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The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. [1] The environmental impact of agriculture varies widely based on practices employed by farmers and by the scale of practice.
The ecosystem service-centered approach posits that individuals and society as a whole receive benefits from ecosystems, which are called "ecosystem services". [ 105 ] [ 107 ] In sustainable agriculture, the services that ecosystems provide include pollination , soil formation , and nutrient cycling , all of which are necessary functions for ...
Despite this, all agricultural practices have been found to have a variety of effects on the environment to some extent. Animal agriculture, in particular meat production, can cause pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, disease, and significant consumption of land, food, and water.
Like other ecosystems, agroecosystems form partially closed systems in which animals, plants, microbes, and other living organisms and their environment are interdependent and regularly interact. They are somewhat arbitrarily defined as a spatially and functionally coherent unit of agricultural activity.
One of the issues facing biodiversity in areas of industrial agriculture is the loss of heterogeneity, described by the loss of a biotic and abiotic diversity. [1] [3] Since 1966, the Green Revolution enhanced agricultural productivity through technological, economical, and political advancements in an effort to increase food security globally. [14]
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, [1] improving the water cycle, [2] enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, [3] increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.
The evidence for past and present agricultural use of wetlands in Mesoamerica suggests an evolutionary sequence of landscape and waterway alteration. [32] Pre-Columbian , indigenous agriculturalists developed capabilities with which to raise crops under a wide range of ecological conditions, giving rise to a multiplicity of altered, cultivated ...
Fließbach A., Oberholzer H., Gunst L., and Mäder P. ( 2006). Soil organic matter and biological soil quality indicators after 21 years of organic and conventional farming. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 118: 273-284