Essay On The Harmful Effects Of Farming

How safe do you believe your food is? Is it truly healthy enough for human consumption? In American society today, these questions can be difficult to answer. Most Americans do not know where their food comes and what kind of conditions it was either growing in or living in, or what kind of processes has it undergone. In many large farms, toxic chemicals are used to protect crops, animals are not kept in sanitary conditions, and harmful irrigation methods can pollute local drinking water. To make matters worse, these harmful farming methods cause damage to more than just humans. Agriculture methods used today cause harm to humans, wildlife and the environment. However, methods for raising large amounts of crops and livestock to feed the U.S. population exist and can be implemented, while preserving the environment and limiting the amount of pesticides consumed by humans. There are many issues with agriculture methods used in the United States today. In fact, many human illnesses can be linked to unsafe farming practices. While some of these illnesses may be acute and only last for a few days, others are chronic and last a long amount of

Over farming of soil harms plants in the surrounding area as it depletes nitrogen from the soil, meaning that plants can no longer grow. By planting crops in the same soil year after year, nitrogen in the soil is slowly depleted, reducing the quality of the soil (Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture). This forces farmers to use fertilizers to restore the soil. To make matters worse, low-quality soil increased the chance of erosion, which can cause fertilizers, manure, pesticides, and herbicides to run off into nearby bodies of water (Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture). Once the chemicals are in the water they then become part of the drinking water of nearby people and animals, and if ingested these chemicals can make both people and animals become