SLASH AND BURN FARMING IS A BAD FARMING PRACTICE

WHAT IS SLASH AND BURN FARMING?

Slash and burn farming is a form of shifting agriculture where the natural vegetation is cut down and burned as a method of clearing the land for cultivation, and then, when the plot becomes infertile, the farmer moves to a new fresh plot and does the same again.  This process is repeated over and over.

Negative Aspects of Slash and Burn

Many critics claim that slash and burn agriculture contributes to a number of reoccurring problems specific to the environment. They include:

• Deforestation: When practiced by large populations, or when fields are not given sufficient time for vegetation to grow back, there is a temporary or permanent loss of forest cover.
• Erosion: When fields are slashed, burned, and cultivated next to each other in rapid succession, roots and temporary water storages are lost and unable to prevent nutrients from leaving the area permanently.
• Nutrient Loss: For the same reasons, fields may gradually lose the fertility they once had. The result may be desertification, a situation in which land is infertile and unable to support growth of any kind.
• Biodiversity Loss: When plots of land area cleared, the various plants and animals that lived there are swept away. If a particular area is the only one that holds a particular species, slashing and burning could result in extinction for that species. Because slash and burn agriculture is often practiced in tropical regions where biodiversity is extremely high, endangerment and extinction may be magnified.

The negative aspects above are interconnected, and when one happens, typically another happens also. These issues may come about because of irresponsible practices of slash and burn agriculture by a large amount of people. Knowledge of the ecosystem of the area and agricultural skills could prove very helpful in the safe, sustainable use of slash and burn agriculture.

Sustainable Agriculture

What Is Sustainable Agriculture?

Sustainable agriculture is the production of food, materials, or animals using farming techniques that preserve the environment for future use. With the population of the Earth growing explosively and the available resources being rapidly consumed, it has become imperative for farmers to consider the practices of sustainable agriculture. Without consideration for the future of the environment, the world could very soon enter a food crisis.

What Are the Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture?

Sustainable agriculture seeks to eliminate all of the aforementioned problems. Pesticides, fertilizers, and artificial growth hormones are eliminated entirely from agricultural production. Therefore, the food produced has no risk of harming the consumer and does not contribute to any chemicals in the water or air supply.

Further, whereas the typical farm is a single crop farm, sustainable agriculture often raises more than one crop or product on a single farm. This allows crop rotation to take place, wherein one crop can renew the nutrients that another has taken up in the previous season. Also, livestock on the farm can be used to naturally fertilize the soil. This method of rotation ensures the health of the environment each year for further use. Non-sustainable farming, on the other hand, simply uses the land until it has nothing left to give.

Water is also managed sustainably, with research being done to ensure that water is not being used faster than it is renewed at the source. This often means fewer farming plots in an area or simply a highly-efficient water system such as drip irrigation. Sustainable farmers plant only those types of plants that naturally thrive in their area’s climate so that the crops are more likely to thrive from what the earth can produce rather than what a farmer can provide the crop.

Finally, animals are allowed to live outside and are fed by the land they graze upon. They are allowed to build healthy muscles through exercise and do not accumulate any genetically modified substances or growth hormones in their systems. This ensures their natural growth, leading to meat that is safe for humans to consume.

Palm oil plantation in Malaysia

Palm oil plantation in Malaysia

Introduction of oil palm plant and palm oil

Many people understand that oil palm produces the common vegetable oil used in our daily products but few ask about where the oil is derived from. Palm oil ( dendê oil, from Portuguese) is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp of the fruits bear by the oil palm tree. Yes oil palm and palm oil is a different thing, oil palm is the plant itself and palm oil is the vegetable oil it produces. Oil palm tree took around 30 months to grow from a baby plant to adult and starts to bear fruits afterwards, the lifespan of an oil palm tree is estimated to be able to live for 20 to 30 years and remain productive.  The oil palm tree are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil since palm oil contains more saturated fats than oils made from canola, corn, linseed, soybeans, safflower, and sunflowers, it can withstand extreme deep-frying heat and resists oxidation. It also contains no trans-fat. Many country in the world begins to largely commercialize oil palm plantation mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia because of the advantage of the palm oil it produces.

History of palm oil plantation in Malaysia.

Oil palm species Elaeis guineensis was first introduced into Malaysia as an ornamental plant in the 1870s. Since 1960s, Malaysia had started to widely commercialize the palm oil plantation and rapid increase of area used for palm oil plantation to replace rubber plantation as the market price for rubber is declining further. In 1985, the total area planted for palm oil is 1.5 million hectares which then increased to 4.85 million hectares of palm oil plantation in 2007. As of 2011, the total planted area increased to 4.971 million hectares. Malaysia was known to be the 2^nd largest palm oil producer in the world after Indonesia. Currently Malaysia uses oil palm tree of tenera hybrid which gives better yield yearly as compare to the previous species. The advantage of using Tenera hybrid was the fruits of oil palm can be fully utilize with reduce wastage thus is more environmentally friendly

Malaysia government had plan to make palm oil plantation the country main source of income and to replace the rubber plantation production. In the 1960s, a  land settlement scheme plan is introduced for planting oil palm in smallholder( small farmland for own uses) to eradicate the poverty for smallholder farmers. Palm oil fetch a high price in the market and are encourage by the government to help increase in the land used for palm oil plantation.  Nowadays Malaysia palm oil plantation are largely based on estate area and smallholder

The palm fruit is about the size of a small plum and borne in large bunches. The cross-sectional area of the fruits of oil palm showing the mesocarp and the kernel. Mesocarp produces the palm oil while the kernel is of no value. However with nowadays technology, the kernel is utilize and process into livestock feeds so that there is no wastage produced.

