Summary Of Some Hard Truths About Agriculture And The Environment By Erik Litchenberg
In the article, “Some Hard Truths About Agriculture and the Environment” by Erik Litchenberg, the author takes a stance on the agricultural problems that takes a toll on the environment. The author touches on improving agriculture by defining ways to devise policies to address the problems, the possible restrictions of those policies, and how everyone has a whole can contribute to the formulation of better policies. However, the author remains to focus on one solution that would fix all agricultural issues which would be pollution taxes. As stated, “Pollution taxes should be the most effective and efficient form of policy.” Throughout the essay, he commences various policies or actions that have been taking place but haven’t been effective
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It is a prime example of a policy that isn’t working in the long run. In addition, for someone to have an expertise in precision application of things such as pesticides and fertilizers demand to be specifically looked over. It wouldn’t be something efficient, “Similarly, precision fertilizer application requires knowledge of existing soil fertility levels, which can vary substantially even within fields of a uniform soil type. And it requires more sophisticated knowledge of crop fertility response than we have now.” This isn’t the best option considering that it could potentially become time consuming at the rate that takes a bundle of time to restart a course of new information to be learned properly. More so, attempting to increase technology usage would similarly have the same effects, “As a result, technical fixes involve more than just installing or using new equipment—they involve implementing new farming systems and adapting them to conditions that vary from place to place within farms… and from year to year. And they require farmers to adopt new forms of management and acquire new sets of skills.” Time isn’t something that goes for very long and considering that the practices that are current have been used for many many years and the time to change is
It is a prime example of a policy that isn’t working in the long run. In addition, for someone to have an expertise in precision application of things such as pesticides and fertilizers demand to be specifically looked over. It wouldn’t be something efficient, “Similarly, precision fertilizer application requires knowledge of existing soil fertility levels, which can vary substantially even within fields of a uniform soil type. And it requires more sophisticated knowledge of crop fertility response than we have now.” This isn’t the best option considering that it could potentially become time consuming at the rate that takes a bundle of time to restart a course of new information to be learned properly. More so, attempting to increase technology usage would similarly have the same effects, “As a result, technical fixes involve more than just installing or using new equipment—they involve implementing new farming systems and adapting them to conditions that vary from place to place within farms… and from year to year. And they require farmers to adopt new forms of management and acquire new sets of skills.” Time isn’t something that goes for very long and considering that the practices that are current have been used for many many years and the time to change is