Claire Gegenheimer

10/05/2016

Sustainable Agriculture

Since the beginning of humanity, people have looked for ways to live more sustainable,
alternative, and ultimately better lives through the means of agriculture and food production.
Humans have migrated, experimented with soils and seeds, and employed the use of both
animals and machines to provide for themselves and others. Today, the number of people
combined with a globalized economy has created the need to push these boundaries even further.
By the year 2050 the Earths population could soar to an estimated 9.6 billion peoplenearly
two and a half billion more people than the current population in less than 35 years (un.org).
With numbers rising this quickly, we are reaching a critical point in which serious questions need
to be answered in regards to how to continue feeding this many people. This has put a
tremendous strain on agriculturists to find a way to produce more food more efficiently, or else
risk seeing mass worldwide famine. Synthetic fertilizers, hormones, pesticides, herbicides,
antibiotics and genetic modification are all techniques being applied to the food we eat in order
to meet the ever increasing demand for food. However, these solutions to one problem may very
well cause several problems of their own.
These unnatural processes expose us to a chemical cocktail that could have damaging
long-term effects on both the environment and our health and well-being. Daily exposure to these
chemicals can cause anything from behavioral changes to cancer, and have truly not been studied
to the extent needed to determine if they could have any harmful effects on society as a whole. In
just the last few decades in which these chemicals have been used to grow our food, we have
seen a rise in cancer and can even find traces of pesticides in human breast milk. Additionally,
the chemicals used in crops are able to seep into the groundwater supply, which is then available
for everyday use. According to Science News, 80% of cattle in the United States are treated with
growth hormones or steroids. Even though the hormones used in beef and mother cows to
produce milk have shown several concerning results, the United States has yet to ban their use.
Beef treated with steroids has been shown to have an effect on the sperm count in male humans,
while milk coming from steroid-treated heifers has shown to have a direct correlation in the
number of twin and triplet births in humans (sustainabletable.org).
The growing demand for meat productsespecially beef, has led to the deforestation of
tens of millions of acres around the world. Cattle ranching is now one of the top drivers of
deforestation, and is estimated to be the reason behind 80% of the deforestation in the Amazon
(globalforestatlas.yale.edu). Soil is depleted and trees are cut down in forests not only to raise the
cattle, but also to grow their food and provide housing and other necessities associated with the
livestock business. There are many serious issues with this, the primary one being that destroying
CO2 absorbing trees and replacing them with CO2 emitting cows, pigs and chickens allow for no
offset to the massive amounts of greenhouse gasses being emitted. today the billion land
animals which are reared and slaughtered, either directly or indirectly contribute to total human

Claire Gegenheimer
10/05/2016

induced greenhouse gas by 18% and total CO2 emission by 9% (Nardone, 1). The amount of
greenhouse gasses being released by these animals is greater than that of all the cars, trucks,
planes, trains and ships on Earth combined. The amount of CO2 being released is guaranteed to
increase as the population grows, meaning that the impending dangers of climate change are
bound to speed up.
Currently, people are countering these harmful farming and food-producing techniques
by choosing to eat organic diets and leading a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Though these two
simple changes in eating habit can help individuals, they do not offer any long-term or
worldwide solutions for the entire population. Eating organic can cost up to 48% more than
eating food produced by conventional farming, and organic farming alone would not be
sufficient enough to feed the worlds population. According to Nobel Prize laureate, Dr. Norman
Borlaug, the earth only has enough soil and nitrate to feed a population of 4 billion people on an
organic diet (worldandsociety.worldpress.com). This truly puts humanity between a rock and a
hard place. In Agronomy for Sustainable Agriculture, sustainability is described as resting on
the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs (Lichfouse, 7). Having to chose between eating
unnatural foods or risk future starvation is the reason I would like to further study sustainable
agriculture. Finding a solution to feed mass amounts of people in a sustainable matter that
protects the environment, considers public health, and the welfare of animals is something that
society should be striving for.
The demand to produce more food than ever has sparked a harmful chain reaction of
practicing unnatural, harmful and unethical procedures. Though they may solve the issue of
impending famine, these could very well kick-start a population of damaged people living in a
damaged environment. From the chemicals used in growing crops, to the cruel practices of
slaughterhouses, to the impact of livestock on the environment, the food industry is not being run
in a sustainable manner. As stated in Sustainable Agriculture Volume 2, Mainstream goals such
as higher yields should be challenged and rethought to take into account other factors
agriculture is both the foundation and future of our society (Lichtfouse, 4). Since agriculture is
one of the most important practices that began with our early ancestorsand food is a basic
human necessity that every single life depends upon, then all of us need to be doing better. The
future of sustainable agriculture is all of our responsibility, not just the environmental scientists
and other experts in the field. Changes in diet, making different choices at grocery stores, and
being aware of where food comes from can produce small but significant results. More
importantly, people need to band together to express concerns over what is being used to produce
and treat the food that goes into our mouths, for the sake of the environment and our collective
health.

Claire Gegenheimer
10/05/2016

Works Cited
Foundation, GRACE Communications. "Welcome to Sustainable Table." GRACE
Communications Foundation. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
Lichtfouse, Eric. Sustainable Agriculture. Vol. 1. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag, 2009. Print.
Nardone, A. "Livestock Science." Effects of Climate Changes on Animal Production and
Sustainability of Livestock Systems 130.1-3 (2010): 57-69. Web.
"World Population Projected to Reach 9.6 Billion by 2050 UN Report." UN News Center. UN,
13 June 2013. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
"Yale University." Cattle Ranching in the Amazon Region. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.