Introduction
Agriculture has many profound impacts on both the environment and human society, on one hand, food must be grown to support the growing population of the world. On the other hand, it has disastrous effects on both the ecosystems in the surrounding area and greenhouse gas emissions which continue to heat our world. A solution cannot be simple because it must be able to meet the demand of humans while also reducing the impact we have on the environment.
Environmental Impacts
Based on current estimates agriculture emits 8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalents. The primary greenhouse gases emitted from agriculture are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide is emitted through soil degradation, deforestation, clearing of plants on the topsoil, and desertification. Methane is produced from fermentation and or decomposition. Finally, nitrous oxide is emitted from fertilizer use.
Another aspect of the environmental effects of agriculture is both soil quality and soil erosion. 34% of the world’s farmland is degraded, soil degradation is the physical, chemical, and biological reduction in overall soil quality. A decline in soil quality results in lower crop yield and less nutritious crops. Soil erosion also has catastrophic effects on the environment. Soil erosion causes desertification which is when the topsoil becomes loose and arid. Desertification is what caused the catastrophic dust bowl in the 1930s. Currently over a third of the world’s land is threatened by desertification. Soil erosion also harms water quality and can lead to eutrophication in local watersheds. Less severe soil erosion removes the nutrients and minerals from the soil and thins the topsoil which causes crop yields to be worse.
Agriculture is also the prime reason for deforestation, recent surveys show that 90% of deforestation is caused by agricultural expansion. Due to the constant growth of the human population new land must be cleared for the production of food to be able to keep up with the increasing population. Deforestation accelerates climate change by not only reducing the amount of carbon removing trees in the world but also through soil erosion and degradation; which occurs when all the preexisting plant matter is cleared and the soil is exposed which allows erosion the exponentially increase and with the removal of the plants it reduces the soil quality.
Humanitarian Impacts
The UN projects that the world population will be 9.8 billion in 2050. With a continuously growing global population, more and more land is needed to be able to support the number of people on Earth. With around 780 million people in the world facing hunger more farmland is desperately needed to provide food for the world. The agriculture industry is also critical to economic growth, in 2022 it had an estimated GDP value of 12.5 trillion USD. Also, many of the least developed countries in the world rely on their agriculture industry to support them; in many of these countries, the agriculture market can account for around 25% of their total GDP.
My View
With such a diverse issue as agriculture, complete solutions are few and far between. The soil and forests must be protected while still providing enough crop yield to feed our hungry world. Solutions are using more sustainable farming practices, such as rotating crops reducing or completely removing the amount of tillage on farmland. Other examples of sustainable agriculture are designing more efficient irrigation methods, reducing erosion using either biological barriers or physical barriers, and promoting biodiversity in farmlands. These solutions not only reduce the environmental impact of agriculture but also increases crop yield so the same amount of farmland can produce more food. While none of these solutions alone can fix all the problems with agriculture; a combination of them can help our world produce enough food while also reducing the environmental impact that agriculture has on our world.
Bibliography
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The Green Analysis 
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