soil pollution from pesticides

Title: a 50 year old farm bill
By: Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry
January 4th, 2009

Summary: This article provides information on soil and the effect that pesticides have had on it.

It is scary to think about because of points that were brought up regaurding the fact that soil is abused all the time yet it is nonrenuable and very valuable. It doesn't have any substitutes that are powerful or friendly to the environment. "This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice." The agriculture has added pollutants in toxic chemicals that are now also present in the water. As people try to help the soil and plants, they are actually essentially harming it. "And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture" To stop this we need to be sure that farmers are paid well for there healthier goods and that that national agricultural policy is looked into and enforces its laws. This could affect my life because I could be consuming plants that grew in toxic soil. It coudl also lead to soil erosion which would lead to poor farming which would lead to a lact of food being produced.