Book name: Agriculture’s First Envolution In 10,000 Years
Author: J.Bishop Grewell ; Clay J.Landry ; Greg Conko
Publisher: Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana

A summary of the book

The book tells the stories behind the food production which is essential for our survival. There are costs paid by the farmers, society and the environment when humans obtain the food.

In agriculture, farmers sow the seeds in the soil, plough the soil, , water the plants, domesticate livestock, and remove unwanted weeds that threatened the crops. Due to improvement of technology, there are different methods used to help finishing these processes. There are adventages brought by the advanced technology, however, there are also harmful consequences.

For example, the irrigation scheme greatly increases the area of farmland; the use of artificial fertilizers has greatly increased the production of crops ard the use of machines helps get more yields with less labour-in-put.

These technologies may do harm to nature. For example, irrigation diverts water from rivers and reduces the level of water for the survival of fish and other aquatic species; the water dams have cut off the fish , like salmon, from their spawning grounds.And yet the most serious one is caused by the conversion of natural habitats into farm lands, in order to obtain more land to grow more food. These will destroy the natural habitats and so reduce the organisms living in the environment.

If humans still don’t take any action in saving the environment, but keep on exploring the resources and lands, famine will occur in the near future.

Recently, the internetional organizations have tried to recover the threatened environment. For example, planting a lot of trees to provide the habitats for wildlife, it is also useful to reduce the runoff of topsoil into the river and prevent flooding; the use of GM crops may decrease the use of pesticide and enhance the nutritional value of crops.

If anyone wants to double-win on both agriculture and environment borrow this from the lobrary……