Intensive farming
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Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to
Most
Some intensive farms can use sustainable methods, although this typically necessitates higher inputs of labor or lower yields.[2] Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, especially on smallholdings, is an important way of decreasing the amount of land needed for farming and slowing and reversing environmental degradation through processes like deforestation.[3]
Intensive animal farming involves large numbers of animals raised on limited land, for example by rotational grazing,[4][5] or sometimes as concentrated animal feeding operations. These methods increase the yields of food and fiber per acre as compared to extensive animal husbandry; concentrated feed is brought to seldom-moved animals, or with rotational grazing the animals are repeatedly moved to fresh forage.[4][5]
History
Industrial agriculture arose in the Industrial Revolution. By the early 19th century, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks, and cultivars had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages.[7][page needed]
The first phase involved a continuing process of mechanization. Horse-drawn machinery such as the
The identification of
The discovery of vitamins and their role in nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed some livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse natural elements.[14]
Following World War II synthetic fertilizer use increased rapidly.[15]
The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock by reducing diseases.[16][17] Developments in logistics and refrigeration as well as processing technology made long-distance distribution feasible. Integrated pest management is the modern method to minimize pesticide use to more sustainable levels.[18][19]
There are concerns over the sustainability of industrial agriculture, and the environmental effects of fertilizers and pesticides, which has given rise to the organic movement[20] and has built a market for sustainable intensive farming, as well as funding for the development of appropriate technology.
Techniques and technologies
Livestock
Pasture intensification
Pasture intensification is the improvement of pasture soils and grasses to increase the food production potential of livestock systems. It is commonly used to reverse pasture degradation, a process characterized by loss of forage and decreased animal carrying capacity which results from overgrazing, poor nutrient management, and lack of soil conservation.[21] This degradation leads to poor pasture soils with decreased fertility and water availability and increased rates of erosion, compaction, and acidification.[22] Degraded pastures have significantly lower productivity and higher carbon footprints compared to intensified pastures.[23][24][25][26][27]
Management practices which improve soil health and consequently grass productivity include irrigation, soil scarification, and the application of lime, fertilizers, and pesticides. Depending on the productivity goals of the target agricultural system, more involved restoration projects can be undertaken to replace invasive and under-productive grasses with grass species that are better suited to the soil and climate conditions of the region.[21] These intensified grass systems allow higher stocking rates with faster animal weight gain and reduced time to slaughter, resulting in more productive, carbon-efficient livestock systems.[25][26][27]
Another technique to optimize
In the Twelve Aprils grazing program for dairy production, developed by the
Rotational grazing
Rotational grazing is a variety of foraging in which herds or flocks are regularly and systematically moved to fresh, rested grazing areas (sometimes called
Concentrated animal feeding operations
Intensive livestock farming or "factory farming", is the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density.
Food and water is delivered to the animals, and therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements, and growth hormones are often employed. Growth hormones are not used on chickens nor on any animal in the European Union. Undesirable behaviors often related to the stress of confinement led to a search for docile breeds (e.g., with natural dominant behaviors bred out), physical restraints to stop interaction, such as individual cages for chickens, or physical modification such as the debeaking of chickens to reduce the harm of fighting.[40][41]
The CAFO designation resulted from the 1972 U.S.
In 17 states in the U.S., isolated cases of
The large concentration of animals, animal waste, and dead animals in a small space poses ethical issues to some consumers. Animal rights and animal welfare activists have charged that intensive animal rearing is cruel to animals.
Crops
The Green Revolution transformed farming in many developing countries. It spread technologies that had already existed, but had not been widely used outside of industrialized nations. These technologies included "miracle seeds", pesticides, irrigation, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.[45]
Seeds
In the 1970s, scientists created high-yielding varieties of maize,
With the availability of molecular genetics in
High-yielding varieties outperformed traditional varieties several fold and responded better to the addition of irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Crop rotation
Crop rotation or crop sequencing is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of
Irrigation
Crop irrigation accounts for 70% of the world's fresh water use.[47] Flood irrigation, the oldest and most common type, is typically unevenly distributed, as parts of a field may receive excess water in order to deliver sufficient quantities to other parts. Overhead irrigation, using center-pivot or lateral-moving sprinklers, gives a much more equal and controlled distribution pattern. Drip irrigation is the most expensive and least-used type, but delivers water to plant roots with minimal losses.[48]
Weed control
In agriculture, systematic weed management is usually required, often performed by machines such as cultivators or liquid herbicide sprayers.
