Fact farm power pointtt final

Disadvantages- The environment § Not only is human health affected but also industrial agriculture and industrial livestock immensely impacts the environment. According to Cunningham, William and Saigo (2007) p. 104-106, there has been rapid deforestation of the tropical rainforests and deciduous forests to convert the land to farms and also a majority of grasslands and prairies have been converted to farms. Because industrial agriculture involves growing the same couple of crops year after year, this depletes the soil and makes the land unusable for agriculture, forcing the farmer to find new land to cultivate or use a high amount of fertilizer and pesticides. This high increase in nitrogen from the fertilizer and other pesticides runs off into streams and into oceans and harms fish, coral reefs and other wildlife that are important for our ecosystem’s biodiversity. Pesticides also harm the environment by killing off beneficial insects, like butterflies and bees that pollinate our plants. The farmer’s depletion of the soil has serious impacts on the topsoil of the land, as well. Topsoil is the most fertile part of the land because it stores the water and nutrients for the plants and it constantly renews itself and plays a vital role for our natural capital. It is one of the most important ecosystem services (Miller & Spoolman, 2016, p. 223). Industrial agriculture has eroded topsoil faster than it can renew itself and it has led to harmful environmental effects. It has led to the loss of soil fertility, increased water pollution because of the topsoil ending up in waterways and it releases the carbon that was stored in the soil into the atmosphere (Miller & Spoolman, 2016, p. 225). The extensive use of heavy machinery to plant, water, harvest and transport the crops also releases mass amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, furthering our impact on climate change as well as clearing or burning forests to make land for agriculture. A study in 2010 by the United Nations Environment Program, industrial agriculture uses immense quantities of the planet's resources. Worldwide it uses 70% of the freshwater removed from surface waters and aquifers and about 38% of the earth's ice-free land, releases about 25% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions, and makes 60% of all the water pollution (Miller & Spoolman, 2016, p. 223).