Water Town: Food Production
How agriculture impacts the environment
Food Production
Creating a Healthier Environment
Why We Care
Committed to Environmental Protection
Chemistry is an essential discipline that provides a scientific aspect to the environmental impacts of human activity. Through chemistry, one can observe the detrimental effects of human activity in terms of actions such as food production. Providing awareness about the processes that take place in our air, water, and soil as a result of food production is an essential step to reversing human environmental impacts. If the general public receives well documented, informative data about the effects of our actions, and are also given a ‘pledge’ to follow, then a global effort to reduce ecological destruction can begin its infancy. The main focus of this paper will be on China. It is important to focus food production environmental projects in countries like China because developing countries deal with the most amount of change to their food production as the country moves away from rural to urban lifestyles. An example of this dramatic change in food production is the fact that diets fluctuate between different kinds of foods, and producing a variety of foods to accommodate those fluctuating diets can adversely affect the environment. Our paper will analyze the chemical effects of food production on the air, water, and soil in China and synthesize our findings into a ‘pledge’ for people across the globe to follow. By providing a means of spreading awareness about something as essential as food production and the detrimental effects an overabundance of food production can have, we will have contributed to the goal of DKU to help improve the ecological crisis humans currently face.
Air
Food production and air pollution have a two-way relationship in which food production significantly contributes to air pollution and, in turn, air pollution can impact food production. The increasing trade in agriculture products in the last years has further increased the amount of pollution emitted from the intensification process. In the same way, food production is threatened by air pollution. Ozone precursor emissions, such as nitrogen oxides and volatile compounds, greatly affect food production as they react to form ground-level ozone. Agriculture is the largest contributor of ammonia pollution and the emission of nitrogen compounds. This affects soil quality and, hence, the capacity of the soil to sustain plant and animal productivity. The ammonia formed through agriculture, enters the air as a gas from heavily fertilized fields and livestock waste. It combines with pollutants from combustion, including nitrogen oxides and sulfates from vehicles, industrial processes and power plants, which creates small solid particles or aerosols. In recent years, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer consumption reached 100 million tons, and total agricultural energy consumption peaked at 8 728 petajoules (Pingali 1997; Kimbrell 2002; Woodhouse 2010). In the crop cultivation system, we can see the production of different air pollutants such as GNGs, NH3 and PM. The primary environmental concern with ammonia emissions is formation of particles as a result of atmospheric reactions. Through crop cultivation, the chemical reactions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds can form the secondary pollutant of ozone (O3). Land occupation and soil microbial activity which are the principal pathways of ozone creation. In china, food production makes up for a large part of their economy. The agricultural input subsidies in China have accumulated up to 778.1 CNY (http://english.agri.gov.cn). The intensification of farming and agriculture in China has influenced the use of fertilizers and agro-inputs. Collected data shows that in China there is a chemical fertilizer overused and low environmental efficiency. The growing trade in China has further increased the amount of pollution emitted from the intensification process.
Impacts on Water
Agriculture accounts for 70% of the world’s water withdrawals (“FAO.org”) As food production has increased, consumption of water resources and runoff from farms has contributed to the pollution of water systems around the world, and specifically in China. As China develops, its population as well as wealth has increased, creating more mouths to feed. As a means of supporting the people and creating variety, agriculture has rapidly developed, increasing the use of water sources and fertilizers. China’s government largely supports increasing fertilizer use and has found itself in the position of contributing to over 30% of its use(citation). This dramatic use of one country is possible through continuous subsidies from the government, making it beneficial for agriculture farms to use fertilizers(Heffer, 2016). This has ultimately allowed excessive amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium oxide to find their way into water systems through irrigation systems and water-runoff. The growing use of fertilizers in the soil inflates the concentration of these pollutants in freshwater and coastal ecosystems. This leads to the phenomenon of eutrophication, where an excess amount of nutrients in the water systems encourage too much plant growth, killing off animal species("How Food Production Impacts Water Quality", 2012). Naturally, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium oxide are needed in water to allow ecosystems to grow food and maintain stability throughout the environment("How Food Production Impacts Water Quality", 2012). However, when the supply of these two becomes too great, the ecosystem can no longer survive.It is expected that by 2050, human created nitrogen will rise 50%, “appropriating more than ⅓ of production of terrestrial ecosystems and ½ of usable freshwater” (Tillman, 2001). If these levels continue to rise, especially at this rate, most of the aquatic ecosystems in the world, and more importantly China, will succumb to eutrophication. It is important for people to be aware of the growing consequences that agriculture contributes to environmental harm. As the issue of eutrophication grows, treatment becomes more and more expensive. In the U.S, $4.8 billion is spent annually to treat drinking water from the effects of runoff into freshwater systems(Tillman, 2001). As the production of food continues to increase, these costs will as well. It is vital to begin to search for solutions on how to feed a population this great, while continuing to preserve the water ecosystems.
