1. Modern Commercial Agriculture Part 2: Organic, Local, Environmental Impacts, and the Global Food Crisis
AP HUG

2. Organic Agriculture
A farming system that promotes sustainable and biodiverse ecosystems and relies on natural ecological processes and cycles, as opposed to synthetic inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers

3. Bell Ringer: Map Analysis
Where are the farms located in the United States?
Where are the organic farms located?
Describe the differences and similarities in their location.
Why do you think the differences exist?

4. Spatial Distribution of American Farms

5. Spatial Distribution of Organic Farms

6. Look at the map of Median Income
What pattern(s) do you see in the relationship of the location of organic farms.

8. Look at the obesity maps provided.
What do you see when you compare the Organic Farms, Median Income, and Obesity maps with on another?

9. Obesity Trends Among Adults

10. Elbow Partner Analysis
What is the pattern?
Why does the pattern exist?
Why is the pattern important?

11. ™ The Dirty Dozen™ and The Clean Fifteen
Of the 12 most contaminated foods, 7 are fruits: peaches, strawberries, apples, domestic blueberries, nectarines, cherries and imported grapes.
Celery, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale, collard greens and potatoes are the vegetables most likely to retain pesticide contamination:
The Clean Fifteen™
The vegetables least likely to test positive for pesticides are onions, sweet corn, sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, eggplant and sweet potatoes.
The fruits least likely to test positive for pesticide residues are avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, domestic cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit and honeydew.

12. Global Food Crisis
A sustained condition of food insecurity worldwide in scope and significance

13. Maize is the most widely grown staple crop in Africa – more than 300 million Africans depend on it as their main food source.
Thikhala Chilembwe, 14, from Malawi.
PHOTO: CAMERON MCNEE/MISSIONMALAWI//ACTIONAID
Margret David harvests a healthy crop from her garden in Malawi.
PHOTO: ACTIONAID
Maize is grown across the world on many small family farms.
You may have eaten sweet corn, which is a type of maize.
Maize can also be turned into flour and used to make things you may have tried, like tortillas!
In the picture on the left, you can see Thikhala Chilembwe, aged 14, at his community’s maize store in Lilongwe, Malawi. In the picture on the right, you can see farmer Margret David from Mwanza, Malawi, with her healthy maize crop.

14. Why has this maize crop dried up? Can you think of three reasons?
The Yaa family's failed maize crop in Langobaya, Kenya.
PHOTO: DES WILLIE/ACTIONAID
In this picture you can see a failed maize crop. The crop was grown by the Yaa family who live in Langobaya, Kenya (The picture is also featured in the poster ‘Mariam’s story: drought in Kenya’).
The maize crop has failed because:
There has been a prolonged drought in this area. This means that there has been no rain for a long period. Without rain, crops cannot grow.
Other reasons could include:
Poor quality soil without the right nutrients to grow crops.
No manure or compost to spread on the soil to give crops the right nutrients.
The maize is diseased.

15. Karisa, Mariam and Karembo Yaa at home in Langobaya, Kenya.
PHOTO: DES WILLIE/ACTIONAID
The Yaa family’s maize crop has failed due to recurrent drought. As a result, the family have only 5kg of beans and 5kg of rice to eat for the next three weeks.
Drought and hunger Here is Mariam with her family. In front of them are two bowls containing all the food they have for the next three weeks: the smaller bowl contains rice; the larger bowl contains beans.
Like many Kenyans their staple diet is maize. However, as you can see the family have no maize at the moment. In 2011 Kenya had one of its driest years since Maize crops perished which had a devastating effect on farming families like Mariam’s, and also caused the price of maize to rise.
Drought and climate change
Droughts in Kenya are becoming more frequent and more severe as a result of increasing global temperatures.

17. Desertification: the gradual transformation of habitable land into desert

18. Desertification One of the most serious threats facing humanity
Affects 1/5 of the world’s population in more than 100 countries
Poverty is a cause and a consequence
Leads to forced migration (rural to urban)

19. Desertification Vulnerability

20. Soil Erosion
The physical loss and reduction in quality of topsoil associated with nutrient decline and contamination.

22. Food Miles
The distance that food travels from where it is produced to where it is consumed.
A way of indicating the environmental impact of the food we eat

23. Biofuels: fossil fuel substitutes that can be made from a range of agricultural crop materials including oilseeds, wheat, corn and sugar
Advantages
Disadvantages
It is a renewable form of energy as long as people replant crops.
It is cheap and the resources can be grown locally
It can still release greenhouse gases.
Areas can be deforested to grow crops for energy generation.
If crops are used for energy production it can lead to an increase in food prices

24. Deforestation
Deforestation: the process of destroying a forest and replacing it with something else

25. Irrigation
The process of directing water from nearby water sources to cropland.

26. Urban Agriculture
The use of vacant lots, rooftops, balconies, or other urban spaces to raise food for metropolitan households or neighborhoods.

27. Conservation
Conservation agriculture provides knowledge and tools to enable farmers to achieve acceptable profits from high and sustained crop production levels while, at the same time, conserving resources and protecting the environment.

28. Sustainable Agriculture
This term refers to the ability of a farm to produce food indefinitely, without causing irreversible damage to ecosystems.
Sustainable farming reduces or prevents environmental degradation (depletion of vegetation loss of biodiversity, soil and water)

29. Key Ideas with Sustainable Agriculture
Conservation and soil health
Nutrient recycling e.g. animal waste being used for fertilizer
Biodiversity – this is helped through a minimal use of chemicals on the land
Animal welfare – more care taken with animals, and different diets perhaps
Fair wages and treatment for workforce – farm is part of the rural community

30. Ted Talk Active Viewing “One Seed At a Time”
As you watch, answer these questions in your notebooks:
How does climate change threaten the diversity of the crops we eat?
What are the solutions the speaker talks about?