Impact of agricultural practice on ecosystem services

Agriculture produces much more than just crops. Agricultural practices have impact on a wide range of ecosystem services, including water quality, pollination, nutrient cycling, soil retention, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity conservation. In turn, ecosystem services affect agricultural productivity. Understanding the contribution of various agricultural practices to the range of ecosystem services would help inform choices about the most beneficial agricultural practices. Agriculture is one of the main drivers of environmental change. It is the source of many changes in land use and the origin of a broad range of pollutants. The relationship between agricultural practices and impact on ecosystem services is complex. Ecosystems deliver multiple types of services across widely varying spatial scales, so the patterns of agricultural use across many different scales also matter. Patterns of agricultural use affect the quantity and quality of services that they deliver. For example, one side Shifting cultivation, a primitive type of agriculture practiced in north-eastern India and another side, modern agriculture in so-called green revolution states of north-western India both have their devastating and far-reaching consequences in degrading the environment and ecosystem services. Increasing food demands for burgeoning population has restricted the agriculture itself as an ecosystem providing mainly provisioning services for human well being at the cost of degradation of other services. Water scarcity, nutrient overloading, biodiversity loss, ocean over exploitation, climate change and habitat change are the major interconnected trends linked with agricultural practices to affect global ecosystems. Based on above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that in meeting demands and raising production, a significant number of ecosystems have been degraded. To co-create a sustainable future, we need to devise adequate means to value our natural assets and resources. This requires substantial changes in policy and practice of our agriculture.