Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Agriculture effect on the environment
Impact of agriculture on the environment
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
If you had a choice between a burger and a bowl of crickets, I think I would know which you choose to eat. As disturbing as this sounds, in the near future we may not have that choice. With our annual protein consumption rising, and Europe’s protein sources decreasing, coupled with a growing population, we may have only one alternative… Insects. Firstly, for those of you who are worried about our rising population (nine billion people in 2050), you should know that currently, on the earth right now there are roughly 10 quintillion edible insects, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects. Now that’s a lot nutritious food. It’s not going to be easy to change this irrational fear, but to the rest of the world, we would be considered strange for NOT eating bugs. Around 80% of the world happily eats insects by choice, and they are all both nutritious and delicious. (That’s the insects not the people). Plus, they are naturally very rich in protein which would help resolve our protein drought in the up in coming future. For example mealworms are around 50%, red-legged locusts are 75% and leafcutter ants are around 58% protein, they are also high in iron and calcium which is excellent news to all the fitness fanatics out there. But there is always bad news: gathering an insect meal from your garden to make a decent lunch is just too difficult. You would need too many of them to make up your calorie intake. Our colder climate produces very few bugs compared to hotter countries like Thailand and China. You are probably more likely to burn more calories hunting and digesting your lunch than you would get in return form eating it. But will we really need to hunt our own food? Of course not, the solution is simple, insect farming. It won’t be... ... middle of paper ... ...s, Battenberg cake and lollipops. If you are still unenthusiastic, I should tell you that even though you might have been eating boiled down and mixed pieces of insects, you might be interested to know that there is more to a loaf of bread besides wheat, flour and yeast. In the UK, each kilo of bread flour is allowed to contain insect ‘filth’ and over 1500 insect fragments. And honey? That’s multi-regurgitated bee vomit. Now I know the thought of eating a bowl of insects for your lunch does not appeal to the most part of the UK. But without these changes in the future our eco system may not be able to support itself, and that is a severely disconcerting thought. Although we may be quite far away from this change, we must start the gradual progression into trying new and exotic foods to ease the country into this lifestyle. Besides, I hear they are quite tasty.
Pollen seeks out to inform not just the misinformed or the health conscious folks, but just anyone who is willing to listen. He is not trying to tell his readers to stop eating fast food, nor is he telling his vegetarian readers to start eating meat. Pollen attempts to inform all his readers about the things that go beyond an ordinary double cheeseburger or the pain one must go through for fresh abalone. He covers all the dilemmas regarding the consumption of an omnivore as far as buying the “food” that was also used in feedlots, to the organic, freshly grown and gathered fungi and fava beans. I’ve been well informed and can no claim I am less ignorant to the topic of food. I may now think twice before I take a bite out of anything, such as where it came from or how it got to be. As for now, I am really craving some chicken nuggets from McDonalds.
In their article, “The Six-Legged Meat of the Future,” Dicke and Van Huis argue that due to the decline in the supply of meat in America, we should begin to use insects as an “alternate animal protein”
Census Bureau, 2013) Based on a census in 2013, there are 7.125 billion people in the world. The world can hold much more than that. Which leads to the rest of the world occupied by the animal kingdom. Humans cannot live in this world without animals, off the simple fact of survival. If animals were not present, where would the food supply come from? It is recommended that a human needs 0.5-0.7 grams of protein per pound in the body. Not only are there mammals, like chickens, cows, pigs and other species like fish and shrimp but, the insects to consider also. These insects have a huge impact on the human race. Insects, like bees, provide the vegetation for humans. For example, a bee has to carry the pollen, which is produced by the flowers, to other flowers in order for this process of pollution to occur which has to happen in order for plants to grow and produce the fruits and vegetables for humans to eat in order to survive. Many of our medicine today comes from plants, so if there are no plants the human population will start to decline. If we rely on the Takers perspective, how would humans gain these proteins? One way could be resorting to eating other humans, which would lead to a decline in the population in the world to later extinction because everybody will resort in eating each other. Also we would run into ethical problems, like different people would have different perspectives on how we would choose our own practices and morals as to who and how people will be chosen to be eaten or in charge. Humans cannot survive without the nutrients from the fruits and vegetables, which are grown from the help of insects. The Leavers perspective backs up this point because they are saying every organism in the world serves a purpose and without one the others cannot
Osborne, Walt D. "Mysterious Honeybee Deaths Leave Sting on Agriculture." FDA Veterinarian. Vol. 22 No. 3 2007: 9-11. SIRS Government Reporter. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
Have you ever thought about how your fruits and vegetables are grown? How about which ingredients are put into bug sprays and insecticides to ward off those pesky insects? Look no further because author Rachel Carson looks deep into the many environmental issues caused by pesticides and herbicides in her New York Times best-selling novel, “Silent Spring.” “Silent Spring” is a collection of studies which were performed in an effort to educate others about the harmful things occurring everyday to their foods and every-day environment in hopes of giving them a wake up call. This novel is thought by many to be a revolutionary novel that forced people to take notice of the harm being caused in their world, many of which people were unaware of. After discovering the results of these chemicals, it really makes one wonder, is the luxury of being insect free really worth all of the consequences?
Corliss, Richard. “Should We All Be Vegetarians?” Time. Time Inc., 15 Jul. 2002. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.
