Hi guys, welcome back to our 5th post! Sorry for the slow posting this week, we were catching up on lectures and preparing for tutorials!

Let’s back-track a little bit and as a starter, I would like to introduce more about the term “Agricultural Pollution”. So what actually is Agricultural Pollution? Well, as we know, agriculture is about the growing of crops and animals for human consumption and uses, so Agricultural Pollution can mainly come from 2 categories: (1) Pollution from growing crops (as we know most commonly) and (2) Pollution from rearing animals (animals will release their discharges possibly into the freshwater directly, or onto the soils of our land used for agriculture or even the atmosphere).

Animal Rearing

Spraying of pesticides

So it doesn’t seem like there is much to talk about right..? Well, that’s what we will be researching more about! Agricultural Pollution is of course less infamous than our brother pollution, Atmospheric Pollution or Aquatic Pollution. But there are some links between them. In fact, Agricultural Pollution could lead to both Atmospheric and Aquatic Pollution (worsening the situation than it already is!). The rearing of animals is one of the key polluters to the atmosphere. Cow burping and farting release harmful greenhouse gases (Enteric Fermentation, I would like to cover this in a future post) into the atmosphere, contributing to the already terrifying global warming status. Run-offs from the land being washed into the nearby rivers and lakes could harm our marine life that we consume (Refer to Post #1). Agricultural Pollution is a vicious cycle and we consumers are not well aware of our contributions to it especially in grocery stores, buying and supporting such produce!

So that’s all I have for today! More updates to come! See you! 🙂

References:

LINDWALL, C., 2019. Industrial Agricultural Pollution 101. [online] NRDC. Available at: <https://www.nrdc.org/stories/industrial-agricultural-pollution-101> [Accessed 5 July 2020].

Sexton, C., 2020. Damaging Air Pollution From The Agricultural Industry Has Been Underestimated. [image] Available at: <https://www.earth.com/news/damaging-air-pollution-agriculture/> [Accessed 5 July 2020].

2020. Agricultural Pollution. [image] Available at: <http://www.schoolchalao.com/basic-education/show-results/pollution/agricultural-pollution> [Accessed 5 July 2020].