Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
programs will continue to increase, while budgets will continue to decline. The
result of all of these interconnected factors will be a substantial increase in environ-
mental problems in the United States. It is highly doubtful that the United States will
be able to adequately address domestic conservation problems in the future unless
significant economic growth is quickly achieved. That is highly unlikely to occur
with existing domestic economic policies.
It also must be acknowledged that it is not possible for the US government to
provide biotechnological innovations to lesser-scale societies as suggested by some
writers. Biotechnology is often privately owned in the United States, and no entity
can make those technologies available to anyone without the consent of the own-
ers. It is highly unlikely that owners of agricultural biotechnology will be willing
to make their products available to anyone without being adequately compensated.
One of the most significant threats to adoption of conservation production sys-
tems at the farm level in lesser-scale societies is global warming. If predictions about
the adverse agricultural impacts of global warming are realized, then it is highly
likely that subsistence agriculture in many lesser-scale societies will be devastated
(Napier 2013). While farmers in most high-scale societies will probably be able to
mitigate many of the adverse consequences of increasing temperature and intensity
of weather events by rapid changes in farm production systems, subsistence farmers
in lesser-scale societies will not have access to human skills nor the technologies/
techniques to address such modifications in weather. Although adoption of soil and
water conservation farming systems would aid in the adjustment to agroecological
problems generated by global warming, the inability of subsistence farmers to adopt
such systems will result in wholesale destruction of land resources in many lesser-
scale societies.
Soil and water conservation efforts will undoubtedly continue in lesser-scale soci-
eties with some small measure of success. Unfortunately, the types of conservation
efforts that will be introduced will address none of the root causes of environmental
degradation associated with agricultural production. The principal factors contrib-
uting to soil and water degradation in lesser-scale societies are socioeconomic in
nature, and these types of factors cannot be addressed by provision of a stick, hoe,
seed, and fertilizer by some government agency or nongovernment organization.
Unless the institutional factors impeding adoption are adequately addressed in the
near term, the future productivity of soil resources will be destroyed and subsistence
farmers will be further stressed.
REFERENCES
Adeola, R.G. 2010. Influence of socio-economic factors on the adoption of soil conservation
measures in Ibadan/Ibarapa agricultural zone of Oyo State.
Report
2(7): 42-45.
Adeola, R.G. 2012. Farmers' perception of soil fertility decline under yam production in OYO
State, Nigeria.
Continental Journal of Agricultural Science
6: 38-47.
Alwang, J., V. Barrera, R. Andrade, S. Hamilton, and G.W. Norton. 2009. Adaptive watershed
management in the South American highlands: Learning and teaching on the fly. In
The
Sciences and Art of Adaptive Management: Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture and
Natural Resources
, ed. K.M. Moore, 209-227. Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation
Society Press.
