Food Production

This essay will explain about farming today, and how it affects our environment, also ways in which we can protagonist to protect our environment, our health and animal welf atomic number 18.Farming is the toil of food and other materials by raising plants and animals. Many people buy their food in supermarkets pen up to their homes, but the food is imported from many diverse countries, and many products are farmed in a number of different ways. The way food is farmed affects the environment. It also affects peoples health and the treatment of animals. Some farming methods are more harmful than others.Over 11,000 years ago, people got all their food by gathering wild plants, hunt and also from fishing. They travelled around constantly in search for food. But then people learned how to bewilder plants from seeds. They learned how to raise animals, and then began to dissolve in one place. Now they could wait for their plants and crops to grow, and begin to harvest them when t hey were ripe.Then about 250 years ago farmers in much wealthier countries started using machines. Machinery did most of the operate on for people, so people could make food for many more people and sell it to their community. Scientists then developed chemicals to produce more food, and developed new plants and different breeds of animals. Many more farmers now use more chemicals such as fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides to grow more crops. Fertilisers make the soil more fertile. Pesticides overcome insects that harm crops and herbicides kill weeds among the crops.Today in wealthy countries such as Britain and the USA people live in cities rely on fewer farmers in the countryside to grow their food. But many people are worried about how their food is produced, chemicals are sprayed onto the crops and they can stay on the food. They can also run into rivers and the urine underground. New kinds of plants and new breads of animals may upset the natural environment. Valuable so il is also being lost or damaged. There is a lot of decrease in land and one of the causes for this is farming Farming methods, including overgrazing, incorrect farming methods and the overstocking of land, remove essential nutrients from the soil.This results in the denudation of the land. As no vegetation is uncommitted to retain the soil, it is washed away. Soil erosion further lessens the amount of land available for natural plants and animals. As the number of people grows daily, more food is undeniable and more land is being utilised for farming, decreasing the amount of land used by animals and plants, especially in the case of rainforests in tropical countries. As the rainforest are destroyed to make way for more farming land. Nature, insect and vegetation. In other countries hedge rows and trees are lost also killing that which resides there.Modern farming results include1) The hybridisation of plant species2) improvements from animal breeding3) the use of fertilisers a nd insecticidesThere are two types of insecticide found1) Organic from plants and animals, e.g. muck and compost2) inorganic from non-living materials, e.g. rocks, minerals (these can disrupt ecosystems)When inorganic fertilisers are dissolved in rainwater, they run off into water sources. This is called Eutrophication. Eutrophication is the over growth of algae in water ecosystems where nutrients are usually limiting. Many fresh water systems are oligotrophic, meaning that the growth of primary producers (algae) is limited not by dissolved accelerator or light, but by nutrients such as nitrates and minerals. The organisms in these environments have evolved to be optimally suited to these conditions, and everything works fairly well.But when someone builds something following to a lake (e.g. golf course), and the fertilizer being used on the grass runs off into the lake, the algae grows too fast for the rest of the ecosystem to keep up, and overgrows the lake, killing everything in it. Thats one example, there are many other the solutions generally involve not washing lots of nutrients into lakes and streams (or the ocean, which, although generally full of nutrients, can also be locally overwhelmed with runoff, especially in coral reef environments).Farmers use pesticides and insecticides to kill organisms that damage their crops.The following methods are used1) Chemical a poison is introduced, e.g. herbicides and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane2) biological a natural predator is introduced, e.g. snakes to kill rats3) mechanical people and machines are used, e.g. rat trapsSide effects of these methods can include1) The death of animals that are not pests2) DDT entering and moving up the food chainDDT is an effective but dangerous pesticide. Below is a diagram to point how DDT is moved up the food chain.Farming produces much pollution, mainly water pollution through chemicals, and air pollution through machinery used in the farming process, the consequences of fumes being given off lead to, the green house effect which leads to global warming. Detrimental effects on human health and vegetation. This also causes acid rain. Water pollution was mentioned earlier. And how the chemicals being used travel through the lakes and rivers. This disrupts our ecosystems. So now you basically know what effects food production has on our environment, so how can we prevent this from happening? Well for a start we could all begin to eat more organic foods. Organic kitchen-gardening bars the use of synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers, and instead relies on ecological interactions to raise yields, reduce pests and build soil fertility.Diverse planting patterns, frequent rotations and haul of beneficial insects, for instance, would all be organic means of pest control. Organic meat and dairy farming is the raising of animals without hormones, antibiotics or other artificial chemicals it also includes using organic feed and allowing animals sufficient range of movement and sunlight. Genetic engineering of plants and animals is not considered organic. Organic farming is definitely a way forward. Lets anticipate in the future more people see it this way.