Dear Farmers,
Thank you for being the backbone of our industrialist world and providing us with the food that we often take for granted. It is not a forgiving job and I commend you for that. However, I would like to raise awareness that some of your agricultural practices might be harming you, your loved ones and the community you live in. You may be shocked to hear this. Let me explain.
Chemical fertilisers have revolutionised how we carry out our activities in the farm, almost like a miracle that allows plants to grow on soils that may not be the most conducive. However, like how the saying goes “Too much of a good thing is bad”, fertilisers are no different. Researchers have found that our farmers have been applying too much fertilizer to our farmlands unknowingly (Merrington et al., 2002). Apart from harming our crops, doing so also leads to water pollution as the excess fertilisers often find its way to local water sources, like rivers and lakes, by getting washed away by the rain or irrigation runoff. This ends up contaminating the sources of drinking water that you and your community rely upon. You can find out what are some of the adverse effects of excess fertilizers from this blogpost.
So what can you do to help the situation? Simple steps like getting a soil composition analysis and understanding of crops’ nutrient requirements before the crop season would allow you to know what specific nutrients are lacking in your soil and needed for healthy crop growth (Savci, 2012). So you can save cost and time by applying just the right type and amount of nutrients needed for your crops. Maybe you can even consider switching to organic fertilisers which take days to become available to plants as they are not water-soluble but rather need to decompose but they put in the soil for longer and not leach out, unlike water-soluble chemical fertilisers.
Maybe it is time we become more conscious of what we put on our soils that feed us! Save your community and loved ones for unnecessary danger because we may not see the consequences directly!
Trailing off,
Jade and Ridzuan
References
Merrington, G., Linton Winder, Parkinson, R. and Redman, M. (2002). Agricultural Pollution: Problems and Practical Solutions. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316076348_Agricultural_Pollution_Problems_and_Practical_Solutions [Accessed 9 Sep. 2020].
Savci, S. (2012). Investigation of Effect of Chemical Fertilizers on Environment. APCBEE Procedia, [online] 1, pp.287–292. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212670812000486 [Accessed 31 Aug. 2020].
