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Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to
extensive farming
Extensive farming or extensive agriculture (as opposed to intensive farming) is an Agriculture production system that uses small inputs of labour, fertilizers, and capital, relative to the land area being farmed.
Systems
Extensive farming is ...
), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, both of
crop plants
A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence agriculture, subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in a ...
and of
animals
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in ...
, with higher levels of input and output per unit of
agricultural land
Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...
area. It is characterized by a low
fallow
Fallow is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter while retaining moisture and disrupting pest life cycles ...
ratio, higher use of inputs such as
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
and
labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
, and higher
crop yield
In agriculture, the yield is a measurement of the amount of a crop grown, or product such as wool, meat or milk produced, per unit area of land. The seed ratio is another way of calculating yields.
Innovations, such as the use of fertilizer, the c ...
s per unit land area.
Most
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
agriculture is intensive in one or more ways. Forms that rely heavily on
industrial methods are often called industrial agriculture, which is characterised by
innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...
s designed to increase yield. Techniques include planting multiple crops per year, reducing the frequency of fallow years, and improving
cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...
s. It also involves increased use of
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s, plant growth regulators,
pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...
s,
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of ...
s for livestock and
mechanised agriculture
Mechanised agriculture or agricultural mechanization is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated, motorized equipment and machinery, to perform agricultural operations. In modern times, po ...
, controlled by increased and more detailed analysis of growing conditions, including weather,
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
, water, weeds, and pests. Intensive farms are widespread in
developed nation
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
s and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat,
dairy product
Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in th ...
s,
eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
, fruits, and vegetables available in
supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...
s are produced by such farms.
Some intensive farms can use
sustainable methods, although this typically necessitates higher inputs of labor or lower yields. Sustainably increasing
agricultural productivity
Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to inputs. While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known as crop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficu ...
, especially on
smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
s, is an important way of decreasing the amount of land needed for farming and slowing
environmental degradation
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment (biophysical), environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; an ...
through processes like
deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...
.
Intensive animal farming
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...
involves large numbers of animals raised on limited land, for example by
rotational grazing
In agriculture, rotational grazing, as opposed to continuous grazing, describes many systems of pasturing, whereby livestock are moved to portions of the pasture, called paddocks, while the other portions rest. Each paddock must provide all the n ...
,
or in the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. sometimes as
concentrated animal feeding operation
In animal husbandry, a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an intensive animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1,000 animal units are confined for over 45 days a ...
s. These methods increase the yields of food and fiber per acre as compared to extensive
animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starti ...
; concentrated feed is brought to seldom-moved animals, or with rotational grazing the animals are repeatedly moved to fresh forage.
[
]
History
Agricultural development in Britain between the 16th century and the mid-19th century saw a massive increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn contributed to unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped enable the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. Historians cited enclosure
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
, mechanization
Mechanization is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text a machine is defined as follows:
In some fields, mechanization includes the ...
, four-field crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant ...
, and selective breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant mal ...
as the most important innovations.
Industrial agriculture arose in the Industrial Revolution. By the early 19th century, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks, and cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...
s had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
.
The first phase involved a continuing process of mechanization. Horse-drawn machinery such as the McCormick reaper
Cyrus Hall McCormick (February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884) was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. Originally from the ...
revolutionized harvesting, while inventions such as the cotton gin
A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...
reduced the cost of processing. During this same period, farmers began to use steam-powered
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...
threshers and tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...
s. In 1892, the first gasoline-powered tractor was successfully developed, and in 1923, the International Harvester
The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated by IHC, IH, or simply International ( colloq.)) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household e ...
Farmall
Farmall was a model name and later a brand name for tractors manufactured by International Harvester (IH), an American truck, tractor, and construction equipment company. The Farmall name was usually presented as McCormick-Deering Farmall and l ...
tractor became the first all-purpose tractor, marking an inflection point in the replacement of draft animals with machines. Mechanical harvesters ( combines), planters, transplanters, and other equipment were then developed, further revolutionizing agriculture. These inventions increased yields and allowed individual farmers to manage increasingly large farms.
