Agriculture Production and Technology - Essay Example

Agriculture production and Technology Agriculture production and Technology The impact of agriculture; this is a question amongst many that one may ask him or herself in relation to the diverse use of technology in life today. With modern technologies and means of application of technology, it is relevant to look at these impacts especially based on the issue of globalization, how it has seen agriculture move both forward, and in controversial dimensions. This is in relation to sales, sharing of information and concepts, as well as knowledge of agriculture that can be used for different purposes including propelling the industry forward. With this in mind, the impact of technology cannot be ignored, as it is an important aspect in agriculture, which makes the purpose of this paper to examine how technology influences the agricultural industry, and how the world is conforming to the integration of technology in every aspect of life. Debate over the impact of technology has raged on for a long time, where questions have been raised over the benefits and the demerits of technology of the same on agriculture. The issues have come from the time of the agrarian revolution, where mechanization of agriculture and industries took centre stage and went on the rampage (Mannion and Morse 2012, p.748). In modern times, satisfaction and an agreement is yet to be struck over the issue of technological application to agriculture since there are problems of ethics; since scientists are of the opinion that technology has been used for the betterment of agriculture and that more can be done, the same way there have been numerous merits of the said technology. However, there remains to be issues of a controversial nature on the application of technology, where health experts question the safety of agricultural products that have been genetically modified, as well as the application of mechanization in agriculture. Health experts are of the opinion that it is too early to praise the said genetically modified products, despite there being advantages to the same application. Experts from Food and Agriculture Organization state that food is a right thus, the application of genetically modified foods to expand food reserves and hence food security (Panel of eminent Experts on Ethics and Food Agriculture n.d., p.17). Benefits Globalization can be termed as the process of interaction and integration among people, companies and governments of different nations, where globalization is focused on integration of international markets for goods, services, technology, finance and labour (Hosseinzadeh 2010, p.64). In agriculture, technology plays a key role in globalization in that it is usually the turning point of research, which is aimed at improving agricultural output and productivity. As such, the application of technology allows the agricultural sector to apply research from different countries in an attempt to globalize the sector as it holds the potential for globalization and expansion on these grounds. In addition, the agricultural productivity of a nation depends on how much research it has the ability to perform, to a point that if there is not enough research, the sector faces stagnation due to backward agricultural trends. However, with technology and globalization, the pool of international knowledge on agriculture stands a chance to boost agricultural output based on the spill over effect. This is such that countries with lots of research on agriculture tend to have a spill over and the information or knowledge of the research is shared on a global platform, all thanks to technology and its advancements. In addition, globalization as a factor of technological advancement, geo-proximity plays a crucial role in the research of agricultural practices to improve productivity. This is such that, with countries that are close together, technology is easily applied to share information through advanced research systems. The above case of advanced research systems can be seen in the United States and the European Union, which have advanced research techniques and systems. Despite being far apart in relation to their geographical proximity, the United States and the European Union have formed a high growth club that exudes the effects of spillovers in terms of knowledge on agriculture to other interested parties. In addition, globalization sees the spread of knowledge on agricultural productivity to other countries through spill-ins and spillovers, where spillovers are to other countries and regions, while spill-ins are flow into the region or country. With this in mind, globalization in technology has affected agriculture immensely in that agricultural practices have been shared across different regions and it has turned out to be successful. This is to a point that comparisons between different systems of research and development on a global scale based on spill over and spill-ins show the benefits. This can again be seen in the case of the USA and the European Union, where sharing information has seen some countries increase productivity and even advance in research and development. The above comparison shows that globalization of agricultural knowledge has put the united states ahead of countries in the European Union over an extended period in that the growth rates of the united states have risen steadily, while those of the European have been going down (Schimmelpfennig and Thirtle 1999, p.460). This globalization in agriculture shows that technology has been used to show where there is room for improvement and how to achieve a high level of efficiency as the European Union lags far behind in terms of efficiency in research and development for agricultural output. The other impact of technology in agriculture is the marketing of agricultural products in a globalized market; in this case, technology has seen the commodities produced through agriculture increase and remain the dominant part of trade between certain countries and not with others, especially tropical products. This can be evidenced by the application of coffee, rubber and coffee to the global world, where they remain a very large part of international