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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.
There are numerous effects of climate change on agriculture, many of which are making it harder for agricultural activities to provide global food security. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns often result in lower crop yields due to water scarcity caused by drought , heat waves and flooding . [ 5 ]
Pollutants from agriculture greatly affect water quality and can be found in lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and groundwater. Pollutants from farming include sediments, nutrients, pathogens, pesticides, metals, and salts. [1] Animal agriculture has an outsized impact on pollutants that enter the environment.
The environmental impacts of animal agriculture vary because of the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Despite this, all agricultural practices have been found to have a variety of effects on the environment to some extent.
Extremes matter because agricultural productivity is driven largely by environmental conditions during critical threshold periods of crop and livestock development. Improved assessment of climate change effects on agricultural productivity requires greater integration of extreme events into crop and economic models. [7]
Traditional rice cultivation is the second biggest agricultural methane source after livestock, with a near-term warming impact equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from all aviation. [73] Government involvement in agricultural policy is limited due to the high demand for agricultural products like corn, wheat, and milk. [74]
Therefore, any comprehensive plan of adaptation to the effects of climate change, particularly the present and future effects of climate change on agriculture, must also consider livestock. [99] [100] Livestock activities also contribute disproportionately to land-use effects, since crops such as corn and alfalfa are cultivated to feed the ...
The environmental impact of agriculture involves a variety of factors from the soil, to water, the air, animal and soil diversity, plants, and the food itself. Some of the environmental issues that are related to agriculture are climate change, deforestation, genetic engineering, irrigation problems, pollutants, soil degradation, and waste.