What is row cropping and how is it killing our environment? Well let's take a look.
Row cropping is used by big industry farms that have "kicked out" smaller family owned farms. These farms are known as factor farms. They do not practice sustainable farming and do not have a crop rotation. Factor farms have changed the landscape from rolling prairies, big forests, prairie potholes, and small duck ponds but now it is just rows of crops in a way that is bad for the soil and the water.
Factory farms are using fertilizer to try and keep their crops alive and get them the right nutrients. The fertilizer they used is mostly consisted of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. This farming is bad for the soil because when you plant the same crop every year without a crop rotation, the nutrients that crop needs aren't in the soil. So in order for them to keep planting the same crop they are constantly using fertilizer to try and grow their crops. Even with the consistent fertilizing the nutrients aren't staying in the soil but instead it's becoming apart of the watershed and causing major problems with the local water in lakes and rivers.
This watershed from farmland is creating "Dead Zones" and toxic algal blooms. This watershed is finding its way into the lakes and rivers. The tributary rivers from Montana to New York which fed into the Mississippi river are high in nitrogen and phosphorous.
There is three times as much nitrogen as there was in 1950 in the Mississippi river and phosphorous has doubled. This means there is more phytoplankton, more sinking cells, and lower oxygen levels. Once the oxygen levels get around or below 2 the fish start to leave or die.
This gif from a climate.gov website shows what the oxygen levels could be if we don't change how we farm.
What can we do to help solve the problem? Well we can start be having an annual crop rotation to keep healthy nutrient levels in the soil. Another solution would be to plant a few rows of trees, shrubs and a grass strip. This will make a riparian buffer which will reduce sediment erosion and to help prevent fertilizer from getting into the rivers.
Works Cited
Rabalais, Nancy. "The Dead Zones." Nov. 2017. Ted.com, uploaded by NancyRabalais, Nov. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/
nancy_rabalais_the_dead_zone_of_the_gulf_of_mexico#t-525069. Accessed 19
Nov. 2019. Speech.
Shannon1. "Detailed map of Mississippi River tributary structure." 2019.
American Rivers, www.americanrivers.org/river/mississippi-river/.
Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
Lindsey, Rebecca. "Wet spring linked to forecast for big Gulf of Mexico 'dead
zone' this summer." Climate.gov, www.climate.gov/news-features/features/
wet-spring-linked-forecast-big-gulf-mexico-%E2%80%98dead-zone%E2%80%99-summer.
Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
United States, Congress, Senate. Harmful Algal Bloom Research and Hypoxia
Research and Control Act of 1998. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/
105th-congress/senate-bill/1480. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019. 105th Congress,
Senate Bill s.1480, agreed to by Senate 30 Sept. 1988.
Hypoxia Task Force, Environmental Protection Agency. (2015). Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force 2015 Report to Congress. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/htf_report_to_congress_final_-_10.1.15.pdf (Accessed June 17, 2019)
In the gif you've shared, you show future levels of oxygen. Do you know how close we are to that right now?
ReplyDeleteAre there fertilizers that don't use nitrogen? And do smaller farms necessarily fix this issue? Wouldn't they still use nitrogen -based fertilizers?
Your blog post has a lot of good points. You explained why farming is killing our environment and made good arguments.
ReplyDeleteI think we really should bring this to the attention of these farmers
ReplyDelete