Sustainable Agriculture

ENV 107: Environmental Science

Spring 2019

Faculty: HMd

Class Note 9

Dr. Mahmud
Agriculture
• Agriculture refers to the production of goods (food, fiber,
etc.) through the growing of plants, animals and other life
forms. It is the art and science of farming.
• People obtain food from cultivated plants and
domesticated animals.
• Historically, humans have depended on three systems for
their food supply:
– (1) croplands (mostly for producing grains, which provide about 76%
of the world's food),
– (2) rangelands (for producing meat mostly from grazing livestock,
which supply about 17% of the world's food), and
– (3) oceanic fisheries (which supply about 7% of the world's food).

Dr. Mahmud
Characteristics of Bangladesh Agriculture

 Cropping intensity 179%

 Irrigated land 56%
 Surface water:21% groundwater:79%
 Land-man ratio: .06 ha
 Mainly subsistence farming
 Inadequate agro-processing
 Non-mechanized farming
 Fragmented land/plots
 Dependence largely on nature

Dr. Mahmud
Some Challenges
 Rapid shrinkage of agricultural land @1% per year
 Population growth @1.48% per year
 Climate change and variations
 Rapid urbanization growth @12% per year
 Agricultural research and education (manpower shortage,
updating course curriculum)
 Technology generation (needs expertise, time and money)
 Technology dissemination (needs expertise, time, logistics
support)
 Alternate livelihoods/rehabilitation program
 Inadequate value addition/food processing

Dr. Mahmud
Challenges continued…
 Climate change adaptation & mitigation

 Developing stress tolerant varieties

 Transferring updated information and technologies to

the field
 Attaining irrigation efficiency

 Regaining soil fertility and natural ingredients

 Research-extension-farmer-market linkage

 Shortage of Agricultural labor at peak seasons

Dr. Mahmud
Agriculture and the Environment
• Agriculture is the world’s oldest and largest
industry where more than one-half of all the
people in the world still live on farms.
• It has both primary and secondary
environmental effects.
• A primary effect is an effect on the area where
the agriculture takes place. It is also known as
an on-site effect.
• A secondary effect is an effect on an
environment away from the agricultural site,
typically downstream and downwind. It is often
known as off-site effect.
Dr. Mahmud
 The Effects of Agriculture
• The effects of agriculture on the environment
can be divided into three groups:
– Local effects are those that occur at or near the site
of farming. These effects include erosion, loss of
soils, and increases in sedimentation downstream in
local rivers.
– Regional effects are those that generally result from
the combined effects of farming practices in the same
large region. These effects include the creation of
deserts, large scale pollution, increases in
sedimentation in major rivers, and changes in the
chemical fertility of soils over large areas.
– Global effects include climatic changes as well as
potentially extensive changes in chemical cycles.
Dr. Mahmud
 Major Environmental Problems
• Major environmental problems result from agricultures
include
– Deforestation,
– Desertification,
– Soil erosion,
– Overgrazing,
– Degradation of water resources,
– Accumulation of toxic metals,
– Accumulation of toxic organic compounds, and
– Water pollution, including eutrophication
• Estimates indicate 25-75 billion metric tons of soil loss
per year globally due to deforestation, livestock
overgrazing, and agricultural activities
Dr. Mahmud
 Soil
• Soil is comprised of weathered,
disintegrated, decomposed rocks and
minerals plus the decayed remains of
plants and animals
• Without soil, we could not grow food
• Soil supplies nutrients and holds water in
place
• Healthy soil is a complex ecosystem unto
itself.
Dr. Mahmud
 Soil Fertility and Erosion
• Soil fertility is the capacity of a soil to
supply nutrients necessary for plant
growth.
• Farming easily damages soils. When land
is cleared of its natural vegetation, such as
forests or grasslands, the soil begins to
lose its fertility. Some of this occurs by
physical erosion.

Dr. Mahmud
 Soil Horizons
A typical soil is
composed of five horizons.

