Commercial Agriculture and the Environment: An Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

The decade of the 1980s saw a resurgence of concern over the environmental and health effects of agricultural production that exceeded even the concern in the sixties generated by the publication of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring. Consumers worried about the health effects of pesticide residues on foods; conversion of wetlands to crop production was blamed for the decreased population of migratory waterfowl; rural residents worried about the effects of nitrates and pesticides found in their groundwater supplies; and sediment, nutrients, and pesticides in surface waters were blamed for the decline of estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay and contributed to problems in freshwater and coastal fisheries.