Organic Farming The Eco System Super Hero - 2015 Words

Organic Farming: The Eco System Super Hero The agriculture farming industry needs to wake up and see the harm that conventional farming is doing to our beloved planet earth and realize that organic farming could be our planets superhero. Conventional farming uses a high level of nitrogen to help crops grow in mass production. These fertilizers sometimes get into the normal irrigation and eventually end up in rivers and oceans. A 2004 United Nations article estimated that most of the 160 million tons of nitrogen used as fertilizer annually ends up in the sea(â€Å"Conventional Farming†). Why is this bad? The fertilizer that ends up in the ocean creates algal blooms which have neurotoxins in them that suck the oxygen out of the water, creating†¦show more content†¦Pyrethrin is also used because it is biodegradable and can quickly be metabolized by birds and most mammals. The Organic Trade Association notes that if every farmer in the U.S. converted to organic production, we could eliminate 500 million pounds of persistent and harmful pesticides from entering the environment annually. Some of these harmful pesticides are called POPs short for Persistent Organic Pollutants. These pollutants are not only harming the planet, but they are also harmful to consumers. POPs are organic compounds that are able to survive in any form of the environment by living in other organisms. One of these pollutants is called Chlordane. In an article written by Dr. Edward Group titled â€Å"Health Dangers of Chlordane,† he explains how the chemical Chlordane is a man-made chemical that was used as a pesticide in the late 1940s and later banned in the late 1980s. The pesticide that conventional farmers in the U.S. we’re using on crops was also being used to control termites in houses. This pesticide, even though banned over 20 years ago, is still a problem in today’s society. Geological surveys have found that this pesticide is still in soil samples located in Yosemite National Park. This af fects the fish and wildlife that live in these areas because they drink or live in the water that has the contaminated soil. Once the wildlife in the area is contaminated and migrates, they spread the pesticide to other animals that may eat them.