Home >> Science & Nature >> Nature

How Overfarming Affects the Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen is a basic element that all plant life needs to grow and flourish. It is absorbed by plant roots after being converted into a compound that plants can accept. This occurs through nitrogen-fixing bacteria and algae in soil, organic fertilizers or artificial fertilizers. However, the industrialization of farming and overproduction of the earth has actually reduced the available nitrogen in the soil. This is causing long-term harm to farmed plants.

Key Component of Life
- Nitrogen is a key nutrient of life, along with phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, sulphur, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen. These elements are required in large quantities to create life. However, scientists have focused on nitrogen to increase the yield or production of plants as it is needed to produce amino acids, which are important building blocks. Increased nitrogen fertilization tends to increase the size of plants as well as the survival rate. Farmers strive for plants with these traits so that they can improve their yield and profit.
Nitrogen Cycle
- The Nitrogen Cycle is the process by which nitrogen is used to build the essential blocks of life. First, bacteria fix nitrogen or plants absorb it from other sources to build amino acids, which are used in protein. Then an animal consumes part of the plant with these materials. The animal ingests the bacteria and eventually returns it to the earth for another plant to begin the cycle over again. Any obstacle to this cycle interrupts the process and harms the prospects for continued plant life.
Overproduction
- Overproduction of farmland and nitrogen occurs when so many plants are grown and so little fertilizer is used that the soil begins to lack the fundamental nutrients of life. According to a study done in 2006, three quarters of the farm land in sub-Saharan Africa had been over farmed and had not allowed for the nitrogen and other nutrients to return to the soil. Typically, plots of land are left fallow for up to 10 years to rejuvenate land after it has been farmed for too long.
Artificial Nitrogen
- Overproduction and interruption of the nitrogen cycle in the developed world has another consequence. While farmers in rich countries are able to fertilize their plants, they often contain artificial nitrogen products that were not conducted by bacteria-fixing. These have the effect of increasing the greenhouse effect, reducing the ozone layer and creating smog, acid rain and poor water quality. Each of these has deleterious effects on our health.

Nature