Intensive crop farming
Intensive crop farming's methods include innovation in agricultural machinery, farming methods, genetic engineering technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, patent protection of genetic information, and global trade.
The identification of nitrogen and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making more intensive uses of farmland for crop production possible.
Environmentally, industrial farming of crops is claimed to be responsible for loss of biodiversity, degradation of soil quality, soil erosion, food toxicity (pesticide residues) and pollution (through agrichemical build-ups and runoff, and use of fossil fuels for agrichemical manufacture and for farm machinery and long-distance distribution).
[citation needed] The novel technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of what some referred to as “miracle seeds.” [9][page needed] Scientists created strains of maize, wheat, and rice that are generally referred to as HYVs or “high-yielding varieties.” HYVs have an increased nitrogen-absorbing potential compared to other varieties.
Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes.
IR8, the first widely implemented HYV rice to be developed by IRRI, was created through a cross between an Indonesian variety named “Peta” and a Chinese variety named “Dee Geo Woo Gen.”[10] With the availability of molecular genetics in Arabidopsis and rice the mutant genes responsible (reduced height(rht), gibberellin insensitive (gai1) and slender rice (slr1)) have been cloned and identified as cellular signalling components of gibberellic acid, a phytohormone involved in regulating stem growth via its effect on cell division.
[citation needed] HYVs significantly outperform traditional varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Globally, it is the most important human food grain and ranks second in total production as a cereal crop behind maize; the third being rice.
With population growth rates falling, while yields continue to rise, the area devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time in modern human history.
In particular, spring fertilizers applications, herbicides, fungicides, growth regulators are typically applied at specific stages of plant development.
[citation needed] In North America, fields are often planted in a two-crop rotation with a nitrogen-fixing crop, often alfalfa in cooler climates and soybeans in regions with longer summers.
[citation needed] Before about World War II, most maize in North America was harvested by hand (as it still is in most of the other countries where it is grown).
strain CP4, inserted, by means of a gene gun, into its genome that allows the transgenic plant to survive being sprayed by this non-selective herbicide, glyphosate.
No-till agriculture has many advantages, greatly reducing soil erosion and creating better wildlife habitat;[14] it also saves fossil fuels, and sequesters CO2, a greenhouse effect gas.
[17] The largest commercial hydroponics facility in the world is Eurofresh Farms in Willcox, Arizona, which sold more than 200 million pounds of tomatoes in 2007.
This can save the farmer money by allowing reduced water use and the ability to measure consequences to the land around a farm.
[citation needed] The environment in a hydroponics greenhouse is tightly controlled for maximum efficiency and this new mindset is called soil-less/controlled-environment agriculture (S/CEA).
