Agriculture’s Environmental Impact Human beings have used our earth’s natural resources to further our evolution and sustain global society. Throughout history, our relationship with agriculture has influenced our ability to cultivate crops and thus influencing the success of survival, evolution and our global community. With the basic essentials, water, soil and seeds we are able to produce food, through agriculture to maintain our society. Agriculture is a relatively new human innovative rapidly spreading across the world only 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, during the agricultural revolution (Diamond 1999, Montgomery 2007, Price & Gebauer 1995, Smith 1995). We have become completely reliable on our watersoil systems to produce vegetation for human beings as well as livestock. As society has developed into an agriculturally dependent society in the last ten millennia so has the complexity of urban civilization with increasing intellectual achievements and new advances. Its evident that agriculture defines our modern society but it also has negative impacts on our natural resources, some of these factors include: deforestation, soil degradation and climate change. Our human population in growing rapidly and with this there has been an increasing food demand. To meet this nutritional requirement, terrain has been altered to be suitable for agricultural use. Every year forests are cleared on a mass scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. In fact, “ agriculture is the leading cause of some 75 percent of global deforestation. If rates of deforestation continue as projected, forests will diminish dramatically by 2100” (Strassbourg et al., 2012; Blaser and Robledo, 2007). Deforestation has severe negative impacts on the environment; the most

Agriculture’s Environmental Impact 2 significant being the loss of habitat for numerous animals and plants. Forests support diverse ecosystems however, with deforestation rising it can be seen that there is a loss in biodiversity. After the process of deforestation takes place, the land has lost all of its trees leaving the soil exposed and susceptible to the harsh climate. It is estimated that in “Brazil 55 million tons of topsoil is lost every year from erosion due to soy production” (WWF, 2006). Deforestation accelerates erosion in two ways. Firstly, the removal of trees reduces the minerals and nutrients in the soil as there is less dead organic material. Secondly, soil erosion increases, as there is no protection from the rainfall, wind and sun, meaning that the soil is looser and easier to erode. Agriculture is detrimental to the impact of the environment because soil is a nonrenewable resources meaning once the top layer of the soil containing all the nutrients is eroded it is not renewed. We need to take care of this precious resource because once it is gone we will not be able to sustain our society. I think we need to take action and follow through with our responsibilities as stewards of the earth, monitoring and control of logging companies to ensure illegal logging is not threatening our forests. The human population is not slowing down so we need to find better alternatives than destroying our diverse forests; I think we should start looking into making green roofs more common in urban areas. Green roof can help with growing vegetation, habitats for animals and absorbing rainwater. Not only will green roofs have a positive impact on the environment but it will also help us to keep ourselves grounded and aware of nature’s value so, that we do not take it for grated. Thus, it is evident that a higher demand in agriculture results in a greater rate of deforestation, which accounts for loss in biodiversity and soil erosion.

Agriculture’s Environmental Impact 3 In addition, agriculture is a major reason for the soil degradation in many areas of the world. For thousands of years, natural cycling of nutrients has occurred from soil to plants and animals to help maintain essential nutrients for plant growth in the soil. Intensive cultivation completely strip nutrients from the soil so; in order to maintain soil fertility fertilizers are incorporated into the soil. Despite the benefits of fertilizers there has been several consequences with using fertilizers such as leeching, erosion and runoff. If there is an excess of fertilizers uses (such as nitrate) or poorly time with respect to precipitation in that area it may leech into groundwater, streams and oceans, this contaminates the water. Erosion and runoff are contaminated with nitrate, which transmits pollutants into the water system and ecosystems. Pollutants that enter the ecosystem cause harm to juvenile animals, which results in mutation or death. Contamination of groundwater is a hazard because it affects our drinking water. Agriculture relies on fertilizers to maintain their practice, International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) suggest that under current conditions nitrogen fertilizer applications will total nearly 100 million tons per year by 2010-11. A major concern is the increase of nitrogen emissions due to fertilizer use for agriculture, with agriculture being the second largest industrial contributor to green house gases, it accounts for one-third of the greenhouse gases (Stern, 2006). One of the most apparent examples of the harmful effects of nitrogen fertilizer is the dead zones in the world’s oceans. Dead zones are when the oceans are too rich in nutrients from nitrogen that algae and other life forms may grow out of control, eventually depleting oxygen from that area in the ocean. This fertilizer demonstrates disruption of ecosystems and killing of many aquatic species,

Agriculture’s Environmental Impact 4 which is not needed if we produce more effective fertilizers and better managing of agriculture. We need to effectively manage the time of distribution of fertilizer, avoiding period of rainfall or high winds and not using an excess amount to reduce the damage on the environment. Therefore, the soil degradation is a serious issue to our environment that should be resolved by better managing agriculture. In addition, deforestation and soil degradation are not the only negative impacts that agriculture has on the earth, on a large scale they contribute to climate change. The entire process of agriculture accounts for tonnes of toxic emissions released into the environment. These emissions contribute to the degrading of the ozone layer, change in weather pattern and impacting the survival of species, It is estimated that “agriculture is directly responsible for 14 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions” (WWF, 2010). Agriculture has a very large carbon footprint if we consider the energy required for producing the crops, including the “manufacture and use of pesticides and fertilizers, fuel and oil for tractors, equipment, trucking and shipping, electricity for lighting, cooling, and heating, and emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other green house gases” (Dunn, 2009). Agriculture’s carbon footprint is growing as food demands increase and human population grow! We need to act sustainably and stop using such damaging processes to harvest food, switching to organic farming would reduce the carbon emissions in the atmosphere. I believe that organic farming is such a healthier and safer alternative to agriculture, one that uses techniques such as compost, green manure and biological pest control. If “organic farming could pull 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere -- each year,” (LaSalle, 2009) why not switch? It’s not

Agriculture’s Environmental Impact 5 only helping the environment but its healthier to eat since it has a minimal amount of pesticides. In conclusion, through my research on the environmental impacts that agriculture has on our world it is evident that this large industry needs to take responsibility and develop an action plan to reduce the damages it has created in nature. Through deforestation, soil degradation and global warming it has a large impact on the condition of the environment. I personally, had no idea of the large consequence that agriculture had on nature, we usually do not think that the production of the food we eat could leave such a negative imprint on the environment. Thus, I feel that not only do we need to find better alternatives to cultivating our food but we also need to educate each other so that we can make better decisions when purchasing food, to end our abuse on the environment.

References Brady NC, Weil RR. 2008. The Nature and Properties of Soil. 14th ed. Prentice Hall. Diamond J. 1999. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Dunn C. 2009. 6 Ways agriculture impacts global warming. LaSalle T. 2009. Organic farming could stop global warming. Parikh SJ, James BR. 2012. Soil: The Foundation of Agriculture. Nature Education Knowledge. 3(10):2 Stern N. 2006. Review of economics on climate change. Nat Arch. N.p., 9 December 2006. Web. 14 Nov 2013. Strassburg BN et al. 2012. Impacts of incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation on global species extinctions. Nat C-Mat. 2: 350 – 355.