Farming practices and productivity
Farming practices and productivity.
- Created by: Mohammed Ali
- Created on: 20-09-13 22:09
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- Intensive farming methods.
- Rearing livestock intensively.
- Definition: This is when conditions the organisms live in are controlled to maximize energy conversion.
- Example: (1)Animals in warmer conditions lose less energy as heat.
- Example:Food is given that is higher in energy so lower indigestible product is formed.
- Example: (1)Animals in warmer conditions lose less energy as heat.
- Definition: This is when conditions the organisms live in are controlled to maximize energy conversion.
- Killing pest species.
- Definition: A pest is an organism that competes with humans for food and reduces productivity of crops.
- Ways to combat pests.
- Chemical pesticide.
- Biological agents.
- Natural predators: Introduced into the ecosystem to remove pest so that crops lose less energy and increase productivity.
- Parasites: These host on or lay on pests eggs which infects the pest. Thus killing the pest and reducing energy lost, this therefore increases productivity.
- Pathogenic: Used to kill the pests directly. These are controlled so that they do not affect humans or the crop. This conversely helps increase productivity.
- Disadvantages: 1. natural predators may become pests themselves as they may feast on the crops. 2. parasites and pathogen may affect other organism that is not necessarily a pest. 3. It may not be cost effective.
- Farmers may use integrated systems which have the combined affects of both the chemical and biological agents . These are more effective hence net productivity increasing further. These also reduce the cost and can reduce the environmental impacts. Therefore these systems are preferred.
- Fertillisers
- Natural fertilizer is organic matter and includes manure and sewage.
- Disadvantages: Fertilizers can be washed into rivers which could result in eutrophication. Using fertilizers also affect the mineral content of the soil. Farmers need to apply the right amount otherwise a lot more money would be spend for little productivity.
- Rearing livestock intensively.
- Herbicides: kill weeds and reduces competition for crops to grow. This increases the crops productivity.
- Chemical pesticide.
- Natural fertilizer is organic matter and includes manure and sewage.
- Eutrophication: Excessive richness of nutrients in water causing dense plant growth and animal death from a lack of oxygen
- Biological agents do not increase productivity as much as chemical pesticides. Biological agents take time to work.
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