<Li> Environmentalists attribute the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico as being encouraged by nitrogen fertilization of the algae bloom . </Li> <P> Sustainable agriculture is the idea that agriculture should occur in a way such that we can continue to produce what is necessary without infringing on the ability for future generations to do the same . </P> <P> The exponential population increase in recent decades has increased the practice of agricultural land conversion to meet demand for food which in turn has increased the effects on the environment . The global population is still increasing and will eventually stabilise, as some critics doubt that food production, due to lower yields from global warming, can support the global population . Agriculture can have negative effects on biodiversity as well . Organic farming is a multifaceted sustainable agriculture set of practices that can have a lower impact on the environment at the small scale . However, in most cases organic farming results in lower yields in terms of production per unit area date = October 2016)). Therefore, widespread adoption of organic agriculture will require additional land to be cleared and water resources extracted to meet the same level of production . A European meta - analysis found that organic farms tended to have higher soil organic matter content and lower nutrient losses (nitrogen leaching, nitrous oxide emissions and ammonia emissions) per unit of field area but higher ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching and nitrous oxide emissions per product unit . It is believed by many that conventional farming systems cause less rich biodiversity than organic systems . Organic farming has shown to have on average 30% higher species richness than conventional farming . Organic systems on average also have 50% more organisms . This data has some issues because there were several results that showed a negative effect on these things when in an organic farming system . The opposition to organic agriculture believes that these negatives are an issue with the organic farming system . What began as a small scale, environmentally conscious has now become just as industrialized as conventional agriculture . This industrialization can lead to the issues shown above such as climate change, and deforestation . </P> <P> Conservation tillage is an alternative tillage method for farming which is more sustainable for the soil and surrounding ecosystem . This is done by allowing the residue of the previous harvest's crops to remain in the soil before tilling for the next crop . Conservation tillage has shown to improve many things such as soil moisture retention, and reduce erosion . Some disadvantages are the fact that more expensive equipment is needed for this process, more pesticides will need to be used, and the positive effects take a long time to be visible . The barriers of instantiating a conservation tillage policy are that farmers are reluctant to change their methods, and would protest a more expensive, and time consuming method of tillage than the conventional one they are used to . </P>

Ways in which agriculture contributes to the environmental degradation