O horizon: Mostly organics

A horizon: Both mineral and
organic materials. Help
leaching.
B horizon: Rich in minerals due
to leached from overlying
horizons.
C horizon: It is composed of
partially altered (weathered)
parent material; rock
D horizon: Parent material;
rock

Dr. Mahmud
 Ploughing the Soil
• Plants and soil organisms have not evolved or adapted
to the effects of plowing.
• Typically, the same land is ploughed and planted year
after year for high production of crops.
• Plowing opens the land to erosion due to removal of the
original vegetation.
• Soil loosened by ploughing can blow away when dry and
wash away with rain water.
• Ploughed lands tend to lose the upper soil layers, where
most fertile organic matter is found which lead the soil to
be more vulnerable to further erosion.
– For each inch of topsoil lost, average corn and wheat yields
drop about 6%.

Dr. Mahmud
What is Sustainable Agriculture?
“Sustainable agriculture means an integrated system of
plant and animal production practices having a site-specific
application that over the long term will:
Satisfy human food and fiber needs.
Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource
base upon which the agricultural economy depends.
Make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources
and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate,
natural biological cycles and controls.
Sustain the economic viability of farm operations.
Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a
whole.”
 Sustainable Agriculture (Cont.)
• Sustainable techniques include:
• No-till cultivation (also called zero tillage or direct planting or pasture
cropping) is a way of growing crops from year to year without
disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till is an agricultural technique
which increases the amount of water and organic matter (nutrients)
in the soil and decreases erosion.
• Drip irrigation (see figure )
• Measured watering (see figure)
• Integrated pest management (IPM)
• Organic farming

Dr. Mahmud
 Sustainable Agriculture

Measured watering
Drip Irrigation System Layout and its technique
parts
Dr. Mahmud
 Pest Control and Agricultural
Chemicals
All agriculture suffers from pests. From an ecological point of
view, pests are undesirable competitors, parasites or
predators. The major agricultural pests are:
• insects (feeding mainly on the live parts of plants, especially
leaves and stems);
• nematodes (small worms that live mainly in the soil and feed on
roots and other plant tissues);
• bacterial and viral pathogens;
• weeds (flowering plants that compete with the crops); and
• vertebrates (mainly rodents and birds that feed on grain or
fruit).

Dr. Mahmud
 Development of Pesticides
• In the past there was no pesticide
• Chemical pesticide become important
• Should be narrow spectrum for only one pest, and not all
• Initial pesticides (e.g, arsenic) were broad spectrum
• In second stage (began in 1930s) involved petroleum-based
sprays and natural plants chemicals (e.g. nicotine).
• In third stage developed artificial organic compounds like
Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) and other chlorinated
organic hydrocarbons including aldrin and dieldrin.
• In fourth stage involve the biological control, the use of
biological predators and parasites to control pests. Bacillus
thuringiensis, or BT, a disease that affects caterpillars and the
larvae of other insect pests.

Dr. Mahmud
 Integrated Pest Management
• Integrated pest management uses a combination of
methods, including biological control, certain chemical
pesticides and some methods of planting crops.
• Integrated pest management recognises ecological
communities and ecosystems.
• Four principles of integrated pest management are:
1. The goal is control, not extinction. Pests are allowed to
continue to exist at a low, tolerable level; the method is
considered a success if pests are kept at these levels.
2. The use of natural control agents (parasites, diseases and
predators) is maximized.
3. The ecosystem is the management unit.
4. Any control action can have unexpected and unwanted
effects.

Dr. Mahmud
 Biological Control Techniques
• Biological control is a set of methods to control
pest organisms by using natural ecological
interactions including:
– predation,
– parasitism and
– competition.
• It includes the intentional introduction of
predators, diseases or other parasites of a pest.
• There are many specialized and effective
biological controls. One of the most effective is a
bacterial pathogen, BT.

Dr. Mahmud
 Biological Control Techniques
(Cont.)
Another technique to control insects involves the use of sex
pheromones. In most species of adult insects, one sex
(usually the female) releases a chemical called a sex
pheromone, which acts as an attractant to members of
the opposite sex. In some species it has been shown to
be effective up to 4.3 km away. The chemicals have
been identified and synthesized and used in insect
control as bait in traps or simply to confuse the matting
patterns of the insects involved.

Dr. Mahmud