If you read the paper or watch the news, you’re undoubtedly aware of the debate raging over genetically modified food. Is it bad or is it good? Between the feuding sides, you might find yourself a little lost and wondering which side is right. Answers to seemingly simple questions have been blurred or exaggerated by both sides. On one side genetically modified food is more sustainable, safe, cheaper, easier to grow and has the potential of creating disease-fighting foods. Although this is positive and good intentioned, there may be unintended consequences that we have been quick to overlook. Those opposing genetically modified food clam that it is dangerous, harms the environment, increases health risks, and causes infertility and weight gain. Even things like the declining bee population may have closer ties to modified food than previously thought. We must look to science for answers. By studying genetically modified organisms (GMOs) we can guide our decision about whether we want to be consuming them.
In Europe and even in China honeybee populations are decreasing. This has an impact on everyone in the market. It effects how they food gets to the dinner table and how much it cost to put it there. Fresh produces will eventually end up being fresh produce from across the ocean or fresh produce made in a lab. It wasn’t until October 2006 when Hackenburg came public about his bees vanishing that anybody noticed that the bees were dispersing, but still scientist can’t prove the exact cause to CCD. In America nothing has really been done yet to help the honeybees. Other countries, like Europe did at least tried to maintain the current population of honeybees by amending a law that prohibited certain types of pesticides that many be harmful to honeybees. The most important thing that could be done to protect the honeybees is stop using pesticides that are harmful to important creatures like honeybees. Just like Europe did, put a ban on harmful chemicals to honeybees, until the honeybees numbers start to increase. Another logical way to help the honeybee population is to give a tax credit to people who decide to become bee keepers since bees are very important to the US economic
“No bees, no honey; no work, no money.” Bees are becoming an endangered species due to colony collapse disorder, a colony no longer existing due to a combination of deadly factors. Bees are very important in our lives from making food cheaper to making honey-added in many medicines, foods, and other products. There are a few steps we can take in order to save our honeybees.
The honey bees started to vanish rapidly without any reason in the year 2006. Honey bees are vital to the life of humans, plants, and animals. In the article “The Importance of Honey Bees”, Maria Boland writes, “Honey bees pollinate 80% of the earth’s plants, which converts to 1/3 of what humans eat.” The world should look into saving the honey bees because, without them, plants would not be pollinated, animals would die, humans would have a hard time finding things to eat, and the world would lose staggering sums of money. In the book The Backyard Beekeeper, Kim Flottum writes that Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. Because the honey bee is important to all life on earth, our government should work to help educate children and adults on the honey bees, regulate pesticides sold, and help fund research towards protecting the honey bees.
In less than 30 years when the world population reaches its carrying capacity how will we feed everyone? Unless we start planting crops on the moon or go all out for cannibalism, we’ll need some new technology to feed the world. A large portion of humans’ diet is meat. In vitro meat or artificial meat offers a way to undo our food and environmental setbacks caused by traditional meat. Someday it will be in stores and if it’s a hit it might be the solution to solving how to feed people. Meat cultivation uses more land, water and resources to house, transport, and slaughter animals and their grain and food than it would cost to fund in vitro meat studies.
Many aphid species are partners in mutualistic relationships with several ant taxa (Flatt and Weisser 2000). The degree of this mutualism can be either obligate or facultative depending on several ecological and physiological factors (Stadler and Dixon 2005). Aphids produce nourishing, sugar-rich honeydew which ants can procure by stroking the aphids’ anus or nectar organ with their antennae (Yao and Akimoto 2001). In return, ants offer the aphids protection from predators and parasitoids (Yao and Akimoto 2001). Ants also can perform hygienic services for the aphid colony by removing exuviae and excrement which decreases the risk of fungal growth (Detrain et al. 2010). Honeydew-collecting ants involved in these interactions include the subfamilies Formicinae and Dolichoderinae, as well as several species in the Myrmica and Tetramorium genera of the Myrmicinae subfamily (Stadler and Dixon 2005).
If bugs become food then better than nothing you got to eat or starve to death or beg for
As the turn of the twentieth century approached, the livestock industry became increasingly more powerful than ever before, and meat became much more affordable for working class families (Best). That was, until Francis Moore Lappé’s book, Diet for a Small Planet was published in 1971, and exposed the grave danger that the meat industry set upon the environment and specifically the earth’s land (Best). With a population that grows as rapidly as the human civilization does, it is imperative that changes are made to ensure habitat conservation for years to come, and it seems that a vegetarian diet is the way to help. Livestock farms and land to grow feed for those animals has taken the space of some of earth’s most wonderful resources, using up recreational land, wildlife habitat, and wilderness. The average American diet consists of 270 pounds of meat each year, and that rounds up to approximately 20 acres of land (Vidal). Livestock is said to take up 30% of dry land on earth, and 80% of the agrarian land within the United States. Becoming a vege...
Have you ever thought about our honey bees? Some people think they're a nuisance but these hardworking small insects make it possible for your favorite foods to reach your table. In the winter of 2006 a strange event happened with the honey bee hives across the country. Millions of bees vanished from their hives. The disappearing bees left billions of dollars of crops at risk and it threatened our food supply. So today I will be talking about The honey bee and answering the following questions: First,what is the honey bees purpose in life, secondly how we are harming them and thirdly how the honey bees help us in our daily lives and their importance.