Intensive agriculture, in agricultural economics, cultivation system with large amounts of labor and capital relative to the land area. Large amounts of labor and capital are required to apply fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides to growing plants, and capital is particularly important for the acquisition and maintenance of highly efficient machinery for planting, growing and harvesting, as well as irrigation equipment if necessary. The term intensive agriculture generally refers to maximizing agricultural production on a given area of land with inputs such as labor, fertilizers, and machinery. It involves a number of practices designed to produce abundant crops quickly and cheaply and raise large numbers of livestock. The production of synthetic fertilizers to stimulate plant growth, for example, has led to huge increases in food production. But its use comes at a high cost to the environment, degrading soil, polluting air and water, leading to global deforestation and emitting greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. As hunter-gatherers depleted wild game and forage stocks in the Middle East with growing populations, they were forced to adopt agriculture. But agriculture brought much longer hours of work and less food than hunter-gatherers. Continued population growth with the evolution of slash-and-burn farmers has led to shorter fallow periods, lower yields and soil erosion. Ploughing and fertilization were introduced to solve these problems – but again associated with longer working hours and deteriorating soil resources. [60] In pastures, cereal crops are planted directly in grasslands without first applying herbicides. Perennial grasses form a living mulch understory for harvesting grain, eliminating the need to plant catch crops after harvest.
Grazing is intensively grazed before and after grain production. This intensive system brings equal benefits to farmers (partly through increased animal feed), while new topsoil is built and up to 33 tonnes of CO2/ha/year are linked. [53] [54] The high input nature of intensive agriculture certainly carries the risk of adverse effects on the environment. Examples include soil runoff loaded with chemical fertilizers, which destroys aquatic ecosystems, or the use of herbicides, which lead to the development of more resistant weeds that can destroy the natural ecosystem in unpredictable ways. In addition to differences in location, intensive agriculture or agriculture requires less agricultural land than extensive agriculture. This is because it is more productive per hectare than extensive agriculture. Extensive and intensive agriculture is responsible for negative environmental impacts. Intensive agriculture, especially in CAFOs, is responsible for air and water pollution by manure and synthetic fertilizers. Some pesticides used in intensive agriculture have damaged crops, while others remain in the soil for decades after their retirement from farming. The global food system is in crisis. This is more evident than ever in 2022, as extreme weather linked to war and climate change wreaks havoc on livestock, farms and food prices around the world. Intensive agriculture – sometimes referred to as factory farming – is at the heart of this emergency.
The practical operation of intensive agriculture depends on the production system. Billions of animals in the United States suffer on factory farms that use intensive methods to increase profitability. Often they are confined to a space so confined that they can barely move. Standard procedures include beaking, castration, tail amputation and dehorning. All this often happens without sedation, causing a lot of suffering and pain to the animals that endure it. The total yield of crops is high but spread over a larger area, which means that extensive farming tends to produce a lower yield per hectare than intensive farming, although the total yield of both methods may be the same. For this reason, extensive farmers have to charge a higher premium per harvest to break even. The profitability of intensive and extensive agriculture varies considerably depending on the management and availability of government subsidy programs and private financing. At the theoretical level, the increased productivity of intensive agriculture allows the farmer to use a relatively smaller area of land close to the market, where land values are high relative to labor and capital, and this is true in many parts of the world. If the labour and investment costs of machinery and chemicals, as well as the costs of storage (where desired or required) and transport to market, are too high, farmers may find it more profitable to turn to extensive farming. In practice, however, many relatively small farmers engage in a combination of intensive and extensive agriculture, and many of them operate relatively close to markets.
Many large farms, particularly in relatively large and agriculturally advanced countries such as Canada and the United States, engage in intensive agriculture in areas where land values are relatively low and far from markets, and cultivate large tracts of high-yield land. In such societies, however, overproduction (beyond market requirements) often leads to reduced profits due to falling prices. Some intensive farms may use sustainable methods, although this usually requires higher labour input or lower yields. [2] Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, especially in smallholders, is an important way to reduce the need for land for agriculture and slow down environmental degradation caused by processes such as deforestation. [3] Because agriculture has a huge impact on climate change, Project Drawdown has identified “sustainable intensification for smallholder farmers” as an important method of climate change mitigation. [3] Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture can occur some distance from fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, migrate along the Mississippi River to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in so-called oceanic dead zones. [66] Therefore, to get the same tonnage from a crop with both methods, you need much more land with extensive farming than with intensive farming methods. Intensive livestock farming or “factory farming” is the process of keeping cattle with a high stocking density. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] “Concentrated farms” (CAFOs) or “intensive farms” can keep large numbers (some up to hundreds of thousands) of cows, pigs, turkeys or chickens, often indoors. The essence of these farms is the concentration of livestock in a certain space. The goal is to achieve maximum performance at the lowest possible cost and with the greatest possible food safety.
[37] The term is often used pejoratively. [38] CAFOs have significantly increased livestock feed production worldwide, both in terms of overall food production and efficiency. Intensive agriculture has many different characteristics. They vary depending on whether farmers grow or raise animals. Extensive agriculture requires greater land use, which can also be harmful to the environment and climate. It is estimated that extensive sheep farming in the UK uses around 4 million hectares of hilly and mountainous landscapes. This leads to treeless and degraded areas that affect biodiversity. Cattle ranching, another form of extensive agriculture, has similar negative effects on landscapes in the United States. The destruction of their habitat for intensive agriculture is one of the reasons why the global food system is considered the greatest threat to biodiversity. Agriculture is arguably one of the most critical activities we undertake as a society. But it is also one of the most destructive, in its current form. The World Resources Institute predicts that 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 came from agriculture.
The rise of intensive agriculture has dealt a severe blow to small farms.