ABSTRACT
Everyone had to accept what nature provides, but people have increasingly come to depend on agriculture to try and modify the environment to favour plant growth and livestock production. Agriculture may improve productivity through expansion of landuse or intensification or a combination of both. In the DCs from roughly the 1930s agricultural modernization has usually meant more capital-intensive production, greater mechanization, introduction of agrochemicals and high yielding seeds. Intensification of agriculture has often led to pollution from agrochemicals use, livestock manure, livestock feedstuffs, wastes like straw or crop processing effluent. Biotechnology may assist by facilitating the use of presently unusable land, and by enabling intensification through new crops and crop-enhancement measures. And could make possible more food and commodity production through fermentation using virtually no land. When petroleum prices are high, this makes economic sense and reduces harmful vehicle exhaust emissions in cities, although pollution of rivers from fermentation effluent can be a problem.
