Agriculture Blog

Introduction

There is growing concern about agricultural activities leading to environmental degradation and health risks associated with intensively produced foodstuffs. As a result interest in organic agriculture is increasing. This growing interest in sustainable and organic natural resource management and healthy eating, coupled with the increasing number of resource-poor farmers who cannot afford agrichemicals, has led to the potential for organic farming in addressing the issue of sustainable food production and livelihoods of resource-poor people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Low in-put agriculture applies to systems that rely less on external, purchased inputs and more on internal resources. However, low-inout agriculture technolgy (LIAT) has conveyed a negative impression in various agriculture circles and this is cited as a major barrier to wider adoption of low-input agriculture technologies (LIATs) in Malawi and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole.

Increasingly, it has been recognized that environmental deterioration in Africa is a central factor holding back agriculture. The disappearance of forest areas accelerates land degradation. Even on gently sloping cropland, topsoil losses have been reported to range from 25 tonnes to 250 tonnes per hectare, across the region. One study has estimated that soil degradation and erosion in Africa reduces the productivity of land Read the rest of this entry »

Why is organic farming bad, if it is? We have been told that organic farming is good for our health. Proponents have trumpeted the message that organic farming is good for the environment. How could it possibly be bad?

It seems that, increasingly, life is being divided into traditional and alternative. Each side claims their methods to be better than the other’s. Each tries to win people to their side. Traditional schooling fights alternative schooling. Conventional medicine fights alternative medicine. Mainstream culture fights alternative subcultures.

Farming, too, is involved in a battle, conventional farming against organic farming. Environmentalists and those concerned with their health assure us that organic farming is preferable in many ways. But others argue that organic farming is bad.

Why is organic farming bad?

Research Results

In 2002, Swiss scientists at the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture published in “Scientist” a highly publicized study. Their study, which covered 21 years, compared four types of farming. Two of those types were organic farming. The other two types were conventional farming.

Reporters quickly stated that the study proved organic farming was more efficient. Organic farming’s advocates said the study showed that organic Read the rest of this entry »

As the prices of land is increasing people from America and across the globe is buying vacant land or undeveloped Arizona land for sale. Because of expensive land prices and limited land, people from east, Midwest and west coast are moving their attention to mountain west and southwest.

The underdeveloped area is Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. People are interested to buy land from these areas because Las Vegas and the phoenix Pinal country have soaring prices. Arizona land can be used as a residential area for retired people or younger families. They can build a house which would be pollution free and provide a clean environment to their children. If the land was purchased when it was undeveloped it would have benefited that person.

He can take advantage of the improvements that has taken place in that area by selling it and earning profit. One of the benefit in purchasing land in Arizona is that the land value will increase in the nearly places as the development is taking place. Another benefit of purchasing a vacant land in this undeveloped area is that it can be used for commercial, residential and for other purposes as there will Read the rest of this entry »

Specialized agriculture almost always means monoculture a single crop. It almost always means large scale land use, and large scale inputs such as water, fertilizers, and various chemicals.

PROS

1. Monocultures are easy for the farmer since a single crop means the farmer only has to deal with one product, and one set of inputs.

2. Large vehicles such as tractors and harvesters can more efficiently deal with a monoculture, since there are no obstacles.

3. Specialized agriculture makes chemical companies, fertilizer companies, herbicide and insecticide manufacturing companies and their executives rich.

CONS Just the First Ten

1. Single crops encourage pests and weeds to proliferate, leading to the use of chemicals to fight them. The pests and weeds become immune and so even more toxic chemicals have to be produced in a never-ending war.

2. Large scale land use means large-scale clearing of native vegetation, forests, woodlands, and other habitat for animals, native plants, birds and insects. Large-scale clearing of land for agriculture is the major cause of the largest extinction of animals the world has seen.

3. A single crop means a crop failure is devastating for the farmer and the people who depend on the food produced. Crop failures lead to price Read the rest of this entry »