intensive vs organic farming essay

I. Introduction Farming has enabled human populations to dominate the world’s landscapes for many thousands of years.  The science of agriculture has been refined and perfected over time to accommodate for the ever-increasing human population.  Until recent centuries, productive crops were mostly organic and existed with some permanence as part of a landscape.  As communities grow though, less and less land is available for food production and existing crops become easily exhausted.  Food insecurity caused by rapid population growth has pressured science to step in and produce many synthetic chemicals and gene manipulation techniques to maximize the potential of plants.  In addition, agricultural production has increased tremendously worldwide over the last century.  Coupled with this growth however is the pollution and degradation of the natural environment.  Many agricultural techniques exist today, but in an effort to adjust to the exponential trends of our population without compromising the integrity of the environment it is necessary to have a global transition towards sustainable farming.  With the current population at seven billion and rising, an important question must be addressed: What is the most sustainable and cost effective way to feed the world’s population?  Fortunately humans have been perfecting agricultural methods for thousands of years, which can help to answer this question. This paper will analyze and compare two types of farming, organic and conventional.  In a comparison of agriculture, my goal is to assess the impact and performance of each practice and then identify the best method for growing crops.  Although there are many types of agricultural practices, they can be generalized as sustainable or conventional based on the techniques used.  Sustainable / organic farming aims to produce a number of crops, without the use of synthetic.
Intensive farming is the latest technique used to yield high productivity by keeping large number of livestock indoors and using excessive amount of chemical fertilizers on a tiny acreage. It is carried out to meet the rising demand for cheap food and prevent future shortages. Elaborated below are its pros and cons. Intensive farming is an agricultural system that aims to get maximum yield from the available land. This farming technique is also applied in supplying livestock. You could say that under this technique, food is produced in large quantities with the help of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that are appropriately used to save such agricultural land from pests and crop diseases. Products, such as eggs, meat, and other agricultural items that are easily available in many supermarkets today are produced using modern intensive farming methods. Jay Rayner, a restaurant critic of the Observer says, Sure, it might be cruel, but intensive farming saves lives. It is practiced widely by many developed economies of the world. Sustainable intensive farming, intensive aquaculture, intensive livestock farming, and management-intensive grazing fall under this farming category.Advantages✔ One of the major advantages of this farming technique is that the crop yield is high.✔ It helps the farmer to easily supervise and monitor the land and protect his livestock from being hurt or hounded by dangerous wild animals.✔ With the introduction of intensive farming, farm produce, such as vegetables, fruits, and poultry products have become less expensive. It also aids in solving the worldwide hunger problems to a great extent. This means that common people can now afford a balanced and nutritious diet.✔ Many opine that organic food can be afforded only by the elite strata of the society. Apart from that, large farming spaces are required to cultivate organic crops using natural.
SHOULD FACTORY FARMING BE BANNED? Factory farming is a modern agricultural practice that mass produce animals to meet the food consumption of human. Fatory farms house large number of animals to be raised for food in a confined space of farms to minimize operation cost, and the mass production drives down the food prices as they could produce excess amount of animals to meet the demand. However, except for offering human abundant amount of cheaper food, factory farming is an unhealthy agricultural practice to both human and the environment. Factory farming contributed to serious pollution problems, the animal treatments are inhumane and it has smothered the business opportunity of traditional farms and its workers by occupying their markets. Therefore, I strongly support that factory farming should be banned. I shall explain my point of view in the following essay. First of all, factory farming creates much pollution on our environment. Producing livestocks in  massive amount would require much resources, and produce huge amount of waste at the same time. Especially when the density of livestocks is extraordinarily high, large amount of wastes will be created. When the wastes are disposed at the same time, the high concentration of wastes could do immediate pollution to the environment. Areas near to the factory farms are found with serious pollution problems. Many woodlands are cleared for building the factory farms, the soil is in poor condition that is no longer fertile. The nearby water source, such as river, is contaminated with wastes that the water quality turns bad with horrible smell. The land will not be suitable for human settlement anymore. Factory farming is also one of the main causes of greenhouse gases emission.  According to a research, the use of fossil fuels on factory farms to grow feed and to intensively raise land animals for food emits 90.
Just a few generations ago, in the 1930’s, approximately 45% of Americans lived on farms. This demographic gradually but steadily declined as people migrated to urban centers, and over time, to suburbs. Today, only about 960,000 people claim farming as their principal occupation, which represents less than 1% of the US population. During the same period of time the US population has more than doubled, and demand for agricultural products has increased accordingly. It is a testament to human ingenuity that the mechanics of farming has managed to keep pace with an ever-expanding demand even as the number of farms has declined. Farm machinery has become larger, more efficient and more productive. New crop varieties have been developed which resist common pests and diseases while producing larger yields. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have become increasingly effective, allowing farmers to produce larger crops without the need for additional human labor. Farmlands have become increasingly dependent on chemical fertilizers which have short-term benefits but contribute to soil depletion over time. But while today’s large scale food producers continue to profit and consumers see supermarket shelves overflowing with farm products, the unseen costs of our dependence on agribusiness exert a mounting toll. Farmlands have become increasingly dependent on chemical fertilizers which have short-term benefits but contribute to soil depletion over time. Water retention is diminished in non-organic farmland, resulting in erosion of topsoil with chemical residues entering watersheds. We consumers have quietly accepted these changes in farming practices as the cost of feeding a growing nation, and because there seem to be no practical alternatives. Recent experiments in small organic farming practices, and the release of a 30-year side-by-side farming study by the Rodale Institute.
By Joshua Coates It doesn’t stop there. According to Koch, “more transgenic foods are on the way. Scientists are rapidly ‘inventing’ other new foods, including at least 21 modified fish varieties. They are also studying inserting animal and human genes into plants and animals.” By now many of us are familiar with the story of “Flav’r Sav’r” tomatoes. These are tomatoes that are spliced with the genes of flounder fish so they resist the cold and produce longer growing seasons. This may initially seem beneficial; however, what might the ramifications be for ingesting these hybrid crops? So much testing still needs to be done, and yet agribusiness keeps rolling out one after another of these potentially dangerous and unstable creations. Kimbrell notes, “By failing to require testing and labeling of genetically engineered foods, the FDA has made millions of American consumers unknowing guinea pigs for potentially harmful, unregulated food substances.” There is an ever-flowing litany of self-praise from industrial farming advocates, to fight increasing public awareness of the dangers inherent in pesticide use and genetic engineering. Gregory Conko, in his article “The Rush to Condemn Genetically Modified Crops”, insists “[genetically modified crops are] helping farmers to increase yields, reduce pesticide spraying, and save topsoil—and without injury to a single person or damage to an ecosystem.” This optimistic view is prevalent in pro-industrial propaganda, but it is being challenged by ever-increasing evidence brought to light. An example of this evidence: according to the Center for Disease Control, there are over 53 pesticides described as carcinogenic that are regularly found in the food we eat. Carcinogenic means CANCER CAUSING. Organic farming is essentially growing food without the use of industrial chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Industrial farms use so.