Sperm Cryopreservation of Some Freshwater Fish Species in Malaysia

Sperm Cryopreservation of Some Freshwater Fish Species in Malaysia 

Ex Situ Conservation Methods

Ex-situ conservation is the preservation of components of biological diversity outside their natural habitats.  This involves conservation of genetic resources, as well as wild and cultivated or species, and draws on a diverse body of techniques and facilities.  Gene banks, e.g. seed banks, sperm and ova banks. 

Cryopreservation of fish semen and considering Malaysia has a rich fish fauna with many of them unique to this tropical region, cryopreservation of fish gametes will require detailed study to create new protocol for each fish species intended for semen cryopreservation. To date in Malaysia semen cryopreservation has only been reported for several freshwater fish species, namely Probarbus jullieni, Tor tambroides, T. deuronensis, Hemibagrus nemurus, Pangasius nasutus, Hypsibarbus wetmorei, Barbonymus gonionotus and Clarias gariepinus. It has been demonstrated that semen cryoperservation plays an important role for the genetic conservation of these fish species. 

Cryopreservation technology for fish semen is still not well explored in Malaysia and can be considered as new if compared to the domesticated terrestrial livestocks. Henceforth, this has opened up a new field to be explored with potential applications in aquaculture and in the conservation of the national fisheries genetic resources. Cryopreserved semen could facilitate artificial fertilization especially when mature male fishes are not available or unable to provide viable semen during certain periods of the breeding season. Semen cryopreservation may also be useful for fertilization to produce hybrids of various fish species. It also helps in reducing the cost and labor of maintaining broodstocks under in situ condition. In line with the mission of Department of Fisheries (DOF) Malaysia to develop and manage the national fisheries sector in a sustainable manner, the gene bank of freshwater fishes in the form of semen cryobank of Fisheries Research Institute at Glami Lemi was established in 2008. The establishment of the semen cryobank research has achieved the aim of the DOF towards establishing a national semen cryobank (gene bank) in Malaysia for conserving the genetic materials of the threatened or endangered indigenous freshwater fish species and also for those indigenous species which has potential for aquaculture.

An overview of the current status of semen cryopreservation of Malaysian freshwater fishes is presented in this chapter. The role of semen cryobank is also discussed. Obviously, semen cryopreservation offers potential applications in ex situ conservation and sustainable management of the fisheries genetic resources in Malaysia, especially for those species with rare, vulnerable, threatened or endangered status, those protandry species with sexchanging characteristic over their life time, and also the potential candidates and genetic improved strains for aquaculture development. The successes in semen cryopreservation are very much relied on factors such as having ample knowledge on the biology and reproductive biology of the particular species of interest, trained personnels in various aspects such as gamete cryopreservation, breeding methods, broodstock management and husbandry and larva rearing and nursing of the targeted species.

Summarize the agricultural problem in Peru

Summarize the agricultural problem in Peru

There is a change in climate at commonwealth of Yacus which causes a problem in their agricultural activities. Peru are very dependently on water resources to continue their agricultural activities, now with the lack of water resources the villager had to delay their time of planting potatoes which was previously planted from September and October which was then postpone to November and December. Besides the problem of water irrigation, Peru also faces the problem of humidity. Due to potatoes are suitable only to grow in humid zone the villager had to plant at a higher altitude up to 13,000 and 14,000 feet as the soil erosion below is strong. Their problem is at lower altitude, there isn’t much humidity and organic material to hold onto the little rain that falls. With the hope of breaking soil at higher altitude for potatoes plantation however they are not sure of the type of soil, climate and pasture are really suitable for their potatoes plantation so as to prevent any lost of their variety of potatoes.

In Peru, there is no proper guidance given to the villager for agriculture activities which has cause an unnecessary use of chemical and fertiliser for the crop. The seeds for crop production is not suitable for the soil in Peru so they are in search of new seeds for agriculture production. The people also faces problem of selling their products, the organic grown crop without any use of chemical and insecticides are rejected by buyer at the market because of the different appearance compare to products which uses fertiliser as it looks more reliable by most buyer. In the central sierra, most of the land are dry. They don’t have any infrastructure for irrigation of water at Mantaro Valley.

Discuss how to solve the problem

Firstly, Peru have water resource problem which can be solve by having a better water irrigation system as it is important for agricultural activities. The villager can begin by storing a large amount of water supply when water is available specially kept for agricultural uses as they mention water supply are scarce for agriculture activities. Second problem was humidity due to the increase in the temperature, humidity at lower altitude was lower. Besides planting the potatoes at higher altitude which can be a risk as the soil and environment condition was unknown, the villagers can opt for a greenhouse built for potatoes plantation. Greenhouse are able to control the environment of the surrounding inside whichever condition are suitable for the people in Peru to plant their potatoes and greenhouse also have an advantage where it is able to produce the environment for the climate of 4 seasons. With the use of greenhouse, plantation for potaotes will not be delayed and can be planted throughout the year. Third problem was that the Peru people does not have any understanding about farming and agricultural education plus they didn’t realize that their soil was actually fertile and does not require any fertiliser at all. They should look for the help from government to govern the farmer and done a proper examination on the ground soil at Peru. The farmer should be educated about importance of agriculture and the side effect of using too much fertiliser. Farmers should also get new types of seeds with GMOs that have better traits and gives higher yield for agriculture, which where they will be selling at the market. They should promote their healthy products to buyers so that they know how their products were grown as compared to those uses fertiliser and insecticides. The problem with irrigation of water can be solve by seeking help from the government of Peru about the problem lack of water irrigation for agricultural purpose.

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