Discussion essay test Read the example of a discussion essay above.

It has been divided into the stages given above as an example to illustrate staging. 1. Draw a box around (or colour) the stages of the Introduction, ody and !onclusion within the discussion essay below titled, The mechanisation of agriculture and its effect on quality of life. "se the model from the essay titled Genetically modified foods above. #he general statement from the introduction has been done for you. $. %tate the meaning of bolded words founded in the essay.
The mechanisation of agriculture and its effect on quality of life

&a'or developments have ta(en place in the field of a)riculture during the last century, one of the most Important of which has been the introduction and extensive use of macinery.#his has had great effects on the environment and on the lives of millions of people around the world. *or the purposes of this essay, we will ta(e the mechanisation of agriculture to mean the use of any device that is powered by anything other than humans or animals, on a farm. !areful consideration of some of the effects of agricultural mechanisation, both positive and negative, is essential for any country currently experiencing an increase in the use of such machines. #he vast increase in out put that has been made possible by more use of mechanisation is probably the most important positive effect of this process. #he speed of planting crops, spreading fertilisers and pesticides, and harvesting, is phenomenal. +ll three of these processes contribute to e)ually enormous increases in production. &echanisation has improved food production during this century and has helped to feed the larger world population. Increased use of farm machinery has also generally led to a decrease in costs. #his may seem surprising when the

considerable cost of initial purchase of e)uipment is considered (this may be tens of thousands of dollars for a tractor, or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large piece of e)uipment li(e a combine harvester). ,owever, a tractor enables one person to perform so much more wor( that the extra profit, made from having more crop to sell, more than covers the purchase and running costs of the tractor. #hrough similar savings using other pieces of e)uipment, costs per hectare of food production have fallen significantly. Despite these highly positive results of mechanisation, there are also several negative factors that aren-t always considered by the proponents of this process. .ne of the most important of these is employment. +s in all other fields of life, the increasing use of machines inevitably results in the same 'ob being done by fewer people. It can be argued that some 'obs are created in designing and maintaining the machines, but almost always more 'obs are lost than created, and in addition the people whose 'obs are lost often do not have the s(ills to underta(e the newly created 'obs. #herefore many 'obs have to go, leading to a variety of social problems in rural communities. .ne of these problems is that the unemployed of the countryside have to go elsewhere to find wor(/the obvious places to loo(. are the larger cities, where further problems occur. #hus the increasing use of machinery leads to an explosion in urban population. ecause the people moving to the cities are usually poor, this causes problems of sub/ standard housing (resulting in slums), transport problems and urban poverty, as there are not necessarily more 'obs available in the city than there were in the countryside. +lso, the movement of people to the cities often means that families are spilt up, and villages which were once strong communities become too small to support essential services such as post offices and public transport. #his leads to the irreversible brea(up of these communities as people move to the cities.

In addition, the use of machinery on farms contributes to environmental destruction. &achines allow larger areas to be cultivated, thus leading to loss of the habitat in which wildlife lives. *or example, in 0ngland, the increasing use of machines has made it easy for farmers to remove the hedges that used to separate fields. #hus many species of butterfly are now facing extinction because they have nowhere to live and breed. In +ustralia, over/use of the land by machines has resulted in many farms becoming li(e deserts. *urthermore, the energy that agricultural machines use is mostly produced from the burning of diesel, which causes pollution as well as adding to global warming. 0lectricity that is sometimes used to power farm machinery is also usually produced in environmentally unsound ways. In summary, there are many disadvantages to the mechanisation of agriculture as well as advantages. 1ith the increasing population of the world, most governments consider that expanding mecnanisation is the only way to feed the additional hungry mouths. ,owever, it would be sensible for governments to ta(e steps to minimise the disadvantages of this process. Developed countries experienced these disadvantages some time ago, and while many of them have been overcome, a significant number of mista(es were made. It would be wise for countries currently undergoing mechanisation to study these mista(es carefully and to avoid ma(ing the same ones themselves.