Labor-Intensive Subsistence Essay, Research Paper

I believe Labor-intensive subsistence agriculture is almost same as traditional agriculture, which produces only enough crops or livestock for a farm family s survival; therefore, they have low yields with intensive labors. This trends cause more lands are destructed and degrade by farming. On the other hand, labor-intensive subsistence agriculture produce less pollutants than industrialized agriculture because they reduce usage of fertilizer and pesticides.

The biggest advantages of energy-intensive industrialized agriculture are that they use green revolution or high yield techniques in a favorable climate on some fertile and productive soils, so they can produce more and more food without cultivating more land. It is also an important way to protect biodiversity by saving large areas of forests, grassland, and wetlands from being used to grow food. On the other hand, the disadvantages of industrialized agriculture are that there are many factors have limited the success of the green revolution to date and may continue to do so, such as huge amounts of water, and fertilizer. If overload of fertilizer or pesticides use in industrialized agriculture, it will arise more pollutants in the environment. They may cause air and water pollution. If the ability of new food production works properly, it will keep up the current levels of population growth.

Sustainable agriculture reduces waste of irrigation water and uses less pesticides and inorganic fertilizer. To maintain and restore soil fertility, farmers rely on good soil conservation practices and manure and compost. The low-input farming is often more profitable than high input farming because they spend less money on irrigation water, fertilizer, and pesticides; in addition, they reduce use and waste of fossil fuels and waste in irrigation, also they will be slowing population growth. If partial shift to more environmentally sustainable food production, it will be opposed by agribusiness and successful farmers because many consumers are unwilling and unable to pay higher prices for food (Full-cost accounting).