The Research Sample Is About Agriculture Revolution (Research Paper Sample)

Davenport University
Research Paper
Abstract
The current trends have really affected almost all sectors including the farming sector. Various researchers have been busy researching to obtain the best farming methods. Some of the recommendations that they have forwarded have been implemented while some are still hanging. Unlike the past, farming has taken a different direction. Currently, large-scale farmers have opted to subscribe to the use of technology in almost all the farming activities. The use of chemicals like pesticides has become investable. The paper focuses on the current Agricultural trends.
It is evident that farming is one of the most crucial activities. The world of the farmer is one that is comprised of many aspects that may seem simple in nature but in all actuality, they are some of the most complicated aspects of our society that only a few people know about. Raising livestock or crops may seem simple enough but there are many different ways a producer can raise them. A farmer can grow crops and keep livestock in an industrial manner which involves the use of hormones, fertilizers, and even the use of crude vaccines. There is also a different, more profitable manner of growing crops and keeping livestock; this is the organic and free-range of raising livestock and crops. In this manner, animals are allowed to freely roam a large area of land where there is access to food, water and shelter whenever it is needed. Crops are grown in a fashion where there are alternating rows of different crops with a minimal use of pesticides and a use of organic fertilizer in various forms. Industrial farming is heading towards a major decline in its popularity due to the overuse of hormones and vaccinations that lower the quality of the meat. Although the total crop acreage in the United States is less than one percent, the United States is lagging behind other countries such as: “…Switzerland (11 percent), [and] Italy (9 percent)” (Haynes, George, 2016, pg. 179). Despite this lagging, certified organic crop and livestock acreage have grown rapidly since 2010.
Organic Agriculture and produce has been a subject of many debates over the past few decades, much of those debates were about Organic Agriculture being: better for the environment, better promotes biodiversity, better for soil replenishment, better tasting products, and longer shelf-life in certain situations. Organic Agriculture is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as “Organic agriculture produces products using methods that preserve the environment and avoid most synthetic materials, such as pesticides and antibiotics” (United States Department of Agriculture, 2016). Industrial Agriculture, as defined by the Union of Concerned Scientists is “…the system of chemically intensive food production… featuring enormous single-crop farms and animal production facilities” (Union of Concerned Scientists, n.d, n.p). Industrial Agriculture has also been on the debate platform as well in the past few decades due to the fact that it has been known to use pesticides; pesticides that have been known to cause diseases and various other health problems. Health problems that include, but are not limited to cancer, blood disorders, nerve disorders, birth defects, reproduction defects, and hormone disruption. Although there are some advantages to Industrial Agriculture, which include but are not limited to lower costs, higher yields, resistance to the elements, and year-round growing. These advantages only come after various disadvantages and risks are diluted by the apparent advantages. Organic Agriculture is far more superior than Industrial Agriculture due to the greater positive impact it does to the environment when compared to industrial agriculture.
When there is a label on a food product that instructs the buyer to ‘wash first’, there is a cause for concern. Pesticides leave behind a residue that is minuscule but causes harm to the consumer when the product is consumed over a long period of time. This is especially true for children, fetuses, and elderly people because of their age, immune system, brains, and bodies are still developing or are diminished. Women who are pregnant are more susceptible to the side effects of pesticides due to the stress associated with pregnancy. Pesticides can be passed from mother to child and mother to fetus via breast milk that is tainted and absorption of pesticides through the skin which ultimately reaches the blood stream and the fetus. One of the most used pesticides in the United States is Atrazine, “… researchers in Indiana are finding that a rare birth defect called ’gastroschisis’ shows up more among babies conceived when atrazine levels are high” (Specht et al 2014, ). Industrial farming still uses Atrazine as a herbicide to control weeds in corn, soybean, and tomato fields, but it is primarily used in corn fields it is applied to 69% of all the corn acreage in the United States. The main dangers of Atrazine and other triazine chemical herbicides fall upon those who work in the fields, such as farmers and migrant workers who are tending to the crops. The chemicals enter their bodies through the skin, inhalation, and ingestion of the product that has been treated with Atrazine.
The chemicals used in Industrial agriculture are never used in Organic Agriculture; this is why there is a greater biodiversity- a biological diversity, on farmlands where Organic agriculture is used. In the farmlands where Industrial agriculture used, there is little biodiversity because the chemicals used in the process of growing produce are often lethal to various animals and insects, which are actually beneficial to the produce being grown. Those organisms that are not killed by the chemical are quite often mutated, as is the case in a UC Berkeley study on Atrazine and leopard frogs. The study showed that atrazine at levels often found in the environment from runoff often demasculinizes tadpoles and turns them into hermaphrodites; organisms with both male and female reproductive organs. The study also found lower levels of the male hormone testosterone in sexually mature frogs by a multiple of 10, these levels of testosterone are lower than that of normal female frogs. Frogs are not the only organisms that are affected by the use of pesticides, herbicides, and the runoff of these chemicals. “The herbicide also contaminates drinking water supplies in many communities in the Midwest…” (Laursen, 2014). This is cause for concern for not only the biodiversity of the environment but also for our lives, for humans need water to survive, it is a vital resource that is needed by not only ourselves but also the flora and fauna of the environment. In contrast, organically farmed areas have, on average; there is 30 percent more special and 50 percent more individuals when compared to non-organically farmed areas. The main causes of such an increase in biodiversity are largely in part to the forgoing the use of herbicides and chemically synthesised pesticides, as well as the implementation of a more diversified agriculture structure, a conservation of tillage and a more diversified crop rotation with a higher clover grass percentage. It is through this agricultural structure that the produce and products have a far more concentrated amount of nutrients and minerals.
There has been a decrease in nutrients in industrially grown produce, specifically corn, broccoli, and wheat. There are various reasons as to why this is occurring, the two major causes are monoculture and the over-use of fertilizers. A monoculture is a field that is composed of a single crop rather than multiple crop species, in order to grow the same plant year after year in the same place there is an overuse of fertilizers because of the constant and numerous sowing of seeds within the same year. The overuse of fertilizers and herbicides depletes the soil of natural nutrients and minerals that plants rely on, the only way to quickly replenish the nutrients is by using synthesized fertilizers. Pesticides are used due to the fact that monoculture fields are a vast attractant to certain insect pests and weeds. There has been “…a sharp decline in minerals, vitamins and other nutrients in many foods…” (Barak, Lyne, 2000, n.p). Minerals are a vital part of a human’s diet and metabolism, we as humans get the vital nutrients, minerals, and antioxidants from plants and occasionally animals. However, there is no plant or animal that can incorporate vitamins and minerals into its body when there is none in the soil from which it obtains feeds. Organic plants have been found to have more vitamins, minerals, and “… have 60 percent more antioxidants than their conventionally grown version” (Danes et al 2016). This is because plants produce chemicals that ultimately produce antioxidants when responding to environmental stress which include pests, diseases, and a lack of soil nutrients. Since industrially grown produce and products are more sheltered from these environmental factors and other various stresses, through pesticides, other various growing practices, and other agricultural structures, the plants have no need or particular impetus to produce antioxidants. Whereas organically grown produce has fertile soil which is fertilized with compost, manure and other organic matter. Through this type of fertilization and growing process, “… organic crops [have] an 18 to 69% higher percent concentration of antioxidant compounds, which are said to ha...