Summary of Agriculture and Water

Christopher Lant states in his article “Agriculture and Water” that rain-fed agriculture which is known as growing crops in places with plentiful rain is the basic method of using water in agriculture. Now, the crops grown by irrigation occupy about 40 percent of all crops in the world. Besides, the use of irrigation is more than just raising the harvest; it also can help rain-fed agriculture be operated in rainless places. However, irrigation brings some drawbacks at the same time. Lant maintains that the size of irrigation is restricted by the volume of water. The volume used by irrigation now is beyond the natural water renewability. So the groundwater level and water flow rater in rivers decrease sharply. In California, water is tried to be used in city, industry and environmental objectives instead of agriculture and farmers will not lose their rights of using water for their leasing their water to other aims. Although the invention of drip irrigation makes irrigation more efficiently, dry-land agriculture still came back in some places for the high cost of pumping water from the low-leveled groundwater.

Furthermore, the water used by agriculture brings different kinds of infectant, whose source cannot be found, including plant food and agricultural chemicals. The new propose covering Total Maximum Daily Load presses these uncontrolled pollution on the whole river basin. To reduce the pollution, the U.S. Department takes two measures which focus on subsidies and payments to encourage farmers. Nevertheless, these measures just weaken the controversy on agricultural pollution.

A useful solution, Hydroponics, which is to grow plants in some liquid with nutrition sustained by porous materials, is found now.

In recent years, as a country with many mercantile hydroponics places, the United States has built both large and small scaled hydroponic agriculture. So it still has to buy a great quantity of agricultural productions from foreign countries....