1. Why Do Farmers Face Economic Difficulties?
Chapter 10 Key Issue 4
Why Do Farmers Face Economic Difficulties?

2. Challenges for Commercial Farmers
Overproduction is a problem in commercial farming, especially in the U.S. and Europe.
Even though demand has remained constant, the U.S. government has tried to alleviate the problem by encouraging the planting of fallow crops, subsidizing farmers, and purchasing surplus production.
Sustainable agriculture is becoming more widespread in MDCs. This type of agriculture promotes environmental quality through sensitive land management, limited use of chemicals, and integrating the growing of crops and raising of livestock.
One type of land management is ridge tillage, which is the planting of crops on ridge tops to conserve soil.

3. Challenges for Subsistence Farmers
Agricultural regions are largely determined by climate and, to a lesser extent cultural preferences. In addition, there are two important economic considerations for subsistence farmers. These are rapid population growth and the demands of the international market.
As population has increased in subsistence economies, farmers have intensified production by leaving land fallow for shorter periods and by the adoption of new farming methods.
In some LDCs such as Kenya, families may divide by gender between traditional subsistence agriculture and the growing of crops for export.
Women practice most of the subsistence agriculture while men grow crops for export.
The export crops grown in some LDCs, especially in Latin America and Asia, are those that can be converted to drugs.

4. Strategies to Increase Food Supply
Sub-Saharan African countries have been encouraged by the U.S. to increase their food supply in part by increased use of genetic modification (GM) of crops and livestock, which could increase yields and nutrition and provide more resistance to pests.
Food supply can be increased in the world by initiating a number of strategies. Expansion of land under production is one method, although this can lead to environmental problems such as desertification in arid regions.
Soil salinity has also been a problem where irrigated agriculture is practiced in hot, arid regions.
The green revolution, which involved the use of new higher-yield seeds as well as fertilizers during the 1970s and 1980s, has resulted in increased food supply in parts of Asia and Latin America.
Strategies are now being developed to expand aquaculture, fish farming or the cultivation of the oceans.
Higher protein cereals are being developed in MDCs, and the palatability of rarely consumed foods, like soybean, is being improved.
Another alternative for increasing the world’s food supply is to export more food from MDCs that produce surpluses to LDCs, especially in Africa.