While cattle ranching is the leading direct cause of deforestation in the Amazon, the land often doesn’t remain pasture for long. In many cases, it’s later sold to corn and soybean farmers—a process I’ll explore in detail in a future post. For now, I want to provide a general overview of crops and their environmental impact.

Crops are, indirectly, an even greater driver of deforestation than livestock. I’ll explain why when I cover specific crops, but there are some general environmental harms worth discussing up front.

In addition to causing habitat destruction, agriculture poses serious chemical threats to ecosystems through the widespread use of fertilizers and pesticides. As I mentioned in my post on eucalyptus plantations, fertilizers—particularly nitrogen-based ones—can be more environmentally damaging than pesticides. Fertilizer runoff causes algal blooms, which can poison aquatic ecosystems and lead to oxygen-depleted “dead zones.” Nitrogen fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas far stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of climate impact.

As for pesticides, their effects are more straightforward. Chemicals designed to kill things… kill things. Insecticides harm insects (including beneficial ones), herbicides kill plants (not just weeds), and fungicides impact fungi (including essential soil fungi). These substances rarely limit their damage to their intended targets.

Some crops have additional, unique effects on the environment, which I’ll explore in their respective sections. For now, it’s important to understand that industrial crop production in the Amazon poses serious risks—not just through land conversion, but through the chemicals it unleashes into the environment.