- Cover crops (especially those with allelopathicproperties) that out-compete weeds or inhibit their regeneration
- Multiple herbicides, in combination or in rotation
- Strains genetically engineered for herbicide tolerance
- Locally adapted strains that tolerate or out-compete weeds
- Tilling
- Ground cover such as mulchor plastic
- Manual removal
- Mowing
- Grazing
- Burning
Terracing
In
Rice paddies
A paddy field is a flooded parcel of
A recent development in the intensive production of rice is the
Aquaculture
Aquaculture is the cultivation of the natural products of water (fish, shellfish, algae, seaweed, and other aquatic organisms). Intensive aquaculture takes place on land using tanks, ponds, or other controlled systems, or in the ocean, using cages.[54]
Sustainability
Intensive farming practices which are thought to be
Pasture cropping involves planting grain crops directly into grassland without first applying herbicides. The perennial grasses form a living mulch understory to the grain crop, eliminating the need to plant cover crops after harvest. The pasture is intensively grazed both before and after grain production. This intensive system yields equivalent farmer profits (partly from increased livestock forage) while building new topsoil and sequestering up to 33 tons of CO2/ha/year.[55][56]
Agroforestry combines agriculture and orchard/forestry technologies to create more integrated, diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.
Intercropping can increase yields or reduce inputs and thus represents (potentially sustainable) agricultural intensification. However, while total yield per acre is often increased, yields of any single crop often diminish. There are also challenges to farmers relying on farming equipment optimized for monoculture, often resulting in increased labor inputs.
An integrated farming system is a progressive, sustainable agriculture system such as zero waste agriculture or integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, which involves the interactions of multiple species. Elements of this integration can include:
- Intentionally introducing flowering plants into agricultural ecosystems to increase pollen-and nectar-resources required by natural enemies of insect pests[57]
- Using crop rotation and cover crops to suppress nematodes in potatoes[58]
- Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture is a practice in which the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (fertilizers, food) for another.
Challenges
Environmental impact
Industrial agriculture uses huge amounts of
Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture may emerge at some distance from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, causing so-called oceanic dead zones.[64]
Many wild plant and animal species have become extinct on a regional or national scale, and the functioning of agro-ecosystems has been profoundly altered. Agricultural intensification includes a variety of factors, including the loss of landscape elements, increased farm and field sizes, and increase usage of insecticides and herbicides. The large scale of insecticides and herbicides lead to the rapid developing resistance among pests renders herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective.
Intensive farming creates conditions for parasite growth and transmission that are vastly different from what parasites encounter in natural host populations, potentially altering selection on a variety of traits such as life-history traits and virulence. Some recent epidemic outbreaks have highlighted the association with intensive agricultural farming practices. For example the
Intensive
Social impact
A study for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment concluded that regarding industrial agriculture, there is a "negative relationship between the trend toward increasing farm size and the social conditions in rural communities" on a "statistical level".[70] Agricultural monoculture can entail social and economic risks.[71]
See also
- Convertible husbandry
- Dryland farming
- Environmental issues with agriculture
- Green Revolution
- Industrial crop
- Pekarangan
- Small-scale agriculture
- Intensive animal farming
References
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- ^ a b c d Undersander, Dan; Albert, Beth; Cosgrove, Dennis; Johnson, Dennis; Peterson, Paul (2002). Pastures for profit: A guide to rotational grazing (PDF) (Report). Cooperative Extension Publishing, University of Wisconsin. p. 4. A3529. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 August 2019. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
rotational grazing involves a higher level of management with greater paddock numbers, shorter grazing periods, and longer rest periods.
