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Agriculture isn't really a resource, it's a practice. However, agriculture can deplete resources. Modern practices deplete soil by destroying forests and other natural habitats which have held soil structure together with their roots, and drawn up moisture and nutrients from deep underground, the deep ploughing, sowing of monocultures, sowing of plants that are not suitable for the region, and use of chemicals as fertilisers and pest/herbicides have all helped to deplete not only the amount of top soil, bt the quality of the top soil too. Modern agriculture also likes to irrigate, often in wasteful ways, this is leading to a very serious drop in available fresh water - this is quite noticable in parts of the U.S. for example. The use of a limited range of plant species has led to the threatening of the biodiversity of crop plants - this has been further threatened in Europe by a law controlling seeds - in our changing climate this means we may lose the genetic diversity to develop crops capable of surving our brave new world. Monocultures of crops also threaten the insect population(pollinators among them).

However, there are ways to farm that can be positive. I direct you to research agroforestry, permaculture, key line ploughing (not only uses water effectively, but increases the top soil), biochar, wild flower strips (encourage insects) and companion planting (uses properties of some plants to protect others), mycorrhiza (fungi) and Holistic Management (HMI) - this list should lead you to a whole host of ideas and methods that use agriculture to improve the world, not deplete it.

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11y ago

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