Summary Of Some Hard Truths About Agriculture And The Environment By Erik Litchenberg

In the article, “Some Hard Truths About Agriculture and the Environment” by Erik Litchenberg, the author takes a stance on the agricultural problems that takes a toll on the environment. The author touches on improving agriculture by defining ways to devise policies to address the problems, the possible restrictions of those policies, and how everyone has a whole can contribute to the formulation of better policies. However, the author remains to focus on one solution that would fix all agricultural issues which would be pollution taxes. As stated, “Pollution taxes should be the most effective and efficient form of policy.” Throughout the essay, he commences various policies or actions that have been taking place but haven’t been effective
enough to make a change. He goes in depth as well as to why some of the practices that are used today aren’t working and killing our environment, “A given application of some insecticides can cause fish kills when made to a field near a stream when the wind is blowing strongly enough in the right direction, and yet no damage at all when made to fields farther from the stream or at times when there is little wind.” In the author’s opinion pesticides are doing more harm than good. It causes damage to wildlife as well as health risks to human workers.
It is a prime example of a policy that isn’t working in the long run. In addition, for someone to have an expertise in precision application of things such as pesticides and fertilizers demand to be specifically looked over. It wouldn’t be something efficient, “Similarly, precision fertilizer application requires knowledge of existing soil fertility levels, which can vary substantially even within fields of a uniform soil type. And it requires more sophisticated knowledge of crop fertility response than we have now.” This isn’t the best option considering that it could potentially become time consuming at the rate that takes a bundle of time to restart a course of new information to be learned properly. More so, attempting to increase technology usage would similarly have the same effects, “As a result, technical fixes involve more than just installing or using new equipment—they involve implementing new farming systems and adapting them to conditions that vary from place to place within farms… and from year to year. And they require farmers to adopt new forms of management and acquire new sets of skills.” Time isn’t something that goes for very long and considering that the practices that are current have been used for many many years and the time to change is
now. Action has to been taken now to better the environment before it’s ruined. In addition, farmers wouldn’t have all the access to be able to acquire new sets of skills and knowledge in a short span of time. Therefore, the author cycles back to the main solution of pushing for pollution taxes. Agreeing with the author, it seems to be the most logical thing to do that would not only be effective almost promptly but it can also be the savior to today’s agricultural issues. With the pesticides and animal wastes spreading, it can be controlled with pollution taxes. If you’re destroying the environment, it should come with a cost to the polluter nevertheless it wouldn’t be targeting someone; it would just become a regulation or protection for what’s the right way to farm and take care of the planet at the same time. In closing, “Continuing that tradition today requires training ourselves and our students in the scientific aspects of agricultural pollution problems; without that training it will not be possible for us to make real contributions to policy in this area.” Adopting a plan today with continuous ambitions will become a great deal in the end. Starting with something as small as a pollution tax could only be the beginning, imagine what people can think of after that.