Construct a case both for and against Intensive Farming.

include:                                                                                  1) Using herbicides to kill weeds. This means that more of the energy from the Sun falling on fields goes to the crops, and not to any other competing plants that aren’t wanted.                                           2) Using pesticides to kill insects that eat the crops. This makes sure no energy is transferred into a different food chain – it is all saved for growing the crops.                                          3) Battery farming animals. The animals are kept close together indoors in small pens, so that they’re warm and can’t move about. This saves them wasting energy as they move around, and stops them using up so much energy keeping warm.                                                        Furthermore, Intensive Farming allows us to produce a lot of food from less and less land, which means a huge variety of top quality foods all year round at cheap prices, allowing both richer people and poorer people to have a balanced diet.                                                        I will now go on to explain the drawbacks. Although Intensive Farming methods are efficient, they sometimes raise ethical dilemmas because they can damage the world we live in, making it polluted, unattractive and devoid of wildlife. The main effects are:                          1) Removal of hedges to make huge great fields destroys the natural habitat of wild creatures. It can also lead to very strong soil erosion.                                                                                         2) Careless use of fertilisers can pollute rivers and lakes. This is known as eutrophication.                     3) Pesticides disturb food chains, as the chemicals can kill some organisms around the pests that the pesticide is trying to kill, which can lead to food shortages higher up the food chain that that particular organism/species is a part of.                                                                      4) Lots of people think that Intensive Farming of animals such as battery-hens is cruel because they have very little space or freedom to move around.                                                              To conclude my case, I will explain the advantages and disadvantages of Hydroponics, a method of Intensive Farming where plants are grown in nutrient solutions (water and fertilisers) instead of in soil. Hydroponics is often used to grow glasshouse tomatoes on a commercial scale, as well as to grow plants in areas with barren soil. Moreover, the advantages of Hydroponics are: that mineral levels can be controlled more accurately; and diseases can be controlled more effectively, and the disadvantages are: that lots of fertilisers need to be added; and there is no soil to anchor the roots and support the plants.                                     By Josh Barnett