The identification of nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
, phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...
, and potassium
Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...
(NPK) as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s, further increasing crop yields
In agriculture, the yield is a measurement of the amount of a crop grown, or product such as wool, meat or milk produced, per unit area of land. The seed ratio is another way of calculating yields.
Innovations, such as the use of fertilizer, the c ...
. In 1909, the Haber-Bosch
The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today. It is named after its inventors, the German chemists Fritz Haber and C ...
method to synthesize ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It is ...
was first demonstrated. NPK fertilizers stimulated the first concerns about industrial agriculture, due to concerns that they came with side effects such as soil compaction
In geotechnical engineering, soil compaction is the process in which stress applied to a soil causes densification as air is displaced from the pores between the soil grains. When stress is applied that causes densification due to water (or other ...
, soil erosion
Soil erosion is the denudation or wearing away of the upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, and ...
, and declines in overall soil fertility
Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality. , along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply.[ (ebook }]
The discovery of vitamin
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an Nutrient#Essential nutrients, essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its ...
s and their role in nutrition
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient n ...
, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed some livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse natural elements.
Following World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
synthetic fertilizer use increased rapidly.
The discovery of antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of ...
s and vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...
s facilitated raising livestock by reducing diseases. Developments in logistics and refrigeration as well as processing technology made long-distance distribution feasible. Integrated pest management
Integrated pest management (IPM), also known as integrated pest control (IPC) is a broad-based approach that integrates both chemical and non-chemical practices for economic control of pests. IPM aims to suppress pest populations below the econ ...
is the modern method to minimize pesticide use to more sustainable levels.
There are concerns over the sustainability
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
of industrial agriculture, and the environmental effects of fertilizers and pesticides, which has given rise to the organic movement
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and individuals involved worldwide in the promotion of organic food and other organic products. It started during the first half of the 20th century, when modern large-scale agricultural pr ...
and has built a market for sustainable intensive farming, as well as funding for the development of appropriate technology
Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and locally ...
.
Techniques and technologies
Livestock
Pasture intensification
Pasture intensification is the improvement of pasture
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...
soils and grasses to increase the food production potential of livestock systems. It is commonly used to reverse pasture degradation
Degradation may refer to:
Science
* Degradation (geology), lowering of a fluvial surface by erosion
* Degradation (telecommunications), of an electronic signal
* Biodegradation of organic substances by living organisms
* Environmental degradation ...
, a process characterized by loss of forage
Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...
and decreased animal carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
which results from overgrazing
Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature res ...
, poor nutrient management
Nutrient management is the science and practice directed to link soil, crop, weather, and hydrologic factors with cultural, irrigation, and soil and water conservation practices to achieve optimal nutrient use efficiency, crop yields, crop quali ...
, and lack of soil conservation
Soil conservation is the prevention of loss of the topmost layer of the soil from erosion or prevention of reduced fertility caused by over usage, acidification, salinization or other chemical soil contamination.
Slash-and-burn and other unsust ...
. This degradation leads to poor pasture soils with decreased fertility and water availability and increased rates of erosion, compaction, and acidification
Acidification may refer to:
* Ocean acidification, decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans
* Freshwater acidification, atmospheric depositions and soil leaching of SOx and NOx
* Soil acidification, buildup of hydrogen cations, which reduces the ...
. Degraded pastures have significantly lower productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
and higher carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
s compared to intensified pastures.
Management practices which improve soil health and consequently grass
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...
productivity include irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...
, soil scarification, and the application of lime
Lime commonly refers to:
* Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit
* Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide
* Lime (color), a color between yellow and green
Lime may also refer to:
Botany ...
