Agriculture has always relied on innovation to keep up with the demands of a growing population. While traditional farming methods focused on soil health, crop rotation, and manual pest control, modern techniques incorporate a range of chemical solutions to improve growth and protect yields.
These chemicals help farmers tackle challenges that could otherwise devastate crops and livestock, from nutrient deficiencies in the soil to the threat of invasive pests and diseases.
While we’ll be focusing on crop agriculture, there is natural overlap between some elements due to the nature of the industry at a whole.
In this post:
Key Takeaways
Fertilisers supply essential nutrients to crops, helping them grow healthily
Pesticides, including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, protect crops from weeds, disease, and insects
The judicious use of these chemicals is crucial to minimise environmental impact and ensure sustainable farming practices
Why Are Chemicals Used in Agriculture?
Chemicals are used in agriculture for three main reasons:
Preventing or Treating Diseases
Fungicides are used to prevent and treat diseases in crops, especially as they are susceptible to foliar diseases caused by:
- Mildews – these parasites belong to the Peronosporaceae fungi family
- Ascomycetes – these ‘sac fungi’ cause powdery mildews
- Albugo candida – a water mould that causes disease in brassica crops like broccoli and cauliflower
While fungicides can be highly effective, the selective breeding of plants over thousands of years has made preventing and treating diseases very challenging. This is because inbreeding has now reached a point where some of the recessive genetic abnormalities become phenotypically expressed and amplified.
Some of the desirable traits of plants, such as being seedless, can also make plants more vulnerable to disease. In fact, many of them have lost their ability to propagate without human intervention, meaning they’re not able to survive alone in the natural environment.
Increasing Production
Whether organic or inorganic, fertilisers provide the necessary nutrients to help plants grow and function. While they are typically applied to the soil where the crops are planted, other crop cultivation systems (such as hydroponics) can supply nutrients directly to the plant’s roots.
Fertilisers contain key nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium compounds that can be easily absorbed by plants. These nutrients help to keep plants healthy and, in turn, increase production. For example, the nitrogen in ammonia-based fertilisers is essential for producing amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.
Killing Pests
Due to inbreeding and monocropping practices, many crops are vulnerable to pests such as insects, rodents, and weeds. Insecticides, herbicides, and rodenticides are chemicals designed to eliminate these threats. Their use helps in reducing crop losses and maintaining the quality of produce.
What Chemicals Are Used in Agriculture?
1. Herbicides
Herbicides are chemicals formulated to specifically kill weeds and other invasive, unwanted plants that interfere or compete with agricultural crops. They can kill the target pest plant, or weed, without killing the crop plants, in four ways:
- Inhibiting amino acid production
- Inhibiting photosynthetic processes
- Mimicking auxin (plant growth hormone)
- Inhibiting cell division
2. Fungicides
Vegetable crops are vulnerable to different fungi, as fungi makes them rot. Fungicides are specifically formulated to kill fungi and oomycetes (water moulds) that infect plants.
These chemicals work in different ways, such as damaging the cell membrane or inhibiting certain essential processes in fungal metabolism.
3. Phosphorus
Phosphorus is one of the three important minerals that plants need to grow and stay healthy.
It’s a mineral that’s usually in the form of orthophosphate when absorbed from the soil. It plays an important role in root growth and increasing how well plants use and take in water.
4. Nitrogen
Nitrogen is another essential nutrient supplied by fertilisers and is a critical component of amino acids and proteins, which are needed for plants to be able to grow. Nitrogen fertilisers enhance leaf development and overall plant vigour, leading to increased yields.
5. Potassium
Potassium is the last of the three important elements that have a critical part to play in both plant growth and the way plants work.
Absorbed by plants in the form of potassium chloride, and found both naturally and in commercial fertilisers, it’s associated with the movement of carbohydrates, water, and other nutrients in plant tissues. It’s also important in enzyme activation that regulates protein synthesis and adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
6. Insecticides
Insecticides are chemicals used to control insects that damage crops.
By targeting harmful insects, these chemicals help protect crop yields and quality, helping make sure that produce meets market standards and grows healthily.
Why is the Agriculture Industry Important?
Agriculture is the lifeblood of the global economy. It provides the main food ingredients and other related products that we need such as milk, eggs, meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, root crops, and grains. It’s essential for our food security and, ultimately, our survival.
Beyond that, it’s also a major economic powerhouse, with gross value in this market projected to hit $5.52 trillion by 2029 worldwide. In the UK alone, the Total Income from Farming (TIFF) in 2023 was £7.2 billion. While these figures cover the industry as a whole, they can be further split down into individual sectors, such as livestock, wheat farming, agricultural chemical manufacturing, and so on.
With the interconnected nature of farming to our tables, our everyday lives, and to our economy, it’s a vital part of how modern life works, and the importance of it cannot be understated.
Conclusion
Chemicals such as fertilisers and pesticides are crucial tools for today’s agriculture. They help with disease prevention, enhance crop production, and protect against pests, thereby ensuring food security and supporting economic growth. However, using them responsibly is important to both reduce environmental impact and increase sustainable farming.
