Lack of awareness and the knowledge on the dangers posed by chemical stuffs on the conventionally grown products to the growers, consumers and environment. Essay
Lack of awareness and the knowledge on the dangers posed by chemical stuffs on the conventionally grown products to the growers, consumers and environment., 482 words essay example
Essay Topic:environment,knowledge
From the preface of the scientific agriculture, farmers and consumers have lack of awareness and the knowledge on the dangers posed by chemical stuffs on the conventionally grown products to the growers, consumers and environment. In conventional farming used toxic materials for protecting crops without putting concerns about the other problematic issues they will generate and their bad effects. In conventionally farmed crops put human health in danger. Residues of the chemicals used in the crops ends up being ingested to the consumers of those foods. This is responsible for different health effects such as staving off the hormones, nervous and the immune systems.
Conventional agriculture doesn't take into account of its impression on the environment either. So much pollution has evolved from environmentally careless practices of chemical depositing causing destruction of insects and other organism's masses, fertility decline, water, air and soil pollution. Mechanization has encouraged to cutting down trees and loss of ground coating. This simplify erosion and later desertification while monoculture which is linked with mechanization, has brought the loss of indigenous food stuffs and seed banks then exclusion of communities nutritional security. Create dependency on external inputs, this create complexity of debts for the rural poor farmers and increase poverty levels because majority can't cope with the ever increasing prices of the farm inputs.
Over the past 40 years, per capita world food production has grown by 25%, and food prices in real terms have fallen by 40%. Between the early 1960s and mid-1990s, average cereal yields grew from 1.2 t/ha to 2.52 t/ha in developing countries whilst total cereal production has grown from 420 to 1176 million tons per year (Pretty and Hine 2000). In the year 2000, there were 790 million hungry people. Despite progress on average per capita consumption of food (up 17% in the past 30 years to 2760 kcal), people in 33 countries still consume less than 2200 kcal per day (Pretty and Hine 2000).
Yet paradoxically, at the same time, 1.2 billion people, mostly in the developed world, are over-eating giving rise to a new range of health concerns related to over consumption (Worldwatch Institute2000).
"There is enough for everybody's need but not enough for everybody's greed." Mahatma Gandhi
The IFPRI-IMPACT model was applied to find out the result of large scale conversion to organic farming on food security of Sub-Saharan Africa. The model exposed that large scale conversion to organic farming in Europe and North America will not have key impact on food security. In Africa large scale conversion in Sub-Saharan Africa will elevate the local food security.
Global food production and production of cereals and the other crops increased for the last few decades. The world routine calorie consumption increased from 2550 kcal per individual per day in 1981 to 2800 kcal per individual per day in 2003(FAOSTAT, 2005). Current global food production would be enough to provide everyone with his minimum calorie needs if available food can be distributed properly according to the needs (Von Braun et al., 2003).