Why is there enormous pressure on agricultural land?

1. The 'Right of inheritance' has lead to division of land among successive generations rendering the size of the land holding uneconomical.

2. The farmers continue to maximize output from the limited agricultural land which puts a large amount of pressure on the land and soil to produce more than it is naturally capable of.

2a. Fertilizers and pesticides are reducing the organic matter layer and consequently reducing both soil fertility, quality and carbon content to the point that it may not produce the desired amount of nutrient for plants to survive, let alone thrive on if something is not done soon to prevent such a thing from occurring--often referred to as desertification.

3. The development and expansion (otherwise known as "urban sprawl") of towns, cities, suburbs and sub-divisions reduce the amount of agricultural land available to grow crops and raise livestock on. Farmers are either pushed off their land with the pressure of impeding urbanization or bribed off their land with the potential buyer telling them they could get a lot more for selling their land than they could ever make using it to produce food for hundreds of thousands of people.