Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
heavy and more powerful machines, combined with even more chemical fertilizers,
pesticides, and herbicides, supposedly making crop rotations superfluous and pro-
moting apparent efficiency through specialization with monocropping. According
to our reading (e.g., Perkins 1997; Helvarg 2001; Posner 2005), factories producing
nitrates and ammonia for manufacturing explosives needed for WWII had to find an
alternate market once the war ended. The crop production sector was susceptible to
nitrate and ammonia salesmen who went around convincing farmers, government
officials, and scientists that high yields and more profit could be obtained with min-
eral nitrogen and that there was presumably no real need for crop diversification and
rotations with legumes or for adding plant sources of nutrients or animal manure.
Crop production could be decoupled from livestock production. This was comple-
mented with the notion that with more mineral nitrogen input comes the need for new
more responsive cultivars because traditional cultivars are not capable of respond-
ing to higher doses of mineral nitrogen. A slogan of that era, coined by DuPont,
was “Better Living through Chemistry.” Agroindustry and the Land Grant Colleges
joined forces in promoting an industrial model for agriculture that was based on the
use of chemical inputs and large volumes of output. Even FAO launched in 1961 the
Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC), which was partly financed by the world
fertilizer industry. The FFHC's main target was to encourage the use of fertilizers by
small-scale farmers through education, effective means of distribution, and credit.
The overall idea was that agricultural production cannot be significantly increased
in developing countries of the world without improving the nutrient status of most
soils. In the late 1970s, the FFHC was replaced by FAO's Fertiliser Programme.
Concurrently, rapid urbanization and land consolidation in industrialized countries
forced agriculture “labor” to be substituted by “capital,” particularly in the form
of agricultural equipment and machinery. Large tractors with large plows became
common in the 1980s and symbolized modern farming. This technological “inter-
ventionist” approach became the accepted paradigm for production intensification
and was promoted globally including in the developing regions—referred to as the
Green Revolution paradigm of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s—and that, despite boost-
ing crop yields, increased the likelihood of
•
Loss of SOM, porosity, aeration, and biota (corresponding to decline in soil
health) leading to collapse of soil structure, which in turn results in surface
sealing, often accompanied by mechanical compaction, decrease in infiltra-
tion, waterlogging, and flooding (
Figure 14.1
).
•
Loss of water as runoff, as well as of soil microorganisms, of soil particles,
and of organic matter in top soil as sediment.
•
Loss of time, seeds, fertilizer, and pesticide (erosion, leaching).
•
Less capacity to capture and slowly release water and nutrients.
•
Less efficiency of mineral fertilizer.
•
Loss of biodiversity in the ecosystem, below and above soil surface.
•
More pest problems (breakdown of food webs for microorganisms and
natural pest control).
•
Falling input efficiency and factor productivities, declining yields.
•
Reduced resilience and reduced sustainability.
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