Impact of Farming Systems
- To obtain food humans use and modify the ecosystems through farming
- There are four groupings commonly used to categorise farming:
- Arable and pastoral
- Commercial and subsistence
- Extensive and intensive
- Nomadic and sedentary
- A farm that has both livestock and grows crops is a mixed farm
Farming Systems
- All farms are systems, they have inputs, processes and output
Farming System
Impacts of Farming Systems
- All farming systems impact the ecosystem in which they are located
- Some have more impact than others
- Commercial farming tends to:
- Increase monocultures which reduces diversity because the animals have no access to a wide range of foods
- Mean that nutrient cycling is dependent on fertilisers added to the soil, which may be natural (manure) or artificial fertilisers
- Modify the ecosystem with inputs of seed, fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides and the use of machines
- Reduce the links within food webs
- Reduce the amount of biomass
Exam Tip
Remember farms do fit more than one category. For example, a sheep farm in Cumbria. UK would be categorised as pastoral, commercial, extensive and sedentary.
