Modern Agriculture: Its Effects on the Environment
Modern Agriculture: Its Effects on the Environment
Agriculture has been a major component of the United States economy ever since colonial days, when 9 out of 10 working persons were employed on a farm. Produclivity of American agriculture has tripled since then, and today only 3 percent of our labor force produces enough food and fiber to meet domestic needs as well as supplying about 10 percent of total overseas consumption. This huge increase in efficiency has been the result of many factors, including use of fertilizer, and pesticides, introduction of farm machinery, development of hybrid strains, and increased knowledge about farm management practices. As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labor and less land. Intensification of agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. Environmental impacts have increased, including potential degradation of the soil and water resources vital to both farm productivity and human health. Such environmental problems can best be understood by tracing their evolution through the history of farming in this country.
Historical Perspective
Agriculture in the United States dates back to the food-raising activities of American Indians, and over half of the value of our current crops comes from plants such as corn, cotton, potatoes, and tobacco that were first domesticated by Indians in South and North America. In the early 1600s when the colonists were making their way to America, agricultural methods in England and other parts of the world were still primitive. Fields were dug by oxen pulling wooden plows, seeds were broadcast by hand, and grains were harvested with scythes just as they had been for the previous 2,000 years. From the Indians the first American settlers learned how to clear land, till the fields, and grow the corn that was crucial to their initial survival.
Although Indians taught the colonists to plant fish with their corn,
Agriculture has been a major component of the United States economy ever since colonial days, when 9 out of 10 working persons were employed on a farm. Produclivity of American agriculture has tripled since then, and today only 3 percent of our labor force produces enough food and fiber to meet domestic needs as well as supplying about 10 percent of total overseas consumption. This huge increase in efficiency has been the result of many factors, including use of fertilizer, and pesticides, introduction of farm machinery, development of hybrid strains, and increased knowledge about farm management practices. As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labor and less land. Intensification of agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. Environmental impacts have increased, including potential degradation of the soil and water resources vital to both farm productivity and human health. Such environmental problems can best be understood by tracing their evolution through the history of farming in this country.
Historical Perspective
Agriculture in the United States dates back to the food-raising activities of American Indians, and over half of the value of our current crops comes from plants such as corn, cotton, potatoes, and tobacco that were first domesticated by Indians in South and North America. In the early 1600s when the colonists were making their way to America, agricultural methods in England and other parts of the world were still primitive. Fields were dug by oxen pulling wooden plows, seeds were broadcast by hand, and grains were harvested with scythes just as they had been for the previous 2,000 years. From the Indians the first American settlers learned how to clear land, till the fields, and grow the corn that was crucial to their initial survival.
Although Indians taught the colonists to plant fish with their corn,