Land conversion Land incapable of being cultivated for the production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food and can reduce
starvation. This outcome also makes a country more
self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable often involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, aqueducts,
desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert,
hydroponics, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer,
pesticides,
reverse osmosis water processors,
PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, and installing greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas. Such modifications are often prohibitively expensive. An alternative is the
seawater greenhouse, which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea. The use of artifices does not make the land arable. Rock still remains rock, and shallowless than turnable soil is still not considered toilable. The use of artifice is an open-air non-recycled water hydroponics relationship. The below described circumstances are not in perspective, have limited duration, and have a tendency to accumulate trace materials in soil that either there or elsewhere cause deoxygenation. The use of vast amounts of fertilizer may have unintended consequences for the environment by devastating rivers, waterways, and river endings through the accumulation of non-degradable toxins and nitrogen-bearing molecules that remove oxygen and cause non-aerobic processes to form. Examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land include: •
Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland (not to be confused with the
Isle of Arran in Scotland's
Firth of Clyde) were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky. The people covered the islands with a shallow layer of seaweed and sand from the ocean. Today, crops are grown there, even though the islands are still considered non-arable. • Israel: The construction of
desalination plants along Israel's coast allowed agriculture in some areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have produced a new source of water for farming, drinking, and washing. •
Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients from the wood ash, but these are exhausted within a few years. •
Terra preta, fertile tropical soils produced by adding charcoal.
Land degradation Examples Examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land include: • Droughts such as the "
Dust Bowl" of the
Great Depression in the US turned farmland into desert. • Each year, arable land is lost due to
desertification and human-induced
erosion. Improper irrigation of farmland can wick the
sodium,
calcium, and
magnesium from the soil and water to the surface. This process steadily concentrates salt in the root zone, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant. •
Rainforest deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren (about ten percent of the country) as a result of
slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of
shifting cultivation practiced by many natives. • According to a study published in the journal,
Science, toxic heavy metals can contaminate arable land. ==See also==