The Effects of Nitrate Leaching on the Environment

Nitrate leaching refers to the phenomenon whereby nitrates in agricultural soils become dissolved in rainwater. And this can have potentially negative impacts for human health and can also lead to eutrophication. Eutrophication is a process whereby a build-up of organic nutrients in rivers, wetlands and lakes leads to a population explosion of algae. Most of those are below the EPA thresholds for health. So the conclusion is that organic farms do produce hardly any pesticides compared to conventional farms but pesticide runoff probably isn't that big of a deal even for conventional farms.