Agricultural Practices
The practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land.
What is monocropping?
A type of irrigation system that involves flooding an agricultural field with water.
What is flood irrigation?
Different crops are planted in the same field in an organized sequence, disrupting pest and disease cycles, ultimately improving soil health.
What is crop rotation?
The process of excavating a large pit or open area to extract minerals or rocks from near the earth's surface.
What is open pit mining (or, surface mining)?
Quickly gets livestock ready for slaughter by placing animals in crowded, dense feedlots.
What are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)?
The process of cutting down vegetation and burning it to clear land for agricultural use.
What is slash and burn?
An irrigation technique that involves pumping groundwater into nozzles and spraying them across an agricultural field.
What is spray irrigation?
This technique uses a "push-pull" system. "Push" plants emit volatile chemicals that naturally repel pests away from a specific crop. "Pull" plants emit chemicals that attract pests to lay eggs on them, instead of crops.
What is intercropping?
A surface coal mining technique where the tops of mountains are cleared away to access coal seams beneath.
What is mountaintop removal?
Allows animals to eat grass during their entire lifecycle, growing at a natural rate without hormones.
What is free range grazing?
What is tilling?
An irrigation system that uses perforated hoses to release small amounts of water to plant roots.
The introduction of a natural predator, parasite, or competitor to control a given pest population.
What is biocontrol?
A method of extracting minerals by removing the overburden above the mineral deposit.
What is strip mining?
The farming of aquatic organisms in controlled environments like ponds, tanks, or cages.
What is aquaculture?
These are chemically manufactured materials containing one or more of the primary nutrients necessary for plant growth (nitrogen and phosphorus).
What are synthetic fertilizers?
An irrigation technique that cuts trenches between crop rows and fills them with water.
What is furrow irrigation?
The use of traps, barriers, or other physical methods to exclude or kill pests.
What are mechanical controls?
This mining method uses a vertical shaft and elevator to extract minerals or fossil fuels from beneath the Earth's surface.
A fishing method where a large net is dragged across the ocean floor to catch fish and other marine life.
What is bottom trawling?
A sustainable form of agriculture that intentionally integrates trees and shrubs with crops or livestock.
What is agroforestry?
This industry accounts for 70% of global human water use.
What is agriculture?
The last resort when it comes to integrated pest management techniques. These chemicals target specific pests populations and are applied strategically.
What are pesticides?
This process involves washing or dredging sediments to separate heavier minerals, such as gold or other gems, from lighter materials.
What is placer mining?
A commercial fishing practice where a line with baited hooks is set at sea.
What is longlining?