1. Chapter 13
Food Resources

2. Food in the World 30,000 plant species with parts people can eat
15 plants and 8 animals supply 90% of our food
Wheat, rice, and corn are half the calories people eat
66% of people eat mainly rice, wheat, and corn (grains)
The top third of the economic chain eats primarily meat.
drought_00.html

3. World Food Production Fig. 13-2 p. 279 Plantation agriculture
Industrialized agriculture
Shifting cultivation
Plantation agriculture
Nomadic herding
Intensive traditional agriculture
No agriculture
Fig p. 279

4. Types of Food Production
Industrialized agriculture
Traditional agriculture
farming.htm

5. Industrialized Agriculture
Industrialized agriculture-Use large amounts of fossil fuel energy, water, commercial fertilizers and pesticides to produce huge quantities of single crops or livestock animals for sale.
foc_
foc_

6. Traditional Agriculture
Traditional agriculture-practiced by 2.7 people on earth
Traditional subsistence agriculture-produce enough food to stay alive
Traditional Intensive agriculture-farmers increase inputs of human and draft labor, fertilizer and water to get a higher yield per area of cultivated land to produce enough food for families, and their income
members.aol.com/ porkchopsplace/

7. The Green Revolution To eliminate hunger by improving crop performance
Movement to increase yields by using:
New crop cultivars
Irrigation
Fertilizers
Pesticides
Mechanization
Results:
Did not eliminate famine
Population still increasing
Increase cost of production
An increased negative environmental impact
Didn’t work for everyone

8. Green Revolution Involves 3 steps
1. Developing and planting monocultures of selectively bred or genetically engineered high yield varieties of key crops
2. Lavishing fertilizer, pesticides, and water on crops to produce high yields
3. Often increasing the intensity and frequency of cropping

9. The green revolution had costs and benefits
From 1900 to 2000, cultivated area increased 33%, while energy inputs increased 80 times!
Positive effects :
Reduced pressure to convert more natural land to cropland
Prevented some deforestation and habitat conversion
Negative effects:
Pollution and reduced biodiversity
Erosion, salinization and desertification
Increased susceptibility to crop diseases
Today, soil quality is declining, resulting in lower yields.

10. Producing Food by Green-Revolution Techniques (1950-1970)
High-input monoculture
Selectively bred or genetically-engineered crops
High inputs of fertilizer
Extensive use of pesticides
High inputs of water
Increased intensity and frequency of cropping

11. Green Revolutions Fig. 13-6 p. 282 First green revolution
(developed countries)
Second green revolution
(developing countries)
Major International agricultural
research centers and seed banks
Fig p. 282

12. Golden Rice -Grains of Hope or an Illusion?
Figure 13-1
Vitamin A deficiencies cause blindness
Golden rice is a new genetically engineered strain of rice containing beta-carotene.
Can inexpensively supply vitamin A to malnourished.

13. BUT…
Critics contend that there are quicker and cheaper ways to supply vitamin A.
Scientists call for more evidence that the beta-carotene will be converted to vitamin A by the body.

14. The green revolution

15. Food Production in the U.S.
Since 1940, food production in the U.S. has more than doubled crop production
9% of population is involved in the U.S. agricultural system.
Generates 18% of countries GNP

16. Eating animal products has significant impacts
As wealth and commerce increase, so does consumption of meat, milk, and eggs.
Global meat production has increased fivefold.
Per capita meat consumption has doubled. .

17. Feedlot agriculture
Feedlots (factory farms): also called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)
Huge warehouses or pens designed to deliver energy-rich food to animals living at extremely high densities
Over ½ of the world’s pork and poultry come from feedlots.

18. The benefits of feedlots include:
Greater production of food
Unavoidable in countries with high levels of meat consumption, like the U.S.
They take livestock off the land and reduce the impact that they would have on it.
Drawbacks of feedlots include:
Contributions to water and air pollution
Poor waste containment causes outbreaks of disease.
Heavy uses of antibiotics to control disease

19. Livestock Production Meat products are sources of quality protein.
Between 1950 and 1996, world meat production increased fourfold and per capita meat production rose by 29%.
14% of U.S. topsoil is associated with livestock grazing.
Cattle belch out 12-15% of all the methane released into the atmosphere
Some say if Americans cut their grain intake by 16%, this would save enough grain to provide a subsistence diet for nearly 900 million people.

20. World Food Problems Reasons for problems: Population growth
Increasing affluence
Degradation and loss of cropland
Little growth in irrigation
Decline in global fertilizer

21. Some people starve, but others eat too much
Undernourishment: people receive too few calories per day
Malnutrition: receiving too few nutrients in food
Every 5 seconds, a child starves to death.
Overnutrition: receiving too many calories each day
In the U.S., people eat junk food and don’t exercise.
Worldwide, more than 300 million people are obese.

