Activity 3.1 – Agriculture 101

 History of Agriculture

-Pre-Modern Agriculture

In the section of origins, it explains how before agricultural times we would hunt and gather to provide nutrients. It’s unusual to think of a plant as being domesticated, but it makes sense. The first domesticated plant was rye. It goes on to mention the eight plant species considered found in crops, including Emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax. Which were cultivated in large quantities. The first tile soils in the Persian gulf, and the Nile river are called Fertile Crescent in this article another area that dead, particularly well was China with their wheat and rice crops. There are also some more familiar vegetables in South America that were developed in 3000 through 2700 BC such as potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and several varieties of beans. I find it intriguing that humans have changed so many plans for our needs. It also mentions domestication of animals around 5500 BC, which was a turning point since they used to be hunters and gathers in a nomadic sense, but with this change they became more sedentary. The article also goes into trade organization. Brought about explorers to transport and trade items. Bringing to an end, there were achievements to help improve higher scale farming. Some of those inventions were greenhouses,storage silos, and grain elevators. At the very end, the article brings up a Events that in which the Irish were dying of starvation, due to a Irish potato famine. 

-Moving Towards Modern Agriculture: The Green Revolution

World War II led to scientific advances called the green revolution. Something interesting is that World War II was a key to the green revolution started in the second paragraph. Apparently chemical warfare led to industrialization in the agricultural industry. Another eye catcher would be industrial agriculture which I believe is everybody’s idea of an industrial chicken, farm, chicken and chicken purely for human gain. Since people do have humanity, at least to some degree groups, such as the US is environmental protection agency, and Canada’s environmental Canada were created for better environmental norms, and to enforce them.

Issues of Modern Agriculture

-Water Pollution from Fertilizers

of course, there are issues with wide scale, food production. There are shortcuts that humanity has came up with such as nutrients and fertilizers that enhances the plants growth as mentioned in this section. These fertilizers can have a negative impact on the wildlife around crop growth. It goes into talk about nitrates which are incredibly sellable so when it rains or you water your field, it dissolves and his transported by the water going into larger bodies, surprisingly not poisoning anything but encouraging plants to grow around those bodies of water and deplete the oxygen within the water, killing the fish around them. Another one mentioned is phosphorus they are usually from multi nutrient for fertilizers. It is not soluble like the nitrates, but it tends to move with soil particles so when that dirt is washed away, the phosphorus goes with it also ending up in larger bodies of water, it would feed the algae Making the water less suitable for fish and other living organisms

-Pesticides and Pesticide Resistance

Pesticides And pesticide resistance honestly to start off it’s meant to kill insects, weeds and other pest that encroach on agricultural crops. If you were to water an area, the weeds would obviously grow alongside the plants to avoid the plants being choked up by the weeds people use pesticides, something interesting is volunteers, which are untreated plants being offered up to the insects to be fed on, there are different types of pesticides, depending on what the farmers goal is. He will choose a different type of pesticides. Incesticide’s are also used. Obviously, I don’t need to mention that insects are technically a necessity since they provide fertilization such as bees. I find that this one’s a catch 22 they want to kill animals that eat the plans, but also end up killing the insects that fertilize them.

-Climate Change

This next article brings up the impacts of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions occur from the cultivation of soil, from nitrogen, fertilizers, and most importantly, methane released by livestock. it ends with farmers should not only think about marginalizing these effects, but also adapt to the climate changes. Honestly, it doesn’t give me a straight forward way to stop. It says that somebody should come up with one. 

-Soil Loss

I mentioned soil loss earlier with erosion, and I agree with their opening statement. Soil is a key resource in agriculture. Surprisingly enough it isn’t us taking away the soil, but the rain, the top layer of soil. The most nutrient dense is often washed away by rainstorms. And surprisingly enough, there are also some ways to slow soil loss such as cultivating, feels through tilling, leaving fields fallow, and removing plant material stubble from the field in the fall or removing failing plant trees.

What is Sustainable Agriculture?

-Defining Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture as defined in the article is farming practices that consider ecological functions, such as nutrient cycling, biodiversity varsity and evolution. Doing such can maintain the soil's health, obviously making it more sustainable, reducing pests, as well as weed issues and promoting biodiversity. They bring up an interesting example of slash and burn agriculture to return nutrients to the soil.

-Food Security and Food Safety

Obviously, food security is an important factor. It mentions the food and agriculture organization for the united nations FAO in 2011 “exist when all people at all times have physical and social economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food.” in order to secure food security. It brings up making food sustainable. It also mentions food safety and often not knowing what’s in our food GMO’s pesticides and preservatives things that make this system work but do we really want to ingest that? 

