The Top Reasons of Unsustainable Agriculture

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Sustainable agriculture has been defined in the last blog post of Carrhure. This blog will focus on the other side of the coin which is unsustainable agriculture. If sustainable agriculture is defined, then “as a method in agriculture that deals on how to produce food that does not destroy the environment and contributes to a community’s livelihood,” then unsustainable agriculture is the opposite of that.

This blog will resonate the five top reasons of unsustainable agricultural practices and why there is a destruction of the rural environment.

Policy failure

One of the best reasons of unsustainable agriculture involves inappropriate or inadequate policies that include a subsidy, pricing, and tax policies that have pushed the uneconomic and excessive fertilizer and pesticide use, as well as land overexploitation. These also involve policies that favor inappropriate farming systems to the farming community.

Various countries have made significant reformations of agricultural policies by creating new regulations, environmental taxes, or incentives. These include Sri Lanka and Philippines by implementing management of irrigation through water users’ groups. Kenya approached conversion of soil by catchment method. Indonesia has banned a number of pesticides. Bolivia has integrated regional agricultural and rural policies. However, none of these nations have made sustainable agriculture as their main goal in policy frameworks.

Rural inequalities

People who live in rural communities are well-versed when it comes to conserving the environment. However, because of extreme poverty, they have to overexploit resources in order to provide for their day to day needs.

Most rural residents often till the land yet do not know how to protect the environment. This causes unwanted pressure on the land that affects crop yield. If there is insufficient crop yield, then the economic status of rural people is affected.

Resource imbalances

The increase in the world population will dominate those in the developing countries. The largest increase in the population would be in the poorest nations. The problem lies in that these countries are the ones who do not have the capacity to meet their basic needs or even invest in the future.

Unsustainable technologies

Modern technologies have improved the production of agriculture globally. However, there are some technologies that have resulted in negative effects that must be reversed and stopped. These include biological diversity loss, poor irrigation management, depletion of nutrients, land degradation brought about by erosion of water and wind, and resistance of pests to pesticides.

Trade relations

Because of the decrease in the raw materials’ value exported by poor countries, their governments have found ways on how to increase income by expanding production of crops as well as timber. These resulted in damages in the environment.

Conclusion

Unsustainable agriculture is never a good practice to both developing and developed countries. Five reasons are given why there is unsustainable agriculture. The fight can be won over unsustainable agriculture if governments, private companies, and individuals do their share in doing sustainable practices.