Bumblebee on Spearmint © David L. Green

Farming with the Wild — Abstract

• According to USDA statistics, farming activities contribute to 42% of the endangered species listed in the United States, and ranching to 26%.
• More than two-thirds of the world’s available fresh water supplies are now diverted for irrigated agriculture.
• Because of many factors – including dams, agricultural pollution, and the draining of wetlands for agriculture – about one-third of the world’s fresh water fish are now extinct, threatened, or endangered.
• On average 25% of groundwater that is used for agriculture in the United States is not “recharged” or filtered back into underground reservoirs.
• 98 percent of U.S. rivers have been dammed. This severely impacts the ecological function of river systems, the altering seasonal flows and abundance, and affects the diversity of species that depend on river habitats.
• 60% of U.S. rivers are polluted by agricultural sedimentation, excessive nutrients, and pesticides.
• Converting grasslands to millions of acres of corn and soybean monocultures to feed confined animals leads to groundwater contamination, loss of topsoil and the widespread decline of many grassland songbird species.
• Excess nitrogen and nutrients flowing in to the Mississippi River – mainly from fertilizer runoff and animal manure from feed farms in the Upper Midwest of the USA – contribute to an approximately 8,000 square mile “dead zone” of oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Roughly 2/3 of public, private, and tribal lands are used for agriculture, either in grazing, haying or row cropping.
• Each year, some 670 million birds are exposed to pesticides in the United States, and 10% die as a result.
• In order to protect livestock from predators, an estimated 100,000 coyotes, bobcats, bears, wolves, and mountain lions are killed each year by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.
• At best, only 9% of U.S. lands have been protected as natural areas. The protection of biodiversity therefore depends on the protection, restoration, and expansion of wildlife habitat in existing agricultural lands.

Print-friendly download

Back to Top