Conventional Farming - Degraded Soil
Healthy soil, healthy crops
What keeps soil healthy and fertile is a natural, diverse eco-system. This fosters good structure to hold water, and healthy microbes that produce nutrients and minerals. Together, these elements produce the most prolific, nutritious crops.Harm from conventional practices
Growing a single crop year after year and continually using chemicals and synthetics deteriorates that healthy eco-system, and instead creates a pretty bleak environment to try to grow healthy agriculture.The number of nutrient-rich microbes diminishes, the ground loses its ability to hold water, more run-off results, and the topsoil easily erodes.
According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 60-80% of farmland around the world is "moderately to seriously degraded" and harmful to agricultural productivity.
Vicious cycle
Over time, the only way to maintain production levels is to use more fertilizers, which causes an even larger global problem. Conventional farming is not sustainable to soil health.More about:
Conventional Farming - Resistant Pests
Organics - Fertile Soil