22. Diseases of Malnutrition and Undernutrition
Anemia
Goiter
Marasmus
Kwashiorkor
Rickets
Scurvy

23. Famine vs. Food Shortage
Political situations causes famine
Present day examples – famine in the Darfur region of Sudan

24. Good News!
Between 1970 and 1995, worldwide proportion of people suffering from undernourishment went from 36% to 14%.
Number of malnourished people fell from 940 million in 1970 to 850 million in 1995.
We produce more than enough food to meet the basic nutritional needs of every person on earth today

25. Environmental Effects of Food Production
See Fig p. 288
Biodiversity loss – habitat loss, fish kills, poaching
of predators, loss of genetic diversity b/c of monocultures
Soil – erosion, fertility loss, salinization, waterlogging,
desertification
Air pollution – emissons fr. Fossil fuels, pollution
from pesiticide sprays
Water – aquifer depletion, runoff, sedimentation, fish
kills, pollution from pesticides, overfertilization of lakes
Human health – nitrates, pesticides & disease
organisms in drinking water, bacterial contam of meat

26. Increasing World Crop Production
Crossbreeding and artificial selection
Genetic engineering (gene splicing)
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
Continued Green Revolution techniques
Introducing new foods – ex. Winged bean p. 292
Working more land – is cultivating marginal land
likely to be sustainable?
See Fig p. 291

27. Food security
Food security: the guarantee of adequate and reliable food supply to all people at all times
We have reduced hunger by half since 1970.
Through fossil fuels, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, more agricultural land, more productive crops, and livestock
Monoculture: the uniform planting of a single crop
Industrialized agriculture requires that vast fields are planted with single types of crops.
Since 1985, world grain production per person has fallen by 9%.

28. Environmental Effects of Producing Food
Agriculture has a greater harmful impact on air, soil, water, and biodiversity resources than any other human activity.

29. Interplanting
Polyvarietal cultivation-Where plot is planted with several varieties of the same crop
Intercropping-two or more different crops grown at same time on a plot
Agroforestry- Crops and trees are planted together
Polyculture-Many different plants mature at various times, and are planted together.

30. Cultivation of Land
36% of the world’s land is devoted to raising crops.
Some think that cultivating more land is a possible solution to the food crisis.

31. Food Growth in Urban Areas
Urban gardens provide 15% of world’s food.
If people grew more food in their backyards, they could live more sustainable and save money.

32. Fishing 3rd major food producing system consists of fisheries
99% of fish caught in ocean is from the coastal waters
Between 1950 and 1996, fish catch increased 4.9 fold

33. Problems With Fishing
Overfishing-Taking of so many fish that too little breeding stock is left to maintain numbers
Commercial extinction-reduction of a species to the point at which it’s no longer profitable to hunt for them

34. Aquaculture Aquaculture-where fish and shellfish are raised for food
Supplies 20% of world’s commercial food harvest
Increased 3.3 fold between 1984 and 1996

35. Aquaculture in ENC
Catfish farming

36. Aquaculture – The Blue Revolution
Wild fish populations are plummeting.
Technology and increased demand
Aquaculture: raising aquatic organisms for food in a controlled environment (“fish farm”)
Aquatic species are raised in open-water pens or land-based ponds.
The fastest-growing type of food production
Provides a third of the world’s fish
Most widespread in Asia

37. The benefits and drawbacks of aquaculture
Diseases can occur, requiring expensive antibiotics
Reduces food security
Large amounts of waste
Growing grain to feed fish is inefficient
Farmed fish may escape and introduce disease into the wild
Benefits:
A reliable protein source
Sustainable
Increases food security
Reduces fishing pressure on wild fish stocks
Energy efficient

38. Major Environmental Effects of Food Production
Biodiversity Loss
Loss and degradation of habitat from clearing grasslands and forests and draining wetlands
Fish kills from pesticide runoff
Killing of wild predators to protect live stock
Loss of genetic diversity from replacing thousands of wild crop strains with a few monoculture strains
Human Health
Nitrates in drinking water
Pesticide residues in drinking water, food, and air
Contamination of drinking and swimming water with disease organisms from livestock wastes

39. Gov. assistance to farmers and consumers
Keep food prices low
Give farmers subsidies to keep them in business and to encourage them to increase food production
Eliminate most or all price controls and subsidies
Continue Agricultural research

40. Sustainable Agricultural
Sustainable Agricultural-Method of growing crops and raising livestock based on organic fertilizers, soil conservation, water conservation, biological control of pests, and minimal use of nonrenewable fossil fuel energy

41. Components of more sustainable, low-throughput agriculture
Increase
High-yield
polyculture
Organic fertilizers
Biological pest
control
Integrated pest
management
Irrigation efficiency
Perennial crops
Crop rotation
Use of more water-
efficient crops
Soil conservation
Subsidies for
more sustainable
farming and
fishing
Decrease
Soil erosion
Soil salinization
Aquifer depletion
Overgrazing
Overfishing
Loss of
biodiversity
Loss of prime
cropland
Food waste
unsustainable
Population growth
Poverty
Components of more sustainable, low-throughput agriculture
Figure Page 308