ARABLE LAND AND EFFECTS OF AGRICULTURE

By: Sam Bateman and Trent Topping

Arable Land

Land that is suitable for agricultural production. Examples of unsuitable land are forests, mountains, and inland water bodies.

Arable land includes many farms or fields

It is also generally flat and has to have soil that is ideal for growing crops.

This means the land does not have high terrain and is not very rocky.

Arable land cont.

Statistics of Land/ Arable Land in the United States

2,271,343,360 billion acres total. 938,280,000 million of those acres

are arable (including forests), 2/5 of the United States is arable

434,160,000 million of those acres are already farmland.

32,960,000 million of those acres are housing and roads.

Statistics of arable land in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is ranked first for the % of its total land that is considered arable

Bangladesh is located near India and China and has some of the most fertile plains in the world because of all the rivers running throughout this area

Most parts of Bangladesh are less than 12 m above sea level. This provides the land with an abundant source of water.

Satellite Image of Bangladesh

Arable Land Statistics throughout the World

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/geo_lan_use_ara_lan-geography-land-use-arable

The numbers for arable land around the world differ very much.

61.01% of Bangladesh’s land is considered arable with a total of 7,955,000 hectares of arable land while the percent of arable land in a state like the United States is 19% but has 174,488,000 hectares of arable land total.

Arable land decreasing

Is there enough arable land? There is enough arable land in the

world to feed the entire population but we would have to return to growing food under proper plant rotation.

A great portion of our world’s arable land is covered by forests and housing

We would have to cut down forests and houses to get the maximum arable land possible to use.

Turning Land into Agriculture?

Turning land into agriculture has it negatives and positives.

Agriculture is the worlds largest source of food because it can be maintained fairly easily and does not require searching for food.

Too much agriculture can hurt us as a country if it is taking away from other resources. This is a major problem with agriculture today.

Effects of Agriculture

Turning land into agriculture may force animals living their habitat because it has been altered so much.

Some animals may still be able to live in the cultivated area, if the crop being grown is a primary source of food for them.

Farmers usually use pesticides to kill the animals eating their crops. The pesticides are potential hazards for polluting water sources around the farm (runoff pollution). These pesticides can potentially kill other animals also.

Pesticides

Effects of Agriculture

In order for farmers to keep their plants healthy they use fertilizers on the crops.

The fertilizers contain nitrogen and phosphorus. These two elements can cause eutrophication in nearby water sources because it is a main food source for algae.

Eutrophication would then deplete oxygen levels in the water making it harder for the fish to breathe.

Effects of Agriculture

Agriculture requires wide open fields. Sometimes good farm land is covered by forest. These trees need to be cut down to create the farmland. Deforestation is a negative effect agriculture has. When these forest are cut down for farmland many species lose their habitats and are forced to migrate to some other habitat.

Wetlands continued to be drained for agricultural land use. Wetlands are valuable ecosystems . They provide animals with sufficient habitats, they act as filters for our water, they control flooding, and they act as a major resource for food across the world.

Draining Wetlands

Deforestation

Sources

http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/hydrology/wetlands/draining.jpg

http://www.ditext.com/ehrlich/4.html http://www.agreste.agriculture.gouv.f

r/IMG/pdf_analyse181005.pdf http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/SRD/

ChinaFood/concl/con_1.htm http://www.vegnews.com/articles/pa

ge.do?pageId=2316&catId=5