, fertilizers, and pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...
s. Depending on the productivity goals of the target agricultural system, more involved restoration projects can be undertaken to replace invasive and under-productive grasses with grass species that are better suited to the soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
and climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...
conditions of the region. These intensified grass systems allow higher stocking rates with faster animal weight gain and reduced time to slaughter, resulting in more productive, carbon-efficient livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...
systems.
Another technique to optimize yield while maintaining the carbon balance is the use of integrated crop-livestock (ICL) and crop-livestock-forestry (ICLF) systems, which combine several ecosystems into one optimized agricultural framework. Correctly performed, such production systems are able to create synergies potentially providing benefits to pastures through optimal plant usage, improved feed and fattening rates, increased soil fertility and quality, intensified nutrient cycling
A nutrient cycle (or ecological recycling) is the movement and exchange of inorganic and organic matter back into the production of matter. Energy flow is a unidirectional and noncyclic pathway, whereas the movement of mineral nutrients is cycli ...
, integrated pest control
Pest control is the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest; any animal, plant or fungus that impacts adversely on human activities or environment. The human response depends on the importance of the damage done and will range ...
, and improved biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
. The introduction of certain legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...
crops to pastures can increase carbon accumulation and nitrogen fixation
Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atmo ...
in soils, while their digestibility helps animal fattening and reduces methane emissions
Increasing methane emissions are a major contributor to the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, and are responsible for up to one-third of near-term global heating. During 2019, about 60% (360 million tons) of methane r ...
from enteric fermentation
Enteric fermentation is a digestive process by which carbohydrates are broken down by microorganisms into simple molecules for absorption into the bloodstream of an animal. Because of human agricultural reliance in many parts of the world on anima ...
. ICLF systems yield beef cattle productivity up to ten times that of degraded pastures; additional crop production from maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
, sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
, and soybean
The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses.
Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...
harvests; and greatly reduced greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...
balances due to forest carbon sequestration.
In the Twelve Aprils grazing program for dairy production, developed by the USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
-SARE Sare may refer to:
People
* Bakary Saré (born 1990), Burkinabé football player
* Clyde W. Sare (1936–2015), American politician and businessman
* Haig Sare (born 1982), Australian rugby union player
* Hamit Şare (born 1982), Turkish alpine sk ...
, forage crops for dairy herds are planted into a perennial
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
pasture.
Rotational grazing
Rotational grazing is a variety of foraging in which herds or flocks are regularly and systematically moved to fresh, rested grazing areas (sometimes called paddocks
A paddock is a small enclosure for horses. In the United Kingdom, this term also applies to a field for a general automobile racing competition, particularly Formula 1.
Description
In Canada and the United States of America, a paddock is a smal ...
) to maximize the quality and quantity of forage growth. It can be used with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other animals. The herds graze one portion of pasture, or a paddock, while allowing the others to recover. Resting grazed lands allows the vegetation to renew energy reserves, rebuild shoot systems, and deepen root systems, resulting in long-term maximum biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
production.[ Pasture systems alone can allow grazers to meet their energy requirements, but rotational grazing is especially effective because grazers thrive on the more tender younger plant stems. Parasites are also left behind to die off, minimizing or eliminating the need for de-wormers. With the increased productivity of rotational systems, the animals may need less supplemental feed than in continuous grazing systems. Farmers can therefore increase stocking rates.]
Concentrated animal feeding operations
Intensive livestock farming or "factory farming", is the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density.[Kaufmann, Mark]
"Largest Pork Processor to Phase Out Crates"
''The Washington Post'', January 26, 2007.["EU tackles BSE crisis"](_blank)
BBC News, November 29, 2000. "Concentrated animal feeding operations
In animal husbandry, a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an intensive animal feeding operation (AFO) in which over 1,000 animal units are confined for over 45 day ...
" (CAFO), or "intensive livestock operations", can hold large numbers (some up to hundreds of thousands) of cows, hogs, turkeys, or chickens, often indoors. The essence of such farms is the concentration of livestock in a given space. The aim is to provide maximum output at the lowest possible cost and with the greatest level of food safety. The term is often used pejoratively. CAFOs have dramatically increased the production of food from animal husbandry worldwide, both in terms of total food produced and efficiency.
