Modern Use of Plants and Traditional Versus odern Horticulture Plant production

In last week’s class we learned about how agriculture has changed since the invention of “modern agriculture”. In post last week we saw the ancient history of agriculture, the invention of the wheel so to speak. In this week’s post we see a huge event that changes the world forever, WW1. During world war one we saw companies creating chemicals for use in clearing brush as well as chemical warfare, and when these chemicals were outlawed by the Geneva Convention the companies had to look for new markets. Agriculture. With small adaptations to the structure of the molecules we could take something like nerve gas and turn it into a new organophosphate and use it on insects.

As a society we also invented the Haber-Bosch process creating artificial ammonia which we could use as a fertilizer. Norman Borlaug came on the scene in agriculture and the green revolution took off, using the chemicals for a purpose of feeding the world.

Good intentions do not always work out in your favor however and we saw that these chemicals we were using had an addictive quality to them. A simple concept of genetic diversity in biology could bring the most powerful pesticide to its knees, when you treat a group of organisms with a poison 99% of them die and the ones that survive are a little bit resistant to the chemical. Over generations of insects you eventually create a pest impervious to the pesticide. This cycle of create a new pesticide create a new pest, along with the deteriorating soil organic matter nationally led groups to create a movement away from conventional use of fertilizers. The organic movement was born, and the movement towards farm practices that incorporate environmental sustainability followed.

Heavy stuff here’s some pictures of good looking soil.