Intensive farming

Intensive farming maximizes agricultural output from limited land through high inputs of labor, capital, fertilizers, pesticides, water, or technology.

Green Revolution: A mid-twentieth-century transformation in agriculture driven by high-yield crop varieties, irrigation, fertilizers, and pesticides. Its package of improved seeds and purchased inputs exemplifies intensification at national scale.
Intensive crop farming: Crop production that uses high inputs per unit of land to obtain large or frequent harvests. It is the crop-focused form of intensive farming.
Eutrophication: The enrichment of water with nutrients that can trigger excessive algal growth and oxygen depletion. Fertilizer runoff from intensive farms can overload waterways with nitrogen and phosphorus.
Extensive farming: A farming system that uses relatively little labor and capital per unit of land, often across large areas. It contrasts with intensive farming’s high inputs per unit of land.
High-yield crop variety: A crop variety selected to produce more harvestable output under specified growing conditions. These varieties let intensive systems convert fertilizer and irrigation into larger harvests.
Intensive livestock farming: Animal production that concentrates livestock and relies on substantial feed, infrastructure, and management. It applies intensification to animal production rather than field crops.
Pesticide resistance: The inherited ability of a pest population to survive doses of a pesticide that once controlled it. Repeated pesticide use selects for resistant pests and can make control harder.
Subsistence agriculture: Agriculture primarily directed toward producing food for the farmer’s household or local community. Its production goal differs from intensive systems oriented toward high marketable output.
Fertilizer: A natural or manufactured substance that supplies nutrients to plants and improves soil fertility. Synthetic fertilizers supply nutrients that intensive cropping removes rapidly from fields.
Greenhouse: A structure with a transparent covering that creates a managed environment for growing plants. Protected cultivation allows intensive farms to control temperature, light, and growing seasons.

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AgricultureCompared with: It contrasts with systems that prioritize lower inputs or extensive land use.