The current modern agriculture
practices are decreasing the amount of biodiversity in the areas surrounding
agricultural activity. Modern agriculture demands an immensely large amount of
land and resources (Woodhouse et al). It is predicted that
by 2050 we are supposed to reach 9 billion people in the world (Tassel et al).
The demand for agricultural space and production is going to increase. That being said, the way
our current agricultural system is functioning is leading to biodiversity loss
at a dramatic rate. New practices and ideas such as vertical farming and sustainable farming techniques offer potential solutions to the growing harmful effects from industrial agriculture.
Biodiversity affects us in almost
all aspects of our lives. Increased
biodiversity in an ecosystem leads to increased ecosystem services that can be
obtained from that ecosystem, and therefore yield greater benefits to
humans. With increased bio diversity you
have greater crop yield, less pest/disease problems, more beauty, more
resources, food, and medicine. There are
numerous benefits from greater biodiversity on humans (Diaz et al). The decrease in biodiversity from human
actions through things such as climate change, from fossil fuel emissions is
detrimental. In a New York Times article “The world under our feet” author Jim
Robbins addresses the importance of diversity on soil and how soil affects a lot of ecosystem services. Robbins acknowledges that bio diversity is
decreasing, with the predicted 6th great extinction occurring by
2100. Robbins elaborates that microbial diversity is a good indicator of how
overall biodiversity is since so many ecosystem services rely on rich soil
diversity.
Microorganisms account for a large
majority of species that exist on the planet. Tropical rain forests comprise
around 7% of the earths land surface, but account for around 60% of all known
plant and animal species. In Rodrigues et al microbial diversity is examined in
areas of the Amazonian rain forest that has been converted into agricultural
land, specifically focusing on land that has been
Stated above was an example of how
agriculture is a threat to biodiversity loss.
As important as it is to focus on all the bad agriculture is doing, I
think that it is also important to research and discover new ways that the
current agricultural practices can be reformed. Two very promising ideas that
have arisen in the past decade are vertical farming, and sustainable farming
techniques.
Vertical farming is an idea that
incorporates farming into the urban landscape. The vertical farm will be situated in urban
areas in tall buildings; each floor will be a different crop. This will allow urban centers to grow their
own food in their own city, with sustainable production and year-round crop
production. The buildings will be
environmentally controlled, sort of like stackable greenhouses. The main reasoning behind the vertical
farming project is the need for more agricultural land as the population
increases. The website
Theverticalfarmproject.com which was started by Dickson Despommier cites
vertical farming as the solution for the coming food shortage. Vertical farming will eliminate agricultural
run off that normally contains harmful substances that affect biodiversity by
recycling that water to be used in the farms.
Fossil fuel generation will be greatly decreased using this technique
because the crops will not have to be shipped far, tractors, plows, and other
farming tools that emit fossil fuels will not need to be used. Vertical farming will also not use
herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers that contain harmful substances to
humans and biodiversity. The major
potential problem with vertical farming seems to be the actual amount of food
production that can be made from these buildings. Will enough food be created to actually feed
an entire city? The other problem that could potentially be an issue is the
amount of energy that is required to power these large buildings. Although
vertical farming presents an innovative way to avoid harming biodiversity more,
converting current farming techniques to more sustainable techniques could also
help decrease biodiversity harm.
Sustainable agriculture according
to www.sustainabletable.org is “the production of food, fiber or other plant or
animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public
health, human communities and animal welfare”. Its essentially conscious
production, looking at how techniques that are used for agriculture are
affecting people and the environment and creating ways to still produce the
same amount of goods, but in a way that will allow future generations to farm
and live. The sustainable techniques
work with the environment, and
protecting biodiversity is one of their main goals. Multi-cropping is one
technique that sustainable farmers use, it plants multiple species on one piece
of land. Sustainable farming also does
crop rotation, changing what is planted in a particular location from season to
season and intercropping, which is the planting of two or more crops with
different characteristics in close proximity to reduce weeds and encourage
plant diversity (Horrigan et al).
Multi-cropping is supposed to enhance crop yields, biodiversity, and
decrease pest susceptibility. Another
key feature of sustainable agriculture is the little to no use of pesticides. A way to avoid pesticide problems is the use
of “beneficial insects and organisms”.
These organisms target pests that typically harm crops and include
ladybugs, as well as nematodes.
Although
agriculture is decreasing biodiversity and greatly affecting the environments
surrounding them there are ways to
combat the destruction and find ways to make sure all people are fed. Ideas
such as vertical farming present an innovative way to decrease the amount of
land that is being destroyed and the biodiversity along with it, as well as
promising ideas to only use a small amount of resources. Sustainable agriculture presents ideas that
will not necessarily decrease the amount of land that is used for agriculture
but change the way the land is used to preserve the surrounding
environments. Through innovation and
cooperation biodiversity can be saved from the current industrial agriculture
practices.
Scholarly resources:
1. Horrigan, Leo, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker. "How
sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of
industrial agriculture."Environmental Health Perspectives 110.5
(2002): 445-56. Web. 5 June 2013.
2. Rodrigues, Jorge.
"Conversion of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture results in biotic
homogenization of soil bacterial communities." PNAS. 110.3
(2012): 988-993. Web. 28 May. 2013.
3. Tassel, D. Van. "Agriculture
and Biodiversity Loss: Industrial Agriculture." Life on Earth: An
Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution, Niles Eldredge.
(2002): 99-105. Web. 28 May. 2013.
4. Woodhouse, Philip. "How sustainable agriculture can address
the environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture." Journal
of Agrarian Change 10.3 (2010): 437-53. Web. 5 June 2013.
Popular media:
2. Boy with basket: Sustainabletable.org
3. amazon rainforest/pasture www. guradian.co.uk
