Environment

Environmental Agriculture

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The Green Revolution

The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution occured during the 1950 and the late 1960s.

The basic approach was the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains

One key leader was Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.

Multiple Choice

Who was the Father of the Green Revolution

• Greta Thunberg

• Norman Borlaug

Modern Ramifications

• Agriculture, deforestation and other land use account for roughly 20 percent of all GHG emissions

• More than all of the world’s cars, planes, and trains combined.

• three times greater than emissions from the global building sector, and equal to all industrial emissions.

• Sector with the second highest rate of emissions

Deforestation

Agriculture is the direct driver of roughly 80 percent of tropical deforestation

>50,000 acres of forests are cleared by farmers and loggers per day worldwide,

Cattle ranching, animal agriculture, and logging are the leading causes

Around 6.7 million acres of tropical forests are bulldozed or burned for cattle production each year.

Deforestation in the tropics alone accounts for approximately 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Multiple Choice

Which of these is not a major cause of deforestation

• Palm oil

• Soy plantations

• Livestock

• Cranberry Bogs

Emissions

• U.S. agriculture emitted an estimated 698 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2018

•  cattle, sheep and goats—accounts for about 40% of agricultural production emissions in the past 20 years.

  
  

•  irrigated rice fields account for about 11 percent of emissions

• Dominant sources of agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs) include carbon dioxide (CO2) from tropical deforestation, methane (CH4) from livestock and rice production, and nitrous oxide (N2O) from fertilizing or burning croplands

Multiple Choice

Which of these are not large producers of methane in agriculture?

• Rice

• Beef

• Deforestation

Multiple Choice

Which greenhouse gas has the largest warming effect

• Co2

• Methane

• Nitrous Oxide (N20)

Solutions

• reducing the amounts of meat you eat especially beef

•  Eating more sustainably sourced meat.

• Eat more sustainably sourced local foods.

• Growing your own produce.