Food and water is delivered to the animals, and therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements, and growth hormones are often employed. Growth hormones are not used on chickens nor on any animal in the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
. Undesirable behaviors often related to the stress of confinement led to a search for docile breeds (e.g., with natural dominant behaviors bred out), physical restraints to stop interaction, such as individual cages for chickens, or physical modification such as the debeaking
Debeaking, beak trimming (also spelt beak-trimming), or beak conditioning is the partial removal of the beak of poultry, especially layer hens and turkeys although it may also be performed on quail and ducks. Most commonly, the beak is shortene ...
of chickens to reduce the harm of fighting.
The CAFO designation resulted from the 1972 U.S. Federal Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the responsibiliti ...
, which was enacted to protect and restore lakes and rivers to a "fishable, swimmable" quality. The United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as "point source" groundwater
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...
polluters. These operations were subjected to regulation.
In 17 states in the U.S., isolated cases of groundwater contamination
Groundwater pollution (also called groundwater contamination) occurs when pollutants are released to the ground and make their way into groundwater. This type of water pollution can also occur naturally due to the presence of a minor and unwanted ...
were linked to CAFOs. For example, the ten million hogs in North Carolina generate 19 million tons of waste per year. The U.S. federal government acknowledges the waste disposal
Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal.
This includes the collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste, together with monitoring ...
issue and requires that animal waste
Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutrie ...
be stored in lagoons
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
. These lagoons can be as large as . Lagoons not protected with an impermeable liner can leak into groundwater under some conditions, as can runoff from manure used as fertilizer. A lagoon that burst in 1995 released 25 million gallons of nitrous sludge in North Carolina's New River. The spill allegedly killed eight to ten million fish.
The large concentration of animals, animal waste, and dead animals in a small space poses ethical issues to some consumers. Animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
and animal welfare
Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...
activists have charged that intensive animal rearing is cruel to animals.
Crops
The Green Revolution
The Green Revolution, also known as the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields and agricultural production. These changes in agriculture began in developed countrie ...
transformed farming in many developing countries. It spread technologies that had already existed, but had not been widely used outside of industrialized nations. These technologies included "miracle seeds", pesticides, irrigation, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.[Brown, 1970. ]
Seeds
In the 1970s, scientists created high-yielding varieties of maize, wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
, and rice. These have an increased nitrogen-absorbing potential compared to other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge (fall over) before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. Norin 10 wheat
is a semi-dwarf wheat cultivar with very large ears that was bred by at an experimental station in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Its parents were a semi-dwarf Japanese landrace that may have originated in Korea in the 3rd or 4th century AD, and two ...
, a variety developed by Orville Vogel Orville Vogel (1907–1991) was an American scientist and wheat breeder whose research made possible the "Green Revolution" in world food production.
Life and career
Orville Alvin Vogel was born in Pilger, Stanton County, Nebraska, one of the four ...
from Japanese dwarf wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeological ...
varieties, was instrumental in developing wheat cultivars. IR8 IR8 is a high-yielding semi-dwarf rice variety developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the early 1960s. It was the work by Peter Jennings (no relation to the U.S. journalist) and Henry Beachell. In November 1966, IR8 was i ...
, the first widely implemented high-yielding rice to be developed by the International Rice Research Institute
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its wor ...
, was created through a cross between an Indonesian variety named "Peta" and a Chinese variety named "Dee Geo Woo Gen".
With the availability of molecular genetics in ''Arabidopsis
''Arabidopsis'' (rockcress) is a genus in the family Brassicaceae. They are small flowering plants related to cabbage and mustard. This genus is of great interest since it contains thale cress (''Arabidopsis thaliana''), one of the model organi ...
