APES Chapter 13 Notes Food Resources

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APES Chapter 13 NotesFood Resources
