Visualizing Environmental Science

AP Photo/York Daily Record, Bil Bowden

Challenges of Agriculture

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Discuss recent trends in loss of U.S. agricultural
   land, global declines in domesticated plant and
   animal varieties, and efforts to increase crop
   and livestock yields.


2. Relate the benefits and problems associated
   with the green revolution.


3. Describe the environmental impacts of
   industrialized agriculture, including land
   degradation and habitat fragmentation.

T

he United States has more than 120 million

hectares (300 million acres) of prime

farmland, land that has the soil type, growing

conditions, and available water to produce

food, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops. U.S. agriculture

faces a decline in prime farmland. Other challenges

include coping with declining numbers of domesticated

varieties, improving crop and livestock yields, and address-

ing agriculture’s environmental impacts.

Loss of Agricultural Land

There is considerable concern that much of the

nation’s prime agricultural land is falling victim to

urbanization and suburban sprawl or spread by being

converted to parking lots, housing developments, and

shopping malls ( Figure 14.5). In certain areas of the

United States, loss of rural land is a significant problem.

According to the American Farmland Trust, the top

five U.S. farm areas threatened by population growth

and urban/suburban spread are California’s Central

Valley, south Florida, California’s coastal region, the

Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake region (Maryland to New

Jersey), and the North Carolina Piedmont. More than

160,000 hectares (400,000 acres) of prime U.S. farm-

land are lost each year.

The 1996 Farm Bill included funding for the estab-

lishment of a national Farmland Protection Program. (Many

states and local jurisdictions also have farmland protec-

tion programs.) This voluntary program lets farmers

sell conservation easements that prevent their farmland

from being converted to nonagricultural uses. The ease-

ments are in effect from a minimum of 30 years to for-

ever. As with other conservation easements, the farmers

retain full rights to use their property—in this case, for

agricultural purposes.

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Homes and businesses occupy land that was once cornfields in York County, Pennsylvania.