'' and rice the mutant genes responsible (''reduced height (rht)'', ''gibberellin insensitive (gai1)'' and ''slender rice (slr1)'') have been cloned and identified as cellular signalling components of gibberellic acid
Gibberellic acid (also called gibberellin A3, GA, and GA3) is a hormone found in plants and fungi. Its chemical formula is C19H22O6. When purified, it is a white to pale-yellow solid.
Plants in their normal state produce large amounts of GA3. It ...
, a phytohormone
Plant hormone (or phytohormones) are signal molecules, produced within plants, that occur in extremely low concentrations. Plant hormones control all aspects of plant growth and development, from embryogenesis, the regulation of organ size, pat ...
involved in regulating stem growth via its effect on cell division. Photosynthate investment in the stem is reduced dramatically in shorter plants and nutrients become redirected to grain production, amplifying in particular the yield effect of chemical fertilizers.
High-yielding varieties outperformed traditional varieties several fold and responded better to the addition of irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers. Hybrid vigour
Heterosis, hybrid vigor, or outbreeding enhancement is the improved or increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. An offspring is heterotic if its traits are enhanced as a result of mixing the genetic contributions of ...
is utilized in many important crops to greatly increase yields for farmers. However, the advantage is lost for the progeny of the F1 hybrids
An F1 hybrid (also known as filial 1 hybrid) is the first filial generation of offspring of distinctly different parental types. F1 hybrids are used in genetics, and in selective breeding, where the term F1 crossbreed may be used. The term is somet ...
, meaning seeds for annual crops need to be purchased every season, thus increasing costs and profits for farmers.
Crop rotation
Crop rotation or crop sequencing is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops
A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponics ...
in the same space in sequential seasons for benefits such as avoiding pathogen and pest buildup that occurs when one species is continuously cropped. Crop rotation also seeks to balance the nutrient demands of various crops to avoid soil nutrient
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former t ...
depletion. A traditional component of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of legumes and green manure
In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically produced to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) manure. The primary goal ...
in sequence with cereals and other crops. Crop rotation can also improve soil structure
Soil structure describes the arrangement or the way of soil in the solid parts of the soil and of the pore space located between them. It is determined by how individual soil granules clump, bind together, and aggregate, resulting in the arrangem ...
and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants. A related technique is to plant multi-species cover crops
In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in ...
between commercial crops. This combines the advantages of intensive farming with continuous cover and polyculture
In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species in the same space, at the same time. In doing this, polyculture attempts to mimic the diversity of natural ecosystems. Polyculture is the opposite of monoculture, i ...
.
Irrigation
Crop irrigation accounts for 70% of the world's fresh water use. Flood irrigation
Surface irrigation is where water is applied and distributed over the soil surface by gravity. It is by far the most common form of irrigation throughout the world and has been practiced in many areas virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
S ...
, the oldest and most common type, is typically unevenly distributed, as parts of a field may receive excess water in order to deliver sufficient quantities to other parts. Overhead irrigation, using center-pivot or lateral-moving sprinklers, gives a much more equal and controlled distribution pattern. Drip irrigation
Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation is a type of micro-irrigation system that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface. ...
is the most expensive and least-used type, but delivers water to plant roots with minimal losses.
Water catchment
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...
management measures include recharge pits, which capture rainwater and runoff and use it to recharge groundwater supplies. This helps in the replenishment of groundwater wells and eventually reduces soil erosion. Dammed rivers creating reservoirs
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...
store water for irrigation and other uses over large areas. Smaller areas sometimes use irrigation ponds or groundwater.
Weed control
In agriculture, systematic weed management is usually required, often performed by machines such as cultivators or liquid herbicide sprayers. Herbicides
Herbicides (, ), also commonly known as weedkillers, are substances used to control undesired plants, also known as weeds.EPA. February 201Pesticides Industry. Sales and Usage 2006 and 2007: Market Estimates. Summary in press releasMain page fo ...
kill specific targets while leaving the crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often based on plant hormones
A hormone (from the Ancient Greek, Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of cell signaling, signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and beh ...
