Aquaponics as an Alternative to Conventional Agriculture Essay

Severe water scarcity could be imminent in the not so distant future. Flooding crop furrows has been an inexpensive irrigation method for over six thousand years. Though traditional, it is very wasteful. An excessive amount of the water evaporates into he air, or soaks into the ground while the plants receive very little. The excess water drains into rivers and underground aquifers. The water running from the furrows is polluted with fertilizers. The constant use of flooding creates erosion, waterlogging and salinization of the soil. 40 percent of the world’s food grows on irrigated soil.

One of the most growing environmental concerns of our planet is the loss of tropical forests. Tropical forests are depleting at an alarming rate. A rate where demand far exceeds the supply. Of all the forest habitats, none seems to be more threatened than the tropical rainforests, as the world loses up to 20 million hectares of these forests annually, an 80 percent increase over previous estimates. In 1950, 30 percent of the world 's surface was covered by rainforests. By 1975 this area had shrunk to 12 percent. Today, tropical forests account for about 8 percent of the planet 's surface, an area roughly equal to that of the United States, constituting slightly less than half their prehistoric cover. Findings have shown that Africa has lost 60 percent of its original rainforests and Central America and Southeast Asia have lost nearly two thirds.

The earth is losing its forests. Presently, trees cover about 30 percent of the earth's surface, but they are being destroyed at an alarming rate, especially in the tropics.

The Earth is losing “upwards of 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest daily.” To put this into perspective this is 1/9 of the size of the state of Rhode Island that is being destroyed daily. Not only is the destruction of the rain forest causing problems for only the organisms living within the rainforest but also for people and industries worldwide. We need to save our rainforests so that we can continue to survive and also help the animals that live within the areas being destroyed. People are cutting these areas down for more development and empty land but causing more harm than good in the long run.

The rainforest is one of Earth's most valuable resources and at the destruction rate, people need to stop ignoring this problem. “Around the world, Tropical Rainforests are being destroyed at a rate of 80 to 90 acres each minute.”(Thompson, Heather) The rainforest is home of many living creatures and provide the world with many supplies such as, food, clean water, and housing, but soon the population of those living creatures will decrease and those supplies will be gone. People need to end deforestation globally because of the main effects it has on earth like the social, environmental, and loss of different species.

When a species goes extinct, people lose necessary goods that make life possible. Without a various range of life, nature will become imbalanced. The World Wildlife Fund has been successful in recovering several species populations. In turn, aiding in the protection of wealthy biodiverse ecosystems while ensuring people benefit from nature. The organization also works to conserve the world’s forests in order to maintain nature’s variety. Deforestation negatively impacts people and nature alike. Forests provide a variety of resources for all forms of life. 8 out of 10 land-living animals and about 300 million humans reside in forests. Not only are forests important to people and animals, but forest trees are necessary for Earth’s well being too. Forests are able to hold over 210 gigatons of CO2 (this is 7x the amount produced each year by human activities) (“WWF”). With this in mind, WWF wishes to reverse the degradation of the environment by rethinking how people make and use energy, food, water, and protect the Earth (“World Wildlife Fund,” Charity). So, people can become better prepared for a changing world.

“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe. ... What a terrible future! “(anton chekhov). Our forests are more vital to our survival than we know. If deforestation continues CO2 levels will increase and temperatures will rise. Less trees means less precipitation, this means less clouds that cool the earth's surface. The deforestation of the earth has been going on for too long without any recourse. Many of us are not aware that deforestation affects not only the animals but our lives as well. As deforestation continues we lead into bigger problems such as, soil erosion,water cycle and the loss of biodiversity in the atmosphere.

Rainforests have been on earth before humans ever existed on our planet. It is home to thousands of species of plants and animals. Unfortunately because of deforestation, we are endangering the biodiversity in which these plants and animals take refuge. Deforestation is when large quantities of trees are axed down to clear an area of forest so the land can be used for other purposes. Writer Alina Bradford who contributed to the article on Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects writes, “Deforestation occurs around the world, tropical rainforests are particularly targeted. NASA predicts that if current deforestation levels proceed, the world 's rainforests may be completely absent in as little as 100 years.” Earth 's forests are being cleared on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land.

