집약적 농업이 무엇인가?

This post is part of a series of Care2 Earth Day posts. Click here for more in this series.

The goal of most types of farming methods is the same: to be as productive as possible while making the best use of the land available. The difference between various types of farming is what the farmer considers “productive” and the specific techniques used to achieve that desired level of productivity.

One technique for doing this, intensive farming, really emphasizes high productivity, and high input of capital investment in technology and machinery. It involves growing high yield crops (like corn, grains, and soybeans) on a relatively small piece of land (or only part of the land), using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides to get rid of pests and competing crops, and using highly efficient and advanced machinery to cultivate, plant, and harvest. And, if the farm is big enough, intensive farming uses a large amount of labor to apply these tools.

This intensity has also been applied to the raising of livestock, with increasing numbers of animals kept indoors and in smaller spaces, in what have become known as feedlots or factory farms.

There is no doubt that intensive farming produces more food per acre, or more food from a smaller area, since surrounding land doesn’t need to be farmed and often remains untouched. It also produces food more cheaply than other farming methods.

However, while it might yield higher volume, and saves consumers money, it has negative environmental effects. It kills off beneficial insects and plants, it depletes the soil, effects surrounding area through runoff and polluted water systems, and by eliminating competing crops it decreases biodiversity, and often destroys the natural habitat for animals, insects, birds, etc.

Organic farming is more environmentally friendly, and doesn’t use chemical pesticides, relying instead on techniques such as crop rotation and the introduction of beneficial pests. But, it does not typically produce as much food, is much more labor intensive, and usually needs more land to grow on.

However, there are sustainable and organic techniques that can be applied to intensive farming and horticulture.

In horticulture, Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening mentions intensive gardening, which means using things like intercropping (i.e. growing several crops in the same bed/field), close spacing of crops, using raised beds, focusing on soil fertility and using succession planting. As they say, “applied skillfully, intensive growing methods can produce harvests 4-10 times greater than might be expected from a conventional garden.”

This is what sustainable farmers do, only on a larger scale than home gardeners.

This post is part of a series of Care2 Earth Day posts. Click here for more in this series.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/what-is-intensive-farming.html#ixzz1r7obOK18