Agricultural revolution
The Agricultural Revolution refers to a significant transformation in farming practices that began in ancient times and has evolved through various historical phases. Early agricultural societies flourished in regions near large rivers, benefiting from fertile soils replenished by annual floods. As agriculture expanded into less fertile areas, techniques such as slash-and-burn farming emerged, which involve clearing land by burning vegetation and fertilizing crops with ash. This method, while effective, has contributed to environmental challenges, including deforestation and soil degradation.
The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century brought mechanization to agriculture, enhancing productivity but also leading to monoculture, where a single crop is cultivated over vast areas. This practice has reduced genetic diversity and increased reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which can have negative environmental and health impacts. The Green Revolution of the 20th century introduced high-yield crop varieties, significantly increasing food production but also creating issues like soil salinization and water depletion.
Today, agriculture is the largest consumer of global freshwater, raising concerns about the availability of potable water. Although modern farming has greatly boosted food supply, it faces ongoing challenges related to sustainability, environmental health, and the balance between productivity and ecological preservation. This complex interplay of advancements and consequences continues to shape agricultural practices worldwide.
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Agricultural revolution
- DEFINITION: Advances in agricultural technology during the twentieth century
The agricultural revolution led to a dramatic increase in the worldwide production of food and fiber crops, but this increase did not occur without negative environmental consequences.
Early agricultural centers were located near large rivers that helped maintain soil fertility through the deposition of new topsoil during each annual flooding cycle. Agriculture, however, eventually moved into other regions that lacked the annual flooding of large rivers, and humans began to utilize a technique known as slash-and-burn agriculture, in which they cleared the land by burning the existing vegetation and then used the ashes to fertilize their crops. This type of agriculture is still practiced in many developing nations and is one reason the tropical rain forests are disappearing at such a fast rate. During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution led the way for the development of many different types of agricultural machinery, which resulted in the mechanization of most farms and ranches in industrialized nations.
The Green Revolution—as advances in agricultural science during the twentieth century came to be known—resulted in the development of new, higher-yielding varieties of numerous crops, particularly the seed grains that supply most of the calories necessary for maintenance of the world’s growing population. While higher-yielding crops, along with improved farming methods, resulted in tremendous increases in the world’s food supply, they also led to an increased reliance on monoculture, the practice of growing only one crop over a vast area of land. This practice decreased the genetic variability of many agricultural plants, increased the need for commercial fertilizers, and produced an increased susceptibility to damage from a host of biotic and abiotic factors.
The agricultural revolution has resulted in the development of an agricultural unit that requires relatively few employees, is highly mechanized, devotes large amounts of land to the production of a single crop, and is highly reliant on agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides. While this has led to tremendous increases in agricultural productivity, it has also had a significant impact on the environment. During the past one hundred years, the world has undergone a continual loss of good topsoil. Even under ideal conditions, the process of soil formation is very slow. Many agricultural techniques lead to the removal of trees and shrubs that provide windbreaks or to the depletion of soil fertility, which reduces the plant cover on the fields. The result of these practices has been the of the soil to increased from wind and moving water, to the extent that as much as one-third of the world’s croplands are losing topsoil more quickly than it can be replaced.
Agriculture represents the largest single user of global water. Approximately 73 percent of all water withdrawn from freshwater supplies is used to irrigate crops. Some practices are actually detrimental. Overwatering can waterlog the soil, and irrigation of crops in dry climates can result in salinization of the soil, which occurs when irrigation water rapidly evaporates from the soil, leaving behind the salts that were dissolved in the water. The salts accumulate and become detrimental to plant growth. It has been estimated that as much as one-third of the world’s agricultural soils have been damaged by salinization. In addition, debate exists as to whether the increased usage of water for agriculture has decreased the supply of fit for other human uses.
The nutrients most often depleted from agricultural soils are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and these nutrients must be applied to the soil regularly in order to maintain fertility. During the second half of the twentieth century, the amount of fertilizer applied to the soil increased more than 450 percent, causing environmental problems in some areas. Fertilizer elements, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, are carried away by water and are eventually deposited in rivers and lakes, where they contribute to the of aquatic ecosystems. In addition, nitrates can accumulate in underground water supplies.
Agriculture is highly dependent on the use of pesticides to kill organisms such as insects, nematodes, weeds, and fungi that directly or indirectly interfere with crop production. The use of pesticides has dramatically improved crop yields, primarily because pesticides are designed to kill pests before significant damage can occur to the crop. Pesticides often kill non-pests as well, however, and evidence suggests that indiscriminate use of these chemicals can have detrimental effects on wildlife, the structure and function of ecosystems, and even human health. In addition, the overuse of pesticides can lead to the development of in the target species, which can result in a resurgence of the very the was designed to control.
Modern agriculture also consumes large amounts of energy. The operation of farm machinery requires large supplies of liquid fossil fuels, and the production of fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals is another energy cost associated with agriculture. Energy used in food processing, distribution, storage, and cooking after a crop leaves the farm may be five times as much as the energy used to produce the crop. Most of the foods consumed in the United States require more calories of energy to produce, process, and distribute to the market than they provide when they are eaten.
Bibliography
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