Highly productive livestock breed have more negative factors than positive. These breeds have to go through harsh conditions like pesticide and disease control. The import of exotic breeds has a negative effect on the environment. For example, tsetse control to create an environment for cattle breeds, or tick borne disease control to reduce loss and increase productivity. This is not natural and disrupts the ecosystem. We need more agrobiodiversity in order to have a better environment and system. Higher biodiversity means: improved disease resistance, diversify products, and increase productivity and economic returns.
Industrial agriculture is a modern form of capital intensive farming. Machinery is used instead of man labour. This type of agriculture requires a lot of money to keep it going on track. It also requires a lt of innovations like fertilizers and pesticide which is disruptive to the environment. The positive of this is that it brought cheaper agricultural products. Its process has a lot of negative effects: there is pollution created, soil destruction, huge amount of water, and uses chemicals and lots of energy.
This is a picture of a cattle which is common in the industrial agriculture. This type of agriculture promotes cross breeding and forced activity.
Sustainable agriculture is a way of growing food. It has a lot of positive effects and I would prefer this method rather than others. Products that come through this agriculture is more healthy for consumers and animals as well. It does not harm the environment and promotes organic food. It provides fair wage to the farmers preventing any economic issues. These breed are traditional and help prevent disease. They are treated with care and are allowed to go on with natural behavior and rarely any hormone growth and is not exposed to chemicals.
This image is of an example of sustainable agriculture. This is an organic farm with no interruptions in its environment.
SOURCES:
"Industrial Agriculture | Economy Watch." World, US, China, India Economy, Investment, Finance, Credit Cards | Economy Watch. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
"Loss of Biodiversity in Livestock (animal Biodiversity)." FAO: FAO Home. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
What Is Sustainable Agriculture? - Introduction to Sustainability - Sustainable Table." Sustainabletable. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
COMMENTS:
1.Jessica Vasanthan
2. Carmina Chu
Hi Christa! Lovely blog you have here, and very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteI still don't fully understand why the government would allow industrial farms to still be run and built, it destroys everything around it, and does no good to us, it's consumers, either! Also, you raised a very good point about technology becoming the modern farm. It decreases the potential of jobs that humans seek to earn money to even buy the food that's being sold by these corporate giants. The industrialized process is more expensive than anything, which really makes no sense as to why they'd want to continue it to sell cheaper food.
Awesome post Christa!