trade in agriculture especially between colonial power and their former colonies. This makes technology a major driving force behind trade in agricultural products, as without globalization; there is no chance that some of the products would ever find a market on the international level. In addition, technology has served to increase agricultural productivity due to the application of biotechnology in agriculture, whose controversial side will dealt with later. In this case, biotechnology serves as a means of producing crops that are resistant to adverse conditions of growth and animals that resist diseases, increasing agricultural output. It serves to boost trade between countries in a global scale and reduce trade deficits in agricultural products, as well as increase food security to countries that need, especially poor ones, as is shown later. A good illustration of this is incidences of drought, where food products are offered as food aid to these countries and some are even growing the genetically modified crops for trade and food purposes, especially soybeans in Burkina Faso. Controversy Technology has also impacted on the agricultural industry in that there have been innovations in the industry that have seen it change in relation to mechanics, biology, chemistry and agronomics. Innovations in mechanics have seen more land put to agricultural use, as was the case of the United States that had large tracts of land, and a scarcity of people to do farming on it. With the invention of the steel plough by John Deere, all this land was put to use by having it ploughed, and it even increased agricultural productivity, as there was more farmland as compared to the period before the invention of the mechanical steel plough (Sunding and Zilberman 2000, p.7). This is one of the beneficial impacts of technology in agriculture as it has seen a rise in effectiveness and productivity over the years. Still on the mechanics part, technology influenced productivity in relation input manufacturing, in which case the production of certain inputs used in agriculture became enhanced and efficiency was at a high level that it enabled the productivity of agricultural products to go high. Revisiting globalization based on mechanical innovations, the spill over effects can still be seen in the production of power items for use in agriculture as is the case for John Deere products as his company became the leading farm equipment producer. This shows how research and development on a global scale affects agriculture on a large scale by influencing productivity and methods of agricultural production. Integrating mechanical innovations into agriculture also affected agriculture in that there were innovations to complement John Deere’s products in that there were inputs to complement the power products (Sunding and Zilberman2000, p.9). This further affected the use of technology in farming to see that the use of manual labour for farming was eliminated or even reduced rather than having redundant activities and people doing the same things as mechanical farm equipment (Soliman and Ewaida 1996, p.4). The controversial part on this is the high prices that accompanied the production of mechanical equipment because it saw the prices of land in the United States skyrocket after the introduction, and environmental concerns have come up. This is because mechanizing agriculture affects the environment due to issues of pollution and environmental degradation based on the equipment (Today’s Technological Transformations n.d., p.43). As such, greenhouse gases from tractors and other powered equipment are the source of concern in the environment as they continue to ruin it. Still on this, there have been concerns on the destruction of forestland all for agricultural production thanks to power tools and mechanized equipment. Putting this in mind, having these tools has only put more land into use, which translates to lower amounts of land for use thus encroachment on forestland in order to increase agricultural production further since the facilities exist. Going back to globalization, globalization has affected agriculture in that the trade in agricultural products remains under the governance of the global economy and the governments of each country. As such, it influences feedstuff in that most of the feedstuff consumed globally goes through one form or another of international trade such as importation or exportation. This can be seen in the case of soy crop, where records show that roughly 30% of the world’s soy crop is exported, showing the strong effect of globalization in activity, as the figure has only risen to double its former value (Einarsson and Luttikholt 2006, p.9). With globalization in mind, not all feedstuff can be exported as they tend to e perishable, which is where more innovation comes in to save the situation. There are methods for preservation of these foods so that they can be transported to their destinations with minimum or no spoilage. This affects agriculture in that there is increased demand for the agricultural products since they travel well under preservation meaning that trade are promoted in these food products. Sharing of knowledge on globalization also comes in handy to affect agriculture in that there is the issue of quality and food self-sufficiency, where there are national food policies to ensure that trade in food is limited so that every nation is food sufficient rather than create a strong economy that lacks in food security (Josling n.d., p.8). This can be seen in the case of poor countries that tend to promote food security for the purpose of basic nutrition, and has translated in lower trade in agricultural products in a global scale as national needs come in first over economic and trade needs of other governments. In addition, globalization further brings up then question of labour in agriculture, where there are cost incurred in agricultural production, especially in labour intensive processing (Soliman and Ewaida1996, p.4). With this in mind, globalization has seen the movement of labour and agricultural activities from countries or nations where it is expensive to produce certain products and into low wage countries. This form of