More importantly, rampant growth diminishes the capacity of the rural areas to provide
essential services, as crop land is degraded through massive inputs of fertilizers and
pesticides. Water for irrigation purposes is combined with these chemical flows and
contaminates rivers in both rural and urban areas. Contemporary agriculturalists take the
multitude of ecosystem services, “natural services …that support life on the earth and are
essential to the quality of human life and the functioning of the world’s economies” [4] for
granted