“More than 80% of Earth’s natural forests have already been destroyed at the rate of 20,000 hectares per day” according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). Despite our dependence on forests for our means of survival, from the provision of livelihoods for us human-beings, the prevention of soil erosion, medicines derived from rainforest plants, to the air we breathe, we are still allowing them to disappear at shockingly high rates through deforestation. High deforestation rates, primarily as a result of the growing demand for agriculture, fuel use and production, fires, timber harvesting, logging, and pasture and clearing for livestock animals due to the exponential growth in human population, can be prevented through the requirement of

Modern agricultural though has developed into a global environmental and humanitarian issue. With the ever growing human population, our ability to sustain arable land is posing a

Deforestation is an increasingly prevalent problem worldwide. About half of the forests that once covered the Earth are now gone, much of which has happened in just the past few decades. Forests have been cleared mostly for fuel, building materials, and land for farming. Deforestation has been expanding and accelerating into the little amount of forests that remain across the world. Not only do forests provide useful products, but they also influence the Earth’s climate and are home to a remarkable amount of biological diversity. Deforestation has taken a lot of these elements away, and has also led to an increase in carbon dioxide. Without trees to use the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide put out by humans, the carbon dioxide simply remains in the atmosphere.

Agriculture, and the associated consumption of food, has been identified as one of the principal drivers of environmental degradation (Robinson & Harris 2012; UNEP 2010; Brown 2012), with industrial scale agriculture being of particular concern (Robinson & Harris 2012: 135); subsistence agriculture tends to have little environmental impacts, although some alteration to natural landscapes do take place (Robinson & Harris 2012: 135). Since the Green Revolution, these industrial crop systems have aimed to maximise the productivity of the land through the inputs of new technologies (ibid: 135). Such productivity increases are arguably necessary in view of the rising global population, with consumer demands only just being met (Figure 1.). However, this intensification is also unsustainable, and is associated with a number of environmental pressures, most notably soil degradation, habitat changes, climate change, excess water use, and pollution (Robinson & Harris 2012; Brown 2012; UNEP 2010; WWF n.d.).

Over the past four years in California there has been a devastating drought affecting the agriculture of the land. Their exportation of vegetables has drastically been changed due to this lack of precipitation. While, vegetables play a dominant role is California’s agriculture. In 2014, 24 percent of California’s $33 billion in crop sales were commercial vegetables (55 percent of all U.S. vegetable sales). The differentiating factor of farms that distinguishes the effects of the drought is it’s water source used. Some farms can see devastating numbers drop, but others do not have much change because they may use more stable irrigation systems (USDA). There is a demand for more systems to be put into place to bring California’s exports of vegetables back to the high numbers and more affordable prices they once were. Many scientists as well as citizens and the government of California are looking for more ways to relieve the farmers of this drought and look towards more ways to bring water to their dry farms.

“Agriculture must mediate between nature and human community, with ties and obligations in both directions. To farm well requires an elaborate courtesy toward all creatures, animate and inanimate” (Wendell Berry). Farming is a delicate balance between producing the most possible from the land without destroying the land. In order for farming to be sustainable more has to be grown with less. Water conservation can be addressed in developing countries by simply embracing modern farming methods. In developed countries more money will have to be invested into water saving irrigation methods. There was a time when you didn’t shut the water off when you brushed your teeth and now it is habit to shut the water off to save that little bit of water. The same spirit will have to implemented in farming simple methods can be used to save water. In order for farming to be sustainable in an ever changing world, more time and effort needs to be dedicated to water conservation because the population is growing, water is a finite resource, and using less water allows farmers to irrigate more land with the same amount of water.

Water is primarily irrigated; irrigated water is needed for growing the crops this planet survives and flourishes off of. There are various methods of irrigation, such as surface irrigation, drip/macro irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, and subsurface irrigation. Surface irrigation involves techniques where water is simply distributed over the soil surface by gravity. It is also the most common form of irrigation throughout the world. Drip irrigation delivers water directly to the root of a plant. This is a very effective method of irrigation because almost no water is lost through runoff or evaporation (Burt,…& Hardy, 2000). However, drip irrigation is rarely used by small-scale farmers, who face some of the worst water shortages, because of the high costs of this particular irrigation system (Burt,…& Eisenhauer, 1997). The selection of an irrigation method for agriculture is dependent on the type of crop, climate of the area, economics, water quality, energy availability, and multiple other factors (Burt,…& Hardy, 2000). The United States exports about one-third of all water it withdrawals in the form of crops and various other goods.