, which has earned USD

$17,364,812,000 , 2o2o. Continued by natural rubber, earning $3,011,840,00. (World's

Top Exports).

“Going on the same report, this report suggests the environmental consequences “

Indonesia is among the five ‘leading’ countries for the percentage of primary forest lost

over the past decade. The expansion of the agricultural frontier is one of the

contributing factors (Wich et al., 2011). Of the 50 countries with the highest rates of

deforestation in the world, 37 were coffee producing countries (Clay, 2004). This is
more than coincidental, pointing toward past decades of agricultural conversion.

However, in the past decade in Indonesia, it has been large-scale oil palm plantations,

and not smallholder coffee farming, which has caused, by far, the largest conversion.”

For an evidence “During campaigns, several environmental NGOs have highlighted the

fact that conversion of forests to oil palm plantations has destroyed critical habitats for

many endangered species, including elephants, orangutans, and tigers, based on the

assumption that the bulk of the deforestation has occurred due to the expansion of

plantations (WWF Indonesia, 2007; Greenpeace, 2009; Wich et al., 2011).” (World

Agroforestry Centre, 2015)

Local and Personal:

I had conducted an online survey through the middle and high school students in our

school, about Intensive farming. Though there are limited respondents, it is still

significant as the respondents are educated. From the result of my survey, 62.5% of the

respondents answered that intensive farming is dangerous, and the other 37.5% of the

respondents answered it could be dangerous but there was no response as ‘No’. This

data represents that the majority of the people agree that intensive farming is dangerous

if they have knowledge in it. The other data provided from this survey, except one

person, all of the respondents have chosen to stop intensive farming if it damages the

ecosystem, but the respondent who has chosen not to stop intensive farming gave a very

interesting response. The response was stating examples from India and theoretical

information was provided to support that abolishing intensive farming is a bad idea (full

response is in the APPENDIX1).

Courses of Action

There are many problems coming out from intensive farming and some kinds of

unsustainable farming affects the ecosystem in mostly bad ways. We need to find a

solution to this problem and one of the solutions could be the GAP (Good Agricultural

Practices). GAP is a voluntary audit that verifies that fruits and vegetables are produced,

packed, handled, and stored in a way that reduces the possibility of microbiological food

safety problems.(USDA). This is very effective because this practice makes farmers use

less fertilizers and pesticides, also it takes care of different kinds of pollution and makes

the farm efficient. (FAO, 2016) and connected to that there is also a programme called

farmer field school (FFS) that encourages not using pesticides (FAO) . For example, In

Laos there is a man named Sounan Heuangpaseuth that farms. He was relying on

pesticides, but after studying in FFS he learned many things such as making organic

composts from animal waste, also he used the minimum level of pesticides that fits into

the GAP to produce his products to Europe (FAO). This shows that this programme can

educate people about the danger of Intensive farming using pesticides and show another

way. The GAP can also control the export of products using pesticides that could reduce

the amount of pesticides used.

Source Analysis

The information provided in the report made by the FAO “Water pollution from

agriculture: a global review” is highly reliable suggesting detailed statistics and a wide

range of data. This information was sourced by reliable sources which are made by

different kinds of organizations such as UNEP ,WWAP, WHO, US EPA and more that

shows relevant information. Also the organization which made this report is reliable as
it is a global organization affiliated to the UN (FAO). The writer of this report only

includes facts and different kinds of perspectives without his opinion, he writes about

the examples of countries with the data and reactions about the pollution made by

agriculture with supported sources. This helped me to find a wide range of data and

specific statistics which made it easier to understand this problem.

Also the report from the World Agroforestry Centre, which is very accurate and reliable

as it is published by one of the international organizations. The article gave me a lot of

information about how Indonesia, as it is targeting it, is dealing with the consequences

and information about Indonesia’s agriculture, which is also connected with the

environment.

For my data about starvation, I used the website called “action against hunger’. This

website shows facts and information about starvation, how much people are starving?

What is the main reason for starvation? and more about starvation, also it is a donation

site for the starving people. For the evidence as this source is reliable, this website was

prized by many kinds of organizations such as Charity Navigator, CharityWatch and

more.

Conclusion

Through all the deep research in different perspectives, I have learned much

information about how intensive farming is affecting the ecosystem in a negative way, as

it destroys the forest, produces many pollutants that endanger the environment and kills
many insects that could lead to loss of biodiversity which is connected to the ecosystem.

However intensive farming could be the choice to support a sustainable society and key

to solving world hunger. For Conclusion, intensive farming affects the ecosystem and

the environment negatively, but also intensive farming gives positive effects to the

extinction of world hunger and undoubtedly supports human society. So in different

perspectives we could see intensive farming in a different way.

Bibliography

Anna Feshchenko, Impact of intensive farming on biodiversity.

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(2019). Retrieved 28 March 2021 , from
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https://www.everythingconnects.org/intensive-farming.html.

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PRACTICES (GAP) FOR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
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APPENDIX 1

Full Respond by the respondent about Intensive farming

“As much as I’d like to be an advocate against intensive farming, I would have to live in
an utopian society to believe it can be completely abolished. Here’s the reason why:
some countries such as India rely on intensive farming practices to sustain their
economy. If this falters, exports would reduce, farmers would be made redundant, jobs
would be lost, unemployment rates would be high and the economy would suffer. Also,
by 2050, the global population is expected to rise to 8.5 billion (theoretically) and the
only reason our high demands for food sources can be met is because of intensive
farming methods. Do I agree with intensive farming? No. But do I think we should
abolish its practices? No.”