Modern Farming is Good for Environment

By Michael Dowgert, on August 11th, 2010

A number of studies have shown that modern farming techniques as expressed through intensive agricultural practices are good for the environment. Most recently scientists from Stanford have calculated that high yield agriculture employed since the latter half of the 20^th century has prevented the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted. Without the advances in high yield agriculture several billion additional acres of cropland would be needed to feed the world’s growing population. This land would have come at the expense of forests and shrub land. The carbon stored in this biomass amounts to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. This work comes from the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford.

Other research from California and Texas have shown that the advanced practice of drip irrigation reduces the emission of greenhouse gasses through better utilization of applied nitrogen. Excess nitrogen applied to crops is often volatilized as nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. The more efficient application of nitrogen through the drip system a process known as fertigation and commonly referred to as “spoon feeding” only applies the nitrogen the plant needs greatly increasing the nitrogen use efficiency. This saves the farmer money and saves the natural gas often used to produce nitrogen fertilizer as well as reducing greenhouse gasses.

Forty years after Paul Ehrlich predicted in “The Population Bomb” that we will not be able to feed the world’s growing population modern efficient farming practices often derided as industrial agriculture is able to feed the world and offers the environment the benefits of that efficiency.

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