User:Jjlennon/sandbox

Lead Section (edit)

The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices.

The relationship between the environment and agriculture can be evaluated by a means based method, or an effect based method. The means based evaluation looks at farmers' practices of agriculture, and the effect based evaluation considers the actual effects of the agricultural system. For example, means based analysis might look at pesticides and fertilization methods that farmers are using, and effect based analysis would consider how much CO2 is being emitted or what the Nitrogen content of the soil is.

The actual effect of agriculture on the environment is still up for debate.

Sustainable agriculture (edit)

Sustainable agriculture is the idea that agriculture should occur in a way such that we can continue to produce what is necessary without infringing on the ability for future generations to do the same.

Agriculture can have negative effects on biodiversity as well. It is believed by many that conventional farming systems cause less rich biodiversity than organic systems. Organic farming has shown to have on average 30% higher species richness than conventional farming. Organic systems on average also have 50% more organisms. This data has some issues because there were several results that showed a negative effect on these things when in an organic farming system.

The opposition to organic agriculture believes that these negatives are an issue with the organic farming system. What began as a small scale, environmentally conscious has now become just as industrialized as conventional agriculture. This industrialization can lead to the issues shown above such as climate change, and deforestation.

• Comment Jprather18 for class
• Overall good edits, with appropriate sources. The edits your are making seem to be bettering the article and helping expand upon the content. With edits to the lead and sustainability sections, the increased information will help with the richness of the article. The only critique I have is to make sure you have multiple sources to confirm the 30% and 50% numbers you intend to use. Multiple credible sources to confirm these numbers are appropriate will be crucial and will allow other editors to back check your numbers. With only one source for these numbers, other editors might find another source to back up other numbers, but if you have multiple sources, the ability for other editors to over ride your edit will be more difficult. Overall good job.