Conventional Farming; Overview and Methodologies

Industrial agriculture is another name for conventional farming. It is the type of farming which relies mainly on use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified products. This type of farming also relies on extensive practices such as monoculture, tillage to increase crop yield.

Definition

Conventional farming brings about various definitions due to its wide range aspects. According to USDA, farmers can term a crop as conventional when they use synthetic chemicals for its maintenance. Moreover, the use of genetically altered seeds through methods like selective breeding is also part of conventional farming. Conventional farming defines itself as the practice of using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and technologically oriented methods for crop production and protection, keeping these aspects in view.

Green revolution

Conventional farming did not came into practice until late 19^th century. Above all, The Green Revolution, marking an era of technological advancement in agriculture, greatly influenced this farming system. There was wide research and development in agriculture sector between 1930s and late 1960s. This research and development paved way for initiatives for introduction and transfer of technology in agriculture. Altogether, these initiatives proved helpful in adoption of technology in agriculture.

Norman Borlaug was ranked as “father of green revolution”. He also received Nobel Peace Prize in 1970s. Borlaug produced high-yielding cereal grains that saved a lot of people from starvation. He also expanded irrigation infrastructure along with efficient distribution of chemically synthesized fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to local farmers.

Green Revolution was first termed by former Director of USAID, United States Agency for International Development, William Gaud in 1968. He used this term for technological advancements in agriculture. He marked it as a new revolution and termed it as green revolution.

The major technologies that were introduced in that era were utilized in some parts of world but their use was not widespread. The extensive use of those technologies gave rise to industrial agriculture or conventional farming. These technologies encompassed modern irrigation systems, synthetic chemical fertilizers (primarily NPK: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers), pesticides, herbicides, and scientifically improved crop varieties.

The advancement in genetics also gave rise to GM crops (genetically modified crops) that were disease resistant and more proficient in terms of quantity and quality. The major purpose behind the introduction of all these technologies was to increase the yield of crops in less time.

Characteristics of conventional farming

Several distinctive features set conventional farming apart from organic farming systems.

• Agricultural systems integrate technology to perform tasks such as plowing, seeding, and harvesting. In order to increase the yield, there are also rapid technological innovations in farming system.
• Large capital investments are essential for maintaining and applying production and management technology in conventional farming systems.
• Conventional farms primarily focus on growing a single type of crop, cultivating it repeatedly over multiple seasons.
• Conventional farming operates on a large scale. These farms are usually larger in size.
• The use of external energy inputs in conventional farming is very high. This includes extensive use of fertilizers, pesticides etc.
• Conventional farming may depict high labor efficiency because there is large dependency on mechanical energy rather than human or animal labor.
• Conventional farms gives high yield crops.
• Most of conventional farms show confined and concentrated systems.

Methodologies used in conventional farming

1. Tillage

Farmers prepare soil for seeding through the process of tillage. In conventional farming, mechanical agitation performs tillage. Tillage may use cultivar shanks, rollers, cultipackers. In earlier societies, tilling relied on animal labor, with hooved animals like cows and buffaloes assisting in soil tamping. With the invention of the plow, mules and oxen harnessed to pull it for tilling. In the 1990s, the introduction of mechanical tractors made large-scale farming more manageable.

Tillage involves loosening the soil through stirring, digging, or overturning. This leads to change in layering of soil. This method exposes the lower layer of soil. Tilling also reduces soil compaction. The basic purpose of this method is to increase aeration of soil and also for water to seeps down easily.

2. Monoculture and conventional farming

Monoculture is a technique where a single type of crop cultivates in a field or farming system at a given time. It includes planting of single cultivar over a large field. It is alternative to polyculture, in which there is intermingling of different crop specie in same farming system.

Monoculture fields have low diversity, often featuring a single species. This practice is favored in conventional farming for several reasons,

• It requires same and standardized planting, harvesting and maintenance methodologies, which are easier to apply.
• It results in more crop yield at lower cost.

There are many environmental concerns related to monoculture. Due to continuous mono-cropping there is pest build-up and disease outbreak. Uniformity in cropping make it more susceptible to pathogen attack. The lack of plant diversity in monoculture fields leads to a degradation of soil nutrient availability.

However, this practice is also discourage for its negative environmental impacts. It hampers and disrupts the ecological relationships and puts treat and risk to food supply chain. This practice is widely utilized in industrial farming.

3. Synthetic Fertilizers

Farmers often rely on synthetic fertilizers to maximize crop yield. Fertilizers are source of nutrients that are essential for plant growth. Fertilizers are primarily use for crops deficient in required nutrients.

• Three primary macronutrients required in soil for better plant growth are: Nitrogen (N). Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K).
• Three secondary macronutrients required by plant are: Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Sulphur (S).
• Some crops require micronutrients in small quantities. These include: zinc (Zn), boron (B), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), copper (Cu), iron (Fe) etc.

Macronutrients are necessary in larger quantities against smaller quantities of micronutrients. The requirement for macronutrient is 0.15% to 6.0% of the dry matter of plant. Micronutrients are necessary in amounts less than 0.04% of the plant’s dry matter.

The basic classification of fertilizers is on the fact that whether they provide single nutrient or multiple nutrients. So following are the type of fertilizers.

• Single nutrient (“straight”) fertilizers: fertilizers that are source of single nutrient such as urea is source of nitrogen.
• Multi nutrient (Complex) fertilizers:  fertilizers that are source of more than one nutrient components such as NPK fertilizers are source of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

The major concern regarding to these synthetic fertilizers is that they are highly soluble in soil. So they easily dissolve in water and cause leaching of nutrients. Moreover the water with leached nutrients when mixed with water bodies, it causes eutrophication.

4. Chemical pesticides

Pest is the insect or organism that tends to pose a negative and harmful impact on plant yield. Pesticides are substances that eliminate them. These pesticides are also harmful for environment because they tend to accumulate in environment for longer periods. The term pesticides include; herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides, bactericide, nematicide and termiticide.

Pesticides are beneficial as they prevent loss of crop yield by targeting insects, pathogens and disease vectors. A study has demonstrated that crop yield decreases by 10% without pesticides. Similarly, another study was conducted in 1999 which showed that United States may result in rise in food prices due to ban on use of pesticides. This may also impose threat to food security.

Pesticides that are organochlorine in nature such as DDT ‘Dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane’ have been banned by many countries because of their toxicity and persistence. According to a survey, 2.4 megatons of pesticide was use all over the world in 2006 and 2007. The use in United States accounts for 22% of this total.

5. Use of genetically modified crops

Conventional food production systems also uses genetically modified organisms, GMOs, which mainly differ from local breed of crops. Certain goals are targeted when GM crops are grown in conventional farms, such as:

• Resistance against pests, disease vectors and pathogens
• To achieve faster growing plant varieties
• To have higher yield and obtain certain plant characteristics like large fruit size and more sweetness.

There are certain drawbacks of their use in agriculture which are stated as follows.

• If GM crops are grown in open environment, it becomes difficult to control their reproduction or growth rate.
• If GM crops are grown in farm that is located nearby a local variety or native species crop farm, then GM crops can threaten the native crop population in terms of survival and can also result in cross breeding.