Air Pollution And Agriculture

Air Pollution refers to the intentional or unintentional introduction of harmful components into the earth's atmosphere that can result in diseases, deaths, damages of living organisms or crops. On the other hand, agriculture entails the cultivation and farming of both animals and plants to enhance the life of human being. In the past centuries, air pollution has become a major problem in agriculture. Burning coal and petroleum results to an increased production of oxide, ammonia, ethylene, chloride and carbon monoxide. These are contaminating the clean air that is useful to humans and also the water and soil. Increasing population and the use of motor vehicles has played a bigger part in air pollution. Although most can argue that this pollution is only seen in the urban setup it’s also witnessed in rural areas. The mixture of all pollutants including agriculture releases a lot of contaminants into the air that has led to the destruction of the ozone layer in the atmosphere. The use of agricultural pesticides, nitrates, and the nuclides has a damaging effect on food, forage, fiber and forest crops. This is substantially reflected in the increased cases of cancer, respiratory, asthmatic and bronchial diseases. The increased population which has resulted to the increasing demand for food has led to the evolution of genetic engineering that is responsible for spreading of harmful pollution which is causing the extinction of our treasured indigenous crops.

Air pollution by agriculture

Agriculture pollutes the air through odors, pesticides, smoke, methane, dust, waste and allergenic pollens. The systematic pollution of air through crops that have undergone genetic engineering has not yet been quantified by the relevant institution, but we cannot rule out or take any chances with these fatal greedy processes. Agriculture plays a significant role in greenhouse gases emission, which makes these man-made refrigerants responsible for the holes in the ozone layer that have led to increased temperatures on earth. In most cases, people and industries have used fossil fuels whereby it’s burnt living lots of carbon gases in the air.

Effects of air pollution on agriculture

Agricultural crops can be damaged when left exposed to concentrated air pollutants. The damages that occur can be markings on crops foliage which reduces the growth and hence the yields and plant's premature death. Some gases in the atmosphere are very harmful to plants. They include sulfur dioxide which gives plants injuries that make them change their coloring matters and ammonia which makes the vegetation around experience slow growth and makes them appear bleached, necrotic lesions and irregular.