Environmental Impacts of Technical Progress in Low-income Agricultu...

Environmental Impacts of Technical Progress in Low-income Agriculture

Being an environmentalist myself, it is part of my duty and responsibility to get involved in the recent happenings about environmental issues that concern our country. The Philippines, having known to be abundantly rich in natural resources both in aquatic and land resources, have many environmental concerns because of improper management and irresponsible behavior of human actions.

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An example of this is about the recent issue on the temporary closure of Boracay, a very famous tourist spot all over the world, because of the damages the pollution have brought. Also, some tourist spots in the country have been temporarily closed because of the garbages that were left by the tourist along the beaches, lakes, and mountains and many more reasons because of human error.

As such, they are also initiatives from the government that tries to correct and address such issues and then dealt with corresponding actions. I have read an article here about technical progress in low-income agriculture that was conducted in Palawan and here are my thoughts about this project.

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Providing agricultural activities in lowland areas is one way to eliminate activities that can cause forest devastation in upland areas such as illegal logging and deforestation or “kaingin”. It is an opportunity for the people from upland to increase their employment rate and by this, their interest to engage in forest degrading activities will be at least avoided.

However, the enforcement and intensification of these agricultural activities are needed in order for them to be pursued and totally stop harming the ecosystem. The profit or salary they get must compensate enough to the exerted efforts of their works and the distance they travel from upland to lowland area. It must also exceed the profit they get from illegal logging or any forest degrading activities.

Also, the analysis shows that somehow the technical progress in lowland agriculture – in the form of irrigation - led to an increase in employment opportunities for upland residents. Thus, continuous enforcement and implementation of these agricultural activities will help reduce or eliminate devastation to the ecosystem. But be sure that the use of new technologies will be balanced and will not later cause harm to the environment. Every farmer must be knowledgeable of the possible negative impact of using those new technologies.

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CARP Irrigation Project in Palawan, Philippines

Balanced programs must also be introduced not only to the lowland areas but also to the upland areas residents like educating them some agricultural crops that will suit to the terrains, locations and climate in high elevation areas and many others.

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Thank you for your time reading this and please look forward to my next episode. If you enjoyed it, you might also like to read my other posts on the link provided below and a resteem is alway appreciated.