Vegetables

Following industrialization and improvements in agricultural science, the production of vegetables has become an industry of intensified agriculture. With greater health awareness and demand for vitamin and minerals from natural sources, there is an increase in demand for fresh vegetables in people's diets. From subsistence or small-scale traditional vegetable gardens, there has been a shift to commercial farms situated away from urban centers, with the produce later transported to consumers. “Conventional farming practices” in the vegetable industry usually refers to intensive cultivation aided by the use of synthetic fertilizers, agro-chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.) and high energy consumption to maximize production and profit. However, increasingly, these practices pose concerns of food safety as well as environmental degradation. Thus, there is now a growing movement worldwide calling for sustainable agricultural practices as an alternative to these conventional farming practices.

Some of the key environmental concerns in vegetable production include soil erosion and soil quality, fertilizer and pesticide contamination, water availability, and food safety and quality.

Commercial vegetable production is a labor-intensive crop system, but at the same time, it is also highly lucrative. Thus, many farmers choose to heavily intensify their vegetable production to maximize crop yield per area of arable land. This intensification also means repeated tillage and excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation water. These are the practices that are frequently followed in conventional vegetable farming, which result in considerable environmental impact both on the farm and off the farm.

The term tillage generally refers to the activities involved in the preparation of land for cultivation. However, most of the tillage activities involve turning the soil through plowing for preparing seedbeds and weed management. This can damage the soil structure and also result in soil loss as the loosened soil gets carried away by water or wind erosion. This reduces [Page 440]soil fertility and soil quality and, in turn, lowers the productivity of the land. Often this results in farmers using more chemical fertilizers to compensate for nutrient loss in the soil. The soil that gets carried away by water ends up as sediment in reservoirs, reducing the capacity of hydroelectric dams, clogging waterways, and causing additional and costly problems.

It needs to be emphasized, however, that tillage is not necessarily bad, and it has often been highlighted that the negative effects of tillage are usually the result of malpractice. There are, of course, no-tillage or reduced-tillage systems being advocated as alternatives to conventional tillage practices. However, the effects of tillage differ according to climate; in different regions of the world, tillage may cause considerably less impact on the environment. In fact, in certain regions, tillage may be required to encourage crop growth. Nonetheless, in the humid tropical regions where much of the world's vegetables are grown, tillage is noted as one of the severest causes of soil erosion as well as of promoting pests and weeds, which results in excessive use of chemicals.