SB9i: Food Security

Tuesday, February 05, 2019 SB9i: Food Security Go around the room find and write out definitions for these key terms: Food security Yield Sustainability Agricultural inputs Climate change Vectors Biofuels

Answers

‘exploring the possibilities’ Title: SB9h Food Security Learning Intention: Explain what food security is, giving examples of how food sources are affected by different factors Definition: Food Security means having enough safe and healthy food at all times Homework: http://sjhsciencehomework.weebly.com/ RESOURCES Food security, agricultural inputs, yield, sustainability, climate change, vectors, biofuels. KEYWORDS Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Biology book GCSE Science Dictionary Student Lab Books Each other Teacher ‘exploring the possibilities’

Food Security As countries become wealthier, people prefer to eat more meat and fish This affects the environment more land is need for animals than for plants. Changing practices such as eating farmed rather than wild fish may help. Some people believe that we should not meat or fish at all. Graph showing world supply of different foods in 1961 and 2011

Blind Vote We should eat meat if we want to! We should ban meat to save the environment!

Food Security Look at the graph and answer the questions below: Why has there been an increase in the amount of food produced? Why is it difficult for countries in conflict to produce enough food for their population? Graph showing world supply of different foods in 1961 and 2011 As human population has increased, more food is needed to feed the population. Lack of resources such as fertilisers and areas for farming

Why is food security becoming an issue? Use the graph to explain why food security is becoming an issue. The human population is increasing in number

Growing Crops Growing crops may cause problems also, particularly with agricultural inputs such as fertilisers. Fertilisers increase the yield of crops, but most fertilisers are made using chemical processes that need energy and release carbon dioxide. This raises issues about sustainability.

Checkpoint What is food security? Which factors affect food security? How is food security affected by different factors?

Climate Change Increasing carbon dioxide emissions are leading to climate change. This means that pests and pathogens are moving into new areas. For example midges which are vectors for the virus that causes blue tongue disease has recently been found in the UK (2007). Midges are killed by cold temperatures.

Biofuels One idea to reduce carbon emissions is to grow plants for biofuels to replace fossil fuels. The carbon released by burning a biofuel is only the amount removed from the air by the crop as it grew. However, growing biofuels uses up space that could be used to grow food.

Plenary Exam-style question Explain why food security could be affected by an increase in animal farming. (3 marks) The same amount of land produces less food from animals than if used to grow crops (1). If people eat more meat and less food from crops, then we need more land to produce enough food for everyone (1). If there is not enough land to produce all the meat needed, this will risk food security (1).