Agrocademy
Agrocademy
Pioneers in sustainable agriculture
Thanks for visiting the official site of Agrocademy. This platform offers a unique journey all about sustainable agriculture through informative and engaging video content, which is always growing and changing. Become a member and gain access to our groups where you can communicate, contribute and share ideas or if you aren't an expert just ask questions to others. Alternatively create videos and upload them onto our VideoShare to gain valuable feedback, improve and eventually get uploaded onto the platform for the world to see. But before all that browse through the background information below and our comprehensive collection of videos on the next page
What role has agriculture played in our world?
Agriculture is the very foundation of society
Agriculture has been practiced by humans for 105,000 years. It started when nomadic pastoralists settled down to grow wild varieties of plants that produced food. As they continued to grow food year after year they started to have more and reliable food and ample resources leading to population increases forming villages to town and to cities. As we used the same plants over and over again we selectively bred plants and animals with larger yield, more milk or pest resistance to produce greater yield from thin green grains to the big yellow corn cobs we get today.
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From 4 or 5 species of food crops 10,000 years ago now we grow hundreds of different species with even more varieties. Agriculture has become much more industrialized and dependent on technology from our humble beginnings. Now agriculture has evolved into intensely farmed system where more inputs are required to create more outputs contrasting the extensive farming of our ancestors. Agriculture has continued to evolve through the years becoming more modern, more productive to cope with our 7 billion strong population.
Problems with agriculture
Agriculture plays a vital role in our society as it has for the past thousands of years but as our societies develop agriculture is failing to adapt to the needs of our growing population, the needs of our climate and ultimately the need of our entire planet. These are just some of the problems agriculture faces and these problems can lead to poverty and economic consequences too. With this site I hope to make a difference
Land degradation
When agriculture replaces natural vegetation topsoil is exposed so it is vulnerable to strong winds and heavy rains that may blow or wash nutrients away. Also soil becomes drier so beneficial microorganisms that make soil fertile decrease.
Climate change
Agricultural machines release CO2 while Rice and Cattle emit the greenhouse gas methane. By degrading soil and clearing forests carbon sequestration is reduced and CO2 levels increase
Pollution
Agriculture uses many chemical additives such as pesticides and fertilizers. These harmful chemicals can seep into soil and water sources causing damaging pollution that stays there for many years.
Drought and water scarcity
Inefficient irrigation techniques means water is wasted and excess is used so water becomes scarcer. Higher-water crops also drain water resources requiring more water.
Deforestation
Forests are often cleared not for wood but to make space for the increasing need of meat specifically cattle ranches. whole sections of rich biodiverse forests are replaced with monocultures of cattle
Biodiversity loss
By converting formerly biodiverse habitats to farm monocultures or by damaging ecosystems biodiversity is lost