globalization in agriculture has seen practices similar to those found in the manufacturing industries applied in agriculture. This is especially with the industrialization of the agricultural industry, which has seen a drastic drop in quality of products especially due to genetically modified foods that are produced for satisfying the market and demand, and not for the purpose of a healthy population (Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in food and agriculture n.d., p.14). Genetically modified foods may be of benefit to food security as mentioned earlier based on food policies of various governments, especially poor countries. With this in mind, it is important to look at how it has affected agriculture because it has seen the raising of ethical issues that particularly touch on the safety of these foods. There is increased production of genetically modified foods for food security raising concerns over safety as there is advanced preference for organic food raising concerns, again, for ethics. In the above issue of genetically modified foods, which falls under biotechnology, there is profound resistance against non-organic food due to the green revolution. In this case, of biotechnology, there has been development of new strains of plants and animals that are supposed to be resistant to certain environmental condition such as weeds and drought, as well as disease. With this in mind, genetically modified foods and products have been produced to withstand most conditions found in the environment, where they are supposed to withstand (Mannion and Morse 2012, p.750). The main issue still leads back to the safety of these agricultural products considering they become unnatural after which the effects remain unknown, as opposed to the conventional products. In addition, biotechnology has affected agriculture in that, other than providing people with new species of foods and animals, there is increased food security. However, food security that is imposed to the people in form of food aid is usually genetically modified foods as is the case with the non-perishable foods that are supplied to poor nations. There are direct and indirect effects of these genetically modified crops on people in that they are plenty and remain unaffected by certain conditions and are resistant to pesticides, as well as pests (Moschinin 2006, p.1184). This is advantageous because it provides a means of having more food crops that can be used to feed an entire population for a long time. The down side of the whole affair is on the negative impacts on health in that some of the foods are designed with certain enrichments of nutrients and vitamins. These may affect the health of people adversely, especially with allergic reactions to some of the nutrients and genetic mutations that people have no control over (Boehlje n.d., p.3). The upside to this whole affair for the agricultural practitioners is that they are in a position to eliminate conditions affiliated with chemicals used in farming, as they are not in a position to use the chemicals. As such, farmers remain healthy as pesticides and other farm inputs with negative effects are not applied to the crops, but are instead engineered into the crop prior to planting. This is not on a direct scale but based on the design of the plant to be resistant to foreign interference by weeds, pests and adverse weather conditions. For example, the use of biotechnology has seen significant reduction in tillage activities and an increase in productivity in soybean production. This reduction has further see the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as the input of fossil fuels is eliminated and the environment, therefore, remains protected from adverse effects of greenhouse gases. Technology has advanced agriculture in that emissions of certain greenhouse gases can be reduced by use of timed release, however, the challenge lies in that these gases are part of the natural process (Parton et al 2011, p.29). These are such as nitrous oxides from soils and carbon emissions from ruminant animals; as such not much can be done though there is evidence of cutting back on these emissions (Borhan et al 2011, p.786). In conclusion, technology has affected agriculture in multiple ways, which fall under both positive and negative impacts, as well as controversial issues on the same. As such, the positive impacts fall mostly on the issue of global expansion of agriculture, where technology has seen the diversification of trade. In this case, it is noted that it has increased production of food crops and opened markets. In addition, the same technology has seen the application of globalization in agriculture, where it has seen diverse sharing of agricultural knowledge as was seen in the case of Europe and the USA. It is also seen with the use research and development that has seen increased productivity due to shared information and how this shared information causes spillovers and spill-ins. The benefits go ahead to the issue of agriculture mechanization of that it has seen the expansion of farmland and further application of globalization to share these power mechanics for agriculture. The same benefits go on to the issue of providing food security for all, where biotechnology has been applied for increased food production. However, some of these benefits are also part of the controversy involved in the issue of technological application in agriculture, as can be seen in the issue of greenhouse gases that act as pollutants of the environment, where they see the environment ruined. The same case applies to mechanics in agriculture that acts as root for expansion, but ruins the same environment through encroachment. Altogether, technology has had its fair share in agriculture in relation to influence on multiple levels such that it is up to one to outweigh between the positive or negative. References Boehlje, M. (n.d.).Globalization and Agriculture: New Realities. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers. [Online] Available at http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/commercialag/resources/docs/GlobalizationandAg.pdf [Accessed at March 4, 2013]. 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