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Environmental Security Essay

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The summer of 2012 was the worst drought the American Midwest had seen in decades, although irrigation has done much to modernize agriculture there is no substitute for rain. Crops nationwide withered under the heat of the merciless sun, the fate of those crops affected global populations until the following spring. But the question many professionals in the field have been asking is why? A factor of the 1940s Dust Bowl was the unsustainable farming practices of the time; but now keeping their soil healthy is a large concern to most farmers. This leaves only one possible suspect, nature; or what humans have done to it. The concept of Environmental Security is subjective and the effects of environmental issues weave through national and …show more content…

The USDA rejected the draft, they felt that the data used by the AHS was inaccurate. Farmers eventually started to notice discrepancies between the 1990 map and what they really saw. The country had gone for almost 20 years with an outdated hardiness zone map, prompting the National Arbor Day Foundation to try. Their findings seemed to validate the draft from the AHS three years earlier. The USDA continued to drag its feet, eventually making a new map in 2012. Showing the changes were actually more profound than what the AHS or the Arbor Day Foundation maps had shown. American farmers were overjoyed by the changes they saw, zones 5, 6 and 7 grew northward. These zones are where the most profitable crops in American agriculture are grown: corn and potatoes in zone 5, wheat and oats in zone 6 and cash crops like cotton and tobacco in zone 7. There are over $60 billion dollars made from the sale of American corn each year. With large crops growing better in wider areas substantial fiscal gains are expected to be made by many agri-giants like Conagra, Pioneer and Monsanto. But what of the independent American farmers? Although there is no way to predict the fate of an entire lifestyle, it is logical that as the agricultural conglomerates gain power and land there will be no room for the small farmer in a future of industrial agriculture. Although the environmental changes facing the United States show numerous benefits,

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