How floods affect agriculture and animal husbandry?
Answers
Floods cause a lot of harm to agriculture and animal husbandry.
Agriculture:
1. They destroy many acreages of crops.
2. It is difficult to dry the land for replanting after the floods.
3. Farm equipment cannot be used if the field is flooded after seeding and the plants have started to come. So the plants can be affected by fungus and other diseases.
4. If there is too much water for a long time the plant may die or have a stunted growth.
5. The force of flood waters can cause erosion of the soil in the farmland.
Animal husbandry
1. Animals may be swept away or drown in the flood waters.
2. It may be difficult to procure feed for them if it cannot be brought by boats or aircrafts to the flood stricken area or if it is spoiled by being underwater.
3. Diseases can be transmitted to livestock by drinking the flood waters or by the bacteria left after the recession of the flood waters.
They can uproot whole communities, destroy crops and homes, change landscape and even kill people.
In the case of agriculture, floods can destroy crops which require little water. However, small floods near the river are beneficially as it improve soil potency and provides better crops in the long-run.
In the case of animal-husbandry, again the negative impact is the fact that floods have known to drown thousands of animals, even big cows and buffaloes, not to mention camels, goats, hens and other farm animals.