What is the effect of sustainable agriculture to the society?

Answer 1

For those farmers who use scientific farming methods may cause a lot of problems.The use of sustainable farming helps reduce these problems.

Problems may brought by scientific farming methods:

1)Pesticides

Pesticides are harmful to human bodies.Some pesticides are left on crops,when people eat it,their health will be affected.Some pesticides are washed into rivers by rainwater and causes water pollution.Living things may die.Pesticides kill both good insects and pests.Good insects are those which kill pests so number of pests may increase.Resistance is developed in pests.More and more powerful pesticides are needed to develop but this makes harmful effect to our environment.

2) Fertilizers

Farmers alwats use more fertilizers than needed.The excess fertilizers are washed into rivers and act as a nutrients to algae and water plants. They grow rapidly and use up oxygen in water.Living things will die and ecological balance is upset.

3)Genetically-modified crops

GM crops are created by human beings.We still don't know whether it makes harmful effect to human bodies and it may affect the ecosystem.

4)Developing marginal land

Some farmers grow crops on poor land.Crops take nutrients from soil and makes the piece of land even poorer.This is called soil degradation.Evaporation rate in semi-arid area is very high.When farmers irrigate with excess water,the water dissolve salt in soil and carries it up to surface.After the water is evaporated,the salt will remain on the surface of soil.The soil then becomes salty and production will decrease.Farmers rear livestock on sem-arid land.The livestock eat up grass of land and the soil loses protection from grass.Its soil may be blown away by wind or washed away by water very easily.This is called soil erosion. Both soil erosion and soil degradation makes the land less productive or even unproductive.