AGRICULTURE(
1):
Agriculture is the use of land to grow certain kinds of desirable crops,
and in the Amazon, the land is obtained by the felling of trees and clearing
up the rainforest areas. Agriculture itself can be divided up into
3 different forms.
1. Shifter cultivators: These are landless peasants who occupy
lands which have been cleared by loggers.
2. Cash Crops: This refers to the growing of a single or a few
kinds of crop over and over again on cleared land to be sold for quick money.
3. Cattle Ranching: Raising cattle for their meat is a lucrative
trade and these cattle are fed on cleared areas of rainforest land.
These agricultural activities disrupt the delicate soil profile which was
sustained by the rich rainforest, because crops only use up certain chemicals
and leave the others. When left to natural means, the rainforest uses
these soil minerals cyclically thus keeping a balance, which is not observed
by the soil use of crops, especially in the case of cash crops where crops
using only a few chemicals from the soil are grown year after year, giving
the soil not even the slightest chance to cycle back to normal. This
is obviously very inefficient because:
1. After depleting the soil of its necessary components,
more crops cannot be grown on the same land, so farmers have to move on.
2. Once the soil balance is ruptured, new trees cannot grow again
because the soil now lacks the necessary components to sustain it.
3. Pesticides and fertilisers used on land favor certain chemicals
of the soil while destroying others.
4. Cattle ranching and use of heavy machinery compacts the soil further
disrupting the balance and making it more susceptible to erosion.
If this agricultural method is used extensively (which it is), the end
result is the diminishing of a finite rainforest inch by inch (or hectare
by hectare, in this case) up ahead, and an infertile wasteland left behind
which cannot be used to regrow what is being lost.