- ^ a b c "Getting Started with Intensive Grazing". Manitoba Agriculture. Manitoba Government. Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
There are many reasons why producers move to intensive grazing systems. These include...
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- Humphrys, John. Why the organic revolution had to happen Archived 2008-01-18 at the Wayback Machine, The Observer, April 21, 2001: "Nor is a return to 'primitive' farming practices the only alternative to factory farming and highly intensive agriculture."
- Baker, Stanley. "Factory farms – the only answer to our growing appetite? Archived 2011-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, December 29, 1964: "Factory farming, whether we like it or not, has come to stay ... In a year which has been as uneventful on the husbandry side as it has been significant in economic and political developments touching the future of food procurement, the more far-seeing would name the growth of intensive farming as the major development." (Note: Stanley Baker was the Guardian's agriculture correspondent.)
- "Head to head: Intensive farming" Archived 2009-02-22 at the Green Party. She intends to end factory farming in her country. This must be the way forward and we should end industrial agriculture in this country as well."
- ^ Sources discussing "industrial farming", "industrial agriculture" and "factory farming":
- "Annex 2. Permitted substances for the production of organic foods" Archived 2012-01-26 at the Wayback Machine, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: "'Factory' farming refers to industrial management systems that are heavily reliant on veterinary and feed inputs not permitted in organic agriculture.
- "Head to head: Intensive farming" Archived 2009-02-22 at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, March 6, 2001: "Here, Green MEP Caroline Lucas takes issue with the intensive farming methods of recent decades ... In the wake of the spread of BSE from the UK to the continent of Europe, the German Government has appointed an Agriculture Minister from the Green Party. She intends to end factory farming in her country. This must be the way forward and we should end industrial agriculture in this country as well."
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The largest hypoxic zone in the United States, and the second largest hypoxic zone worldwide, forms in the northern Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the Mississippi River. This image from a NOAA animation shows how runoff from farms (green areas) and cities (red areas) drains into the Mississippi. This runoff contains an overabundance of nutrients from fertilizers, wastewater treatment plants, and other sources.
- ^ Union of Concerned Scientists Archived 2008-05-15 at the Wayback Machine article The Costs and Benefits of Industrial Agriculture last updated March 2001. "Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture are remote from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production systems—for example, the rapidly developing resistance among pests rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective."
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- ^ For example:Berbee, J. G.; Omuemu, J. O.; Martin, R. R.; Castello, J. D. (1976). "Detection and elimination of viruses in poplars". Intensive Plantation Culture: Five Years Research. USDA Forest Service general technical report NC. Vol. 21. St. Paul, Minnesota: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station. p. 85.
In the north-central States, the intensive culture of certain species and hybrids of poplars presents the greatest opportunity to achieve maximum wood fiber production, provided that adequate provision can be made for control of the many insects and diseases that may attack them. [...] The [...] trend toward monoculture [...] increases the vulnerability of the cropping system to insects and diseases. The greatest potential for insidious disaster due to virus diseases is with monocultures of vegetatively propagated perennial crops.
- ISBN 9781597262804. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
Industrial monocultures—single crops where there was once diversity, and single varieties of each crop where there used to be thousands—are also blows against biological and genetic diversity. [...] Monocultures are weak, subject to insect blights, diseases, and bad weather.
- ^ Macrosocial Accounting Project, Dept. of Applied Behavioral Sciences, Univ. of California, Davis, CA Archived 2003-01-21 at the Wayback Machine
- ^
United States. Department of Agriculture (1973). Monoculture in Agriculture: Extent, Causes, and Problems-report of the Task Force on Spatial Heterogeneity in Agricultural Landscapes and Enterprises. Washington. p. 29. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
In addition to being relatively unstable agricultural ecosystems, monocultures are also vulnerable to disaster from social and economic disruptions.
External links
- "An expansion of the demographic transition model: the dynamic link between agricultural productivity and population". Russel Hopfenberg, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department, Duke University, USA. Journal Biodiversity, Taylor & Francis Online. 22 October 2014.