Health Hotline Magazine | September 2020

This way of growing food is negatively affecting our water, soil, air, and, ultimately, our health.

Yet, we continue to pollute our environments and our bodies. Humans continue to cause climate change which in turn drives the loss of vast amounts of biodiversity. We are degrading the topsoil at an alarming rate, with some predicting that if we continue with current farming practices we will be out of topsoil in 60 years. We continue to fell large swaths of forests contributing to more climate change. Many industries are damaging the environment, but a good place to start the conversation—and the change—is with industrial conventional agriculture. Conventional agriculture is destroying the environment, and our health The way we produce our food is not sustainable. In a quest for greater profits, we have come to rely on large-scale, high-intensity monoculture, in which huge areas of land are dedicated to producing a single crop or livestock species, and requires massive amounts of synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Each year, the U.S. uses more than one billion pounds of pesticides and tens of millions of pounds of synthetic fertilizers, with commodity crops like corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat accounting for most of their use. vi vii This way of growing food is negatively a ecting our water, soil, air, and, ultimately, our health. More than 90 percent of the U.S. population has detectable levels of pesticides or their metabolites in their bodies and most of the exposure comes from the food we eat and our drinking water. Cumulative and chronic pesticide exposure has been linked to numerous health problems, including lower IQs and learning problems, cancer, diabetes, reproductive and endocrine problems, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory conditions. viii ix x xi xii

Water quality is compromised by agricultural runo of water from farm fields. Runo from fields washes pesticides and fertilizers into lakes, rivers, and streams, impacting drinking water for nearby residents. The University of California at Davis Center for Watershed Sciences studied the link between agriculture and groundwater and found that “agricultural fertilizers and animal wastes are by far the largest regional sources of nitrate in groundwater, contributing 96 percent of the nitrate loading to groundwater in these agricultural regions.” xxii Drinking water that contains nitrates has been linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer, thyroid disease, and neural tube defects. Many studies observed increased risk with ingestion of water nitrate levels that were below regulatory limits. xiv Dead zones, and algae blooms resulting from agricultural runo , are an ever-growing problem as well. An algae overgrowth can choke out aquatic life and make water unsafe for swimming and drinking. Further, algae blooms emit large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, which scientists say can accelerate global methane emissions up to 90 percent over the next century. xv Conventional agriculture also takes a major toll on the soil. Heavy tilling, multiple harvests of the same crop every year, and the heavy use of chemicals depletes valuable soil nutrients and microbes, requiring farmers to use ever-increasing amounts of chemical fertilizers to stimulate plant growth. The heavy use of pesticides further depletes important soil microorganisms. xvi A recent United Nations study found that one-third of the Earth’s fertile soil is being “acutely degraded.” The biggest factor? Conventional agriculture. xvii Soil degradation leads to erosion and eventually desertification, making it harder to continue farming

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