Environmental Effects of Fast-Food Essay

The primary determination What Is thorough Agriculture? of innate agriculture is to optimize the health A and productivity of interdependent According to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) of the United States section of Agriculture (USDA), constitutive(a) agriculture is an ecological outturn management remains that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and obscenity biological activity. It is based on minimal make physical exercise of of off-farm inputs and on communities of management practices that restore, husband, or enhance ecological harmony.The soil life, plants, rimary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of animals, and tidy sum. interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals, and people. (NOSB, 2003) Though the term organic is defined by law (see sanctioned section on pages 3 and 4), the terms natural and eco-friendly are not. Labels that carry off for those terms may imply some organic methods were used in the production of the foodstuff but do not guarantee polish off adherence to organic practices as defined by a law. about products marketed as natural may bring forth been produced with synthetic or fabricate products (those not onsidered to be organic), much(prenominal) as natural beef. kitchen-gardening without tion statistics in the United States the use of petroleum-based chemicals (USDA-ERS, 2002). This census, conductare young people (fertilizers and fellowicides) was the sole ed in 2002, identified U. S. farmers who and college-educated option for farmers until after World War report 2. 5 million acres of land II. The war brought with it technologies dedicated to organic production. This consumers. that were useful to agricultural producfigure probably under-represents current tion.For example, ammonium ion nitrate production because many organic farmused for munitions during World War II ers produce their products organically, volved into ammonium nitrate fer tilizer but sell less than $15,000 per year and are assuage organophosphate nerve gas production led to the from inspection (see Organic credential), or do development of powerful insecticides. These technot label their product as organic and, in general, nical advances since World War II have resulted in are direct marketing to a local customer. In 1999, square economic benefits as well as environIowa farmers reported 150,000 acres of organic mental and social detriments. Organic agriculture exploitland to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and seeks to use those advances that consistently yieldLand Stewardship (IDALS) survey. This increase in benefits, such as new varieties of crops, precision organic acreage in Iowa represents a two-baser from agriculture technologies, and more efficient the previous year and a six-fold increase since 1996. machinery, while discarding those methods that The U. S. organic constancy continues to grow at have led to negative impa cts on society and the a rate of 20 percent annually. Industry estimates environment, such as pesticide pollution and insect fixed it at $10 billion in 2001. The organic industry pest resistance. Organic farming is considered a s a consumer-driven market. According to industry systems approach, where interactions between surveys, the largest purchasers of organic products components (crops, animals, insects, soil) are as are young people and college-educated consumers. important as the whole farm itself.Today we are confront with the unique opportunity to Instead of using synthetic fertilizers, organic take advantage of a growing market demand and farmers use crop rotations, cover crops, and comuse the technologies developed over the past 50 post to maintain or enhance soil fertility. Also, years. More and more farmers are raise in nstead of using synthetic pesticides, organic the profitability and environmental benefits that farmers employment biological, cultural, and physical organic systems yield. methods to limit pest expansion and increase populations of proficient insects. Geneticallymodified organisms (GMOs), such as herbicideresistant seeds and plants, as well as product ingredients, such as GM-lecithin, are disallowed in organic agriculture because they constitute synthetic inputs and pose unknown risks (see GMO discussion opposite).