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Chapter 12: Problem 11

Define sustainability in an agricultural context. In what ways is modern industrial agriculture unsustainable?

Short Answer

Expert verified
Agricultural sustainability refers to farming practices that meet current needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Key principles include economic profitability, environmental health, and social and economic equity. Modern industrial agriculture is unsustainable due to its negative environmental impacts such as loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, water pollution, and contribution to climate change.

Step by step solution

01

Define Agricultural Sustainability

Sustainability in the context of agriculture refers to the ability of a farm to produce crops or livestock without causing severe or irreversible damage to ecosystem health. The main principles include economic profitability, environmental health, and social and economic equity. A sustainable agricultural system ensures that it's providing for the needs of the present while preparing to meet the needs of future generations.
02

Discuss Modern Industrial Agriculture

Modern industrial agriculture is a type of farming that revolves around highly commercialized, large-scale practices. It includes monoculture farming, or the practice of growing single crops intensively on a very large scale. This type of agriculture involves practices such as heavy use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and employing intensive livestock production methods.
03

Explain Unsustainability of Industrial Agriculture

While modern industrial agriculture has succeeded in increasing crop outputs, it has caused significant harm to the environment and is therefore unsustainable. It has resulted in loss of biodiversity due to heavy reliance on limited crop varieties, soil degradation from overuse of synthetic fertilizers, and pollution of water resources from overuse of agricultural chemicals. Moreover, it contributes to climate change by causing deforestation for agricultural land and excessive methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, from intensive livestock farming.

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