. Weed control
Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natur ...
through herbicide
Herbicides (, ), also commonly known as weedkillers, are substances used to control undesired plants, also known as weeds.EPA. February 201Pesticides Industry. Sales and Usage 2006 and 2007: Market Estimates. Summary in press releasMain page fo ...
is made more difficult when the weeds become resistant to the herbicide. Solutions include:
* Cover crops (especially those with allelopathic
Allelopathy is a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have ben ...
properties) that out-compete weeds or inhibit their regeneration
* Multiple herbicides, in combination or in rotation
* Strains genetically engineered for herbicide tolerance
* Locally adapted strains that tolerate or out-compete weeds
* Tilling
* Ground cover such as mulch or plastic
* Manual removal
* Mowing
* Grazing
* Burning
Terracing
In agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, a Terrace (agriculture), terrace is a leveled section of a hilly cultivated area, designed as a method of soil conservation to slow or prevent the rapid surface runoff of irrigation water. Often such land is formed into multiple terraces, giving a stepped appearance. The human landscapes of rice cultivation in terraces that follow the natural contours of the escarpments, like contour ploughing, are a classic feature of the island of Bali and the Banaue Rice Terraces in Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines. In Peru, the Tahuantinsuyu, Inca made use of otherwise unusable slopes by building drystone walls to create terraces known as Andéns.
Rice paddies
A paddy field is a flooded parcel of arable land used for growing rice and other Aquatic plant, semiaquatic crops. Paddy fields are a typical feature of rice-growing countries of East Asia, east and southeast Asia, including Malaysia, China, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. They are also found in other rice-growing regions such as Piedmont (Italy), the Camargue (France), and the Artibonite Valley (Haiti). They can occur naturally along rivers or marshes, or can be constructed, even on hillsides. They require large water quantities for irrigation, much of it from flooding. It gives an environment favourable to the strain of rice being grown, and is hostile to many species of weeds. As the only draft animal species which is comfortable in wetlands, the water buffalo is in widespread use in Asian rice paddies.
A recent development in the intensive production of rice is the System of Rice Intensification. Developed in 1983 by the France, French Jesuit Priest, Father Henri de Laulanie, Henri de Laulanié in Madagascar,[Intensive Rice Farming in Madagascar]
by H. De Laulanié, i
Tropicultura
2011, 29, 3, 183–187 by 2013 the number of smallholder farmers using the system had grown to between 4 and 5 million.
Aquaculture
Aquaculture is the cultivation of the natural products of water (fish, shellfish, algae, seaweed, and other aquatic organisms). Intensive aquaculture takes place on land using tanks, ponds, or other controlled systems, or in the ocean, using cages.
Sustainability
Intensive farming practices which are thought to be Sustainable farming, sustainable have been developed to slow the deterioration of agricultural land and even regenerate soil health and ecosystem services. These developments may fall in the category of organic farming, or the integration of organic and conventional agriculture.
Pasture cropping involves planting grain crops directly into grassland without first applying herbicides. The perennial grasses form a living mulch understory to the grain crop, eliminating the need to plant cover crops after harvest. The pasture is intensively grazed both before and after grain production. This intensive system yields equivalent farmer profits (partly from increased livestock forage) while building new topsoil and Carbon sequestration, sequestering up to 33 tons of CO2/ha/year.
Biointensive agriculture focuses on maximizing efficiency such as per unit area, energy input and water input.
Agroforestry combines agriculture and orchard/forestry technologies to create more integrated, diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.
Intercropping can increase yields or reduce inputs and thus represents (potentially sustainable) agricultural intensification. However, while total yield per acre is often increased, yields of any single crop often diminish. There are also challenges to farmers relying on farming equipment optimized for monoculture, often resulting in increased labor inputs.
