Impact of Salinisation and Drought on Farming

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Impact of salinisation and drought on farming Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber and other products used to sustain human life, therefore it is vitally essential for people. There are 7 billion people around the world so it’s quite hard to feed them all and get rid of malnutrition. Now the amount of food produced by farms can be enough only for the half of human population. As a result, scientists should invent something to accelerate the growth rate of plants and animals, make them resistant to the bacteria, viruses, diseases etc. But firstly it would be better to get rid of some significant problems, which make the food productions less. Perhaps one of the biggest problems that ever had been in farming is salinisation, or the process that leads to an excessive increase of water-soluble salts in the soil. The accumulated salts include sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium, chloride, sulphate, carbonate and bicarbonate. There some causes of salinisation. First is primary salinisation: over long periods of time, as soil minerals weather and release salts, these salts are flushed or leached out of the soil by drainage water in areas with sufficient precipitation. But problems with excess of salt can be caused by the human activities, such as irrigation. Since some of only some of the salt is used by plants, rest of it left behind, therefore it begins to accumulate. Later it would be difficult for plants to absorb soil moisture so these salts must be leached out of the plant root zone by applying additional water. Then the salt is brought on soil surface by capillary action. Perhaps, you might think that plants need the salts and it’s not such a big problem. But, actually, the excess of salts is deadly for them. Salt prevents, limits or disturbs the normal metabolism, water quality and nutrient uptake

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