Chapters authored
Pollution Prevention, Best Management Practices, and Conservation
Farming imposes unenthusiastic externalities upon society. It effects by different sources such as loss of biodiversity, land erosion, nutrient overflow, more water usage and pesticides. Optimistic externalities include respect of nature, independence, free enterprise, and the quality of air. Natural methods decrease some of these costs. It has been proposed that organic farming can reduce the level of some negative externalities from (conventional) farming. Organic farming seems to be more appropriate as it considers important aspects such as sustainable natural resources and the environment. For sustainable agriculture, the most important key is the conservation of natural resources. As natural resources become increasingly short in supply, in the coming years the transition to a more resource-efficient economy must be a top priority. Agriculture is the most important sector for ensuring food security for next generations while decreasing the resource use and increasing resource recycling. Various studies have been conducted to compare organic and conventional farming systems and the result shows that organic techniques are less damaging than conventional ones because of the decreased level of biodiversity, less use of energy, and lesser amount of waste production. The researchers of various studies concluded that comparing conventional and organic farming demonstrated that organic agriculture poses lower environmental impacts. However, researchers believe that the perfect result would be the expansion of ways to produce the uppermost yields possible by the combination of these two farming systems and to develop the new system for environment, land, and sustainable forests. Biodiversity from organic farming provides assets to humans. Species found in organic farms increase sustainability by decreasing human inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers.
Part of the book: Organic Farming