Chapter 14 Agriculture and Food Resources

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Chapter 14 Agriculture and Food Resources
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Food Security

• Having access to adequate food
• Carryover stocks
• Leftover grains
• Decreasing
• 2006 lower grain harvest
• than previous two years

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Food Security

• Consumption of animal products increasing
• Environmental impacts?
• China
• Produces most wheat
• Largest importer of
• wheat

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World Food Problems

• U.N. Food and Agriculture
• Organization
• 852 million lack adequate food
• Developing countries
• Undernutrition
• Lack of calories
• WHO estimate182 million children under 5

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World Food Problems

• Malnutrition
• Lack of calories or nutrients
• 3 billion worldwide
• Overnutrition
• Too many calories
• Animal saturated fats, sugar, salt
• United States

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Population and World Hunger

• 86 countries
• Low income
• Food deficient
• Food insecurity
• Chronic hunger
• Malnutrition

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Food Insecurity
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World Hunger

• Causes
• Population growth
• Unequal food distribution
• Poverty
• Solutions
• Control population
• Promote economic
• development

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World Grain Production

• 1970-2006
• Grain production doubled
• Grain per person did not increase

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Poverty

• Most common cause of undernutrition and
  malnutrition
• More common in rural
• areas
• Difficult problem to solve

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Industrialized Agriculture

• Modern agricultural methods
• Developed countries
• Inputs
• Capital
• Energy
• Chemicals
• High yields

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Subsistence Agriculture

• Traditional agricultural methods
• Developing countries
• Food for family
• Inputs
• Labor
• Land

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Shifting Cultivation

• Subsistence agriculture
• Grow crops, then leave land alone
• Slash-and-burn agriculture
• Clear forest
• Grow crops
• Soil loses productivity quickly
• Supports small populations

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Nomadic Herding

• Subsistence agriculture
• Land not suitable for crops
• Livestock continually move
• Why?

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Intercropping

• Subsistence agriculture
• Variety of crops in same field
• Polyculture
• Plants mature at different times
• Different crops harvested throughout the year

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Agricultural Challenges

• Loss of prime farmland
• Loss of domesticated varieties
• Improving yields
• Curbing
  environmental
  impacts

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Loss of Agricultural Land

• More than 400,000 acres lost per year in U.S.
• Suburban sprawl
• Conservation easements
• 1996 Farm Bill
• Protect
• farmland
• 30 years

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Loss of Domestic Varieties

• Farmers using fewer varieties of plants and
  animals
• Modern methods
• Uniformity
• Maximum production
• Loss of genetic diversity
• Save germplasm
• Tissues
• May need later

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Increasing Crop Yields

• Food production has increased
• Green revolution
• Mid-20th century
• Modern methods
• High-yield varieties
• Chemicals

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High-Yield Varieties

• Done with breeding and biotechnology

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Green Revolution

• Benefits
• Mexico increased wheat production
• Indonesia self-sufficient in rice
• Problems
• Developing countries dependent on chemicals,
  machinery
• High energy costs
• Too many chemicals

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Increasing Crop Yields

• Demand for grains will increase
• Cant increase amount of land
• Yields can only increase so much
• Genetic engineering could help
• Developing countries will need better farming
  methods

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Increasing Livestock Yields

• Hormones
• Promote faster growth
• European Union limits imports of hormone-treated
  beef why?
• Antibiotics
• Animals grow larger (4 5)
• Resistant bacteria
• WHO wants them eliminated
• U.S. still using

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Environmental Impacts

• Air, water pollution
• Feedlot agriculture is the norm

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Environmental Impacts

• Pesticides
• Resistance
• Farmers use more
• Residues on food
• Land degradation
• Loss of productivity
• Salinization
• Habitat fragmentation

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Environmental Impacts
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Looking Towards The Future

• Food requirements have been met
• Environmental problems increasing
• More food will be needed
• Vicious circle???

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Sustainable Agriculture

• Maintains soil productivity conservation
  techniques
• Healthy ecological balance
• Minimal long-term impacts
• Natural fertilizers

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Sustainable Agriculture

• Less chemicals and antibiotics
• Water and energy conservation
• Diverse crops

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Sustainable Agriculture

• Organic agriculture
• No non-natural chemicals
• No genetic engineering
• View the farm as an agroecosystem
• Second green revolution!

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Genetic Engineering

• Move genes from one species to another
• Could improve agriculture

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Potential Benefits of GM Crops

• Decrease nutritional deficiencies worldwide
  Golden Rice
• Decreased use of pesticides
• Heartier plants
• Feed the world
• More productive
• farm animals
• Better animal
• vaccines

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Potential Drawbacks of GM Crops

• Cross-pollination with native species
• Widespread crop failure
• Food allergies
• Long-term impacts unknown

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Controlling Agricultural Pests

• Pest interferes with human welfare or activities
• Pesticides
• Help control pests
• Insecticides
• Herbicides
• Fungicides
• Rodenticides

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Pesticides

• Perfect pesticide
• Narrow-spectrum
• Kills only intended organism
• Breaks down rapidly
• Stays where applied
• Doesnt exist!
• Broad-spectrum
• Kills variety of organisms
• Many used today

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Benefits of Pesticides

• Quick, effective control
• Protect crops
• Save lives

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Problems With Pesticides

• Genetic resistance
• 520 insect species resistant
• 84 weed species resistant
• Bioaccumulation
• Biomagnification

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Problems With Pesticides

• Affect non-target species
• New pests may emerge

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Problems With Pesticides

• Dont stay put
• Pollute water, soil, air
• 14 million in U.S. have drinking water with
  traces of
• herbicides

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Alternatives to Pesticides

• Biological controls
• Use naturally occurring organisms
• Pheromones
• Hormones
• Genetics
• Irradiation

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Alternatives to Pesticides
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Integrated Pest Management

• Combination of control methods
• Keep crop loss to economically tolerable level
• Sustainable agriculture
• Management vs.
• eradication
• Education critical
• On the increase

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Case Study DDT and the Bald Eagle

• 1963 417 pairs left in lower 48 states
• Three reasons the population dropped?

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Case Study DDT and the Bald Eagle

• 1972 DDT banned
• Bald Eagle Protection Act
• Endangered Species Act
• Conservation efforts
• 2007 more than 7000 nesting pairs in lower 48
• Removed from Threatened List