Environmental Health Part 1
Damage from Intensive Farming

Environmental health is damaged by intensive farming. This is no longer an opinion. Research has been carried out that identifies intensive farming’s destructive effects on land, water, animals and humans. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) concludes that –

…The expansion and intensification of conventional farming is harmful not only to the environment, but also to the very resources essential to farming. Over the past two decades, some 15 million ha of tropical forests are lost each year to provide land for agriculture, and at a tremendous loss of genetic diversity [2].

During the same period, soil erosion and other forms of land degradation cost the world between 5-7 million ha of farming land every year; a further 1.5 million ha are lost to waterlogging and salination, and an additional 30 million ha damaged. ISIS



Chemical input

Such damage to, and loss of land, is caused by the use of chemical inputs; pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, as well as monoculture (the production of a single variety of crop on a piece of land).

The monoculture system itself forces the need for chemical input, as pests and disease thrive in a one-plant environment. This results in the depletion of the nutrients and minerals in the soil, making it less fertile. The consequence of this is, of course, the use of more chemical input. It is a vicious cycle that, in the end, destroys the soil itself.

There are several knock-on effects to this. One of these is that the Earth’s forests are pulled down in order to obtain land for farming, which eventually is destroyed like the land it had replaced. And so it goes on.

Another effect is the pollution of rivers as a result of chemical fertilizers leeching into them from intensively farmed land. Environmental health is attacked on many fronts.

Soil erosion

Compaction of the soil by excessive cultivation inhibits the absorption of rainwater, forcing it to run off the soil, carrying chemical inputs with it into rivers. This causes pollution and heightened risks of flooding.

Excessive cultivation also destroys the structure of soil –

… Annual crops, grown in conventional systems, demand that the soil is cultivated. The very act of cultivating the soil serves to destroy organic matter, kills much of the soil fauna and leaves the soil at risk of erosion from wind and rain. The soil structure is damaged and, with continued cultivation, the sub-soil becomes very compacted and is unable to drain properly or allow roots to penetrate and obtain their nutrients. When it rains soil is washed away. Plants for a future

Add to this the removal of hedgerows and other natural barriers (removed to increase the size of crop fields and make it easier to farm), then soil erosion becomes, indeed is, a major problem. Wind and rain are able to move freely, taking topsoil with them.

… The Fenlands, for example, are losing 30 mm of topsoil every year. Plants for a future

Click on Environmental Health - organic arable farming to see how the effects on environmental health outlined above are prevented and reversed.

Do you have any knowledge and/or experience of how farming (intensive or organic) affects the environment? What are your views on the issue?

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