Impacts on Soil
Soil pollution is mainly a product of a change in diets in China according to the country’s development. This change occurred because methods for agriculture allowed greater production of different varieties of food. (Delang 2017) This alteration to the soil that originally supported other types of food lead to nutrient depletion of the soil because the nutrient cycles were disrupted by the other types of food. For example, prior to China’s fast development, most of the population’s diet consisted of rice. However, after China’s development, a large portion of the population have started consuming much more fruits and vegetables as opposed to mostly cereals such as rice. These foods require extra nutrients to cultivate; thus, the nutrient cycles in the agricultural soil gets thrown out of balance. (Delang 2017) Nutrient cycles are essential to agricultural soils, similar to other cycles that maintain life such as the water-cycle and the Chapman cycle, because they solidify the balance of plant minerals required to keep the environment stable. An example of this cycle disruption in detail: vegetables have less-developed roots and have a tendency to grow and accumulate quickly; thus, they need a quicker soil nutrient release than cereals. (Delang 2017) The changing diets in China also leads to the application of higher amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Fertilizers and pesticides impact the soil by making it hard to cultivate crops for future use. To understand how fertilizers contribute to soil pollution, we need an explanation of what a fertilizer is. A fertilizer is a nutrient added to soil to increase its yield of fruits and vegetables. The most popular fertilizers contain three major nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. (Chemistry Explained 2019) Fertilizers are used to temporarily create more nutrient enriched soil. However, in the long run fertilizer contributes to a change in the pH of soil. (Science Line 2010) Therefore, fertilizers deplete soil quality. This in turn creates a higher demand for fertilizer. This cycle of increasing the demand for fertilizer, combined with the disruption of nutrient cycles caused by introducing new crops, ultimately leads to a rapid decline in arable agricultural land. This can have drastic negative effects on the plants in the soil, which leads to a negative impact on the surrounding environment. The other human commodity used to help create higher crop yields is pesticides. The term pesticide covers a wide range of compounds including herbicides, insecticides, etc. We will be looking the closest at herbicides because China has increasing overgrowth of weeds as a result of too much fertilizer being used; thus, causing the weeds to grow rapidly. (The current status of biological control of weeds in southern China and future options 2018). Weeds are particularly harmful because the overuse of herbicides to combat weeds can cause adverse effects to the environment and to humans. (Science Line 2010) These adverse effects stem from herbicides’ classification into a group called polar pesticides. Although polar pesticides can be moved from soil by runoff and leaching, this can create a drinking water supply problem for any nearby population. (Impact of pesticides use in agriculture: their benefits and hazards 2009) How pesticides, specifically herbicides, chemically behave is an important point because it displays how scientists are able to deduce problems from trying different solutions to combat different environmental problems. An example of this being herbicides having polar pesticide characteristics and how their removal be runoff can negatively impact nearby drinking water. Knowing the chemistry behind these important chemicals aids in developing unique methods to limit the negative effects of the above mentioned chemical properties of fertilizers and pesticides. Being educated in chemical processes can lead to a reduction to the negative impacts of changing nutrition cycles and fertilizers and pesticides This change will lead to alterations to appetites of people residing in developing countries to become less of a concern. This will in turn help reduce food waste and limit the contribution of food production to soil contamination. In conclusion, increases in food production leads to soil pollution in multiple ways. The implications of these observations impact how the development of food production ought to be conducted.
Five Ways:
Ways to Contribute
Choosing a Vegetarian Lifestyle
As a global community here at DKU it is vital to pioneer a way to preserve the environment for future generations. DKU has created a sustainability pledge to further our commitment. In relation to food, there are five items to consider. The first is to try to go vegetarian or vegan once a week. Vegetarian diets use much less water to produce plant protein than meat, preserving the already low water sources in the world. When meat is produced, it requires two to three times more agricultural land than a vegetables, as cattle need food themselves and room to graise(citation). In addition, vegetarian diets have the ability to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the polluted air by using less land to accommodate animal needs for roaming and grazing. Just switching to a vegetarian diet once a week decreases the amount of land needed for agriculture, the water used, and the emissions of harmful gases into the air.
Conclusion
The chemical processes behind food production polluters provides insight into how we can fix the problems plaguing food production. By adding this extra insight, the general public will graduate from a superficial understanding of the adverse environmental impacts of food production to a more sophisticated understanding, which will allow others to spread awareness more effectively and understand why reducing the effects of food production is so imperative. The connection to DKU’s sustainability pledge has given our paper the key features it requires to help everyone, and those in developing countries especially, take necessary steps to lower food production waste. These steps extend from knowing your diet to awareness of the number of napkins one should take from the dispenser. As discussed in the paper, the chemical impacts of food production on air, water, and soil display why these small steps are important if China, and the world, hope to conclude the detrimental effects of human activity specifically by a means of food production.