Vertical farming is intensive crop production on a large scale in urban centers, in multi-story, artificially-lit structures, for the production of low-calorie foods like herbs, microgreens, and lettuce.
An integrated farming system is a progressive, sustainable agriculture system such as zero waste agriculture or integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, which involves the interactions of multiple species. Elements of this integration can include:
* Intentionally introducing flowering plants into agricultural ecosystems to increase pollen-and nectar-resources required by natural enemies of insect pests
* Using crop rotation and cover crops to suppress nematodes in potatoes
* Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture is a practice in which the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s, food) for another.
Holistic management was originally developed for reversing desertification. Holistic planned grazing is similar to rotational grazing but accentuates the four principles of the water cycle, the mineral cycles (including the carbon cycle), Energy flow (ecology), energy flow and ecology.
Challenges
The challenges and issues of industrial agriculture for society, for the sector, and for animal rights, include the costs and benefits of both current practices and proposed changes to those practices. This is a continuation of thousands of years of invention in feeding growing populations.
Population growth
Very roughly:
* 30,000 years ago hunter-gatherer behavior fed 6 million people
* 3,000 years ago primitive agriculture fed 60 million people
* 300 years ago a more intensive agriculture fed 600 million people
* Today industrial agriculture attempts to feed 8 billion people
Between 1930 and 2000, U.S. agricultural productivity (output divided by all inputs) rose by an average of about 2 percent annually, causing food prices to decrease. "The percentage of U.S. disposable income spent on food prepared at home decreased, from 22 percent as late as 1950 to 7 percent by the end of the century."
Other impacts
Environmental
Industrial agriculture uses huge amounts of water, World energy resources and consumption, energy, and Chemical industry, industrial chemicals, increasing pollution in the Land pollution, arable land, Water pollution, usable water, and Air pollution, atmosphere. Herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s accumulate in Groundwater, ground and surface waters. Industrial agricultural practices are one of the main drivers of global warming, accounting for 14–28% of net greenhouse gas emissions.
Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture may emerge at some distance from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, causing so-called oceanic dead zones.
Many wild plant and animal species have become extinct on a regional or national scale, and the functioning of agro-ecosystems has been profoundly altered. Agricultural intensification includes a variety of factors, including the loss of landscape elements, increased farm and field sizes, and increase usage of insecticides and herbicides .The large scale of insecticides and herbicides lead to the rapid developing resistance among pests renders herbicides and insecticides increasingly ineffective. Agrochemicals have been implicated in colony collapse disorder, in which the individual members of bee colonies disappear. (Agricultural production is highly dependent on bees to pollinate many varieties of fruits and vegetables.)
Intensive farming creates conditions for parasite growth and transmission that are vastly different from what parasites encounter in natural host populations, potentially altering selection on a variety of traits such as life-history traits and virulence. Some recent epidemic outbreaks have highlighted the association with intensive agricultural farming practices. For example the infectious salmon anaemia virus, infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) virus is causing significant economic loss for salmon farms. The ISA virus is an orthomyxovirus with two distinct clades, one European and one North American, that diverged before 1900 (Krossøy et al. 2001). This divergence suggests that an ancestral form of the virus was present in wild salmonids prior to the introduction of cage-cultured salmonids. As the virus spread from vertical transmission (parent to offspring).
Intensive monoculture increases the risk of failures due to Pest (agriculture), pests, adverse weather and disease.
Social
A study for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment concluded that regarding industrial agriculture, there is a "negative relationship between the trend toward increasing farm size and the social conditions in rural communities" on a "statistical level". Agricultural monoculture can entail social and economic risks.[
]
See also
* Convertible husbandry
* Dryland farming
* Environmental issues with agriculture
* Green Revolution
The Green Revolution, also known as the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields and agricultural production. These changes in agriculture began in developed countrie ...
* Industrial crop
* Pekarangan
* Small-scale agriculture
* Intensive animal farming
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...
References
External links
*
{{Industries
Intensive farming,
Commercial farming