Abstract:
Enhancement of environmental quality is an accepted national goal.
Historically, the major efforts to maintain and enhance environmental
quality have focused upon problems caused by urban centers. This emphasis
has been due to pressing problems in controlling industrial pollution, in
treating domestic liquid wastes, in disposing of municipal solid wastes, and
perhaps to an instinctive feeling that agriculturally related environmental
quality problems were uncontrollable and/or minor. Only recently has
attention been given to the waste problems of agriculture.
The specific role of agriculture as it affects the environmental quality
of the nation is unclear. The contribution of agriculture to water, air, and
nuisance problems compared to contributions from industrial and domestic
sources is difficult to assess. The available information suggests that the
contribution from agriculture may be significant at the regional or local
level. Data on fish kills from feedlot runoff, nutrient problems due to
runoff from cultivated lands, the quantities of animal and food-processing
wastes produced nationally, the pollutional strength of these wastes, the
possible contamination of groundwaters from crop production and land
disposal of wastes, and the increasing size of agricultural production
operations indicate that considerable attention must be given to the development of a number of alternative methods to handle, treat, and dispose
of agricultural wastes with minimum contamination of the environment.
The past decade has seen increasing monies and manpower devoted to
finding solutions to the management of agricultural wastes. While considerable knowledge of the magnitude of the problem and of possible
technical solutions to specific problems exists, detailed management methods
to prevent contamination of the environment have only recently become
available.
Agriculture is being faced with a number of constraints as the nation
attempts to improve the quality of the environment. Since the concept of a
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