-Complexity of the Agricultural and Food Production System

I like that it mentions farmers markets as well as the big farms while the farmers markets as it mentions sells directly to consumers. Others are all over the nation they bring up a company called Cargill that operates in 70 countries. The system is much bigger than one person.

Practices in Sustainable Agriculture

-Integrated Pest Management

An answer to making a more sufficient agriculture system starts with integrated pest management, IPM, instead of using pesticides, there are other options, such as firmaments or yellow, sticky traps to modern pest abundance. In other areas of the world, there are natural predators to kill these pass some other options are using using clean and pest resistant seeds as well as not over applying fertilizer. 

-Organic Farming through Intercropping

I’ve heard of intercropping before. Apparently it is a old and widespread practice to maximize crop yield, of course. In intercropping species can be combined with a lagoon crop, which helps improve nitrogen availability to the soil. There are two main types of temporal intercropping, as well as spatial, intercropping. Temporal intercropping involves planting various types of crops. They do not have to be sewn at the same time according to this article, but they have to be harvested at the same time spatial intercropping refers to arrangement of crops on the field.

-Enhancing Biodiversity in Agroecosystems

Biodiversity is mentioned in the article as a buffering and enhancing tool. It gives the example of using one cultivar of crop and use of several to increase genetic diversity. It also mentions ecosystems. Services include carbon, suppression, pest, and weed control maintenance of soil health, and in the end food production support.

-New Trends: Diversified Agroecological Farming

In this timeline, we have seen the impact of irresponsible agriculture and the impact it has on the environment to change that we need to incorporate diversification. 

-Case Study: Drinking Tea in a Healthier Environment

In this case study, it mentions how ti is dried up, leaves, soaked in water, and then we probably don’t wanna be drinking Toxins when drinking tea. China experienced this challenge noted in the article, and found alternatives to reduce use of pesticides, so that their tea would be drinkable again. 

-Case Study: But What About Fertilizers?

In this case study, it gives me different types of fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers are surprisingly made out of organic matter, and have the exact nutrients needed, but we all saw the effects of fertilizers earlier. Moving along to organic fertilizers in this article in other words, manure. The only challenge the article brings up with organic fertilizer is microorganisms are needed in the soil so the soil must be warm and moist in order for the micronism’s to break down the material. The last type of fertilizer this last article mentions is agrominerals They also provide all the necessary ingredients, and can be things such as clay, zeolites and volcanic matter.  

Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC). (2017). Sustainable agriculture, in Environmental sustainability in practice. http://brockuesrc.ca/environmental-sustainability-in-practice/sustainable-agriculture

In short summary 

Over all agriculture has developed to feed the masses without hunter and gathering being a necessity. From domesticated plants then domesticated animals to large scale farming allowed by agricultural inventions. Changing people from nomadic to more sedentary. Leading to the issues of fertilizers, soil loss, climate change, and pesticides. The Irish potato famine was an example for this industry to make sure there is a surplus of food, and not to rely solely on one type of food so people don’t starve. The issues of agriculture was an interesting section. I enjoyed seeing how the fertilizers with nitrates and phosphorus affected the soil and bodies of water around it. Originally I had thought that it was poisoning the animals in the water rather than suffocating them. I say suffocating, because the plants around the body of water sucks out all the oxygen. I at least appreciate the solutions given for modern agriculture. In my mind when I said, I recognize intercropping, I was thinking of rotation of plants instead of actual intercropping. It is important to have sustainable agriculture methods, so we don’t ruin the soil. Things such as tilling and alternatives to pest control, such as yellow, sticky traps, and the natural pest control such as predictors of those insects. While we don’t want the insect to eat up all the crops, we still want certain insects that are beneficial such as beers and other pollinators. I believe that the agricultural industry is killing the bees, not on purpose, but through their pesticides. Messing with the natural order of insects has consequences. Just like everything the agricultural industry has had a learning curve on what is actually beneficial. While these chemicals may help grow the product quicker and easier you still have to remember it is going to be consumed by humans. I find it interesting how people say younger children develop quickly compared to how they used to and some think that that is due to the growth hormones used on the foods that we eat. I’ve had several family members start gardens and almost everybody has chickens going back to a smaller version of this industry, because they know what they feed their chickens. They know that their chickens are being well-maintained, and that their gardens aren’t being sprayed with poisons. There is always distrust between local people and big industries. The industry should listen since it’s always an option to cut outs or boycott certain sellers. I know a number of people who would prefer to do hunting and gathering but with how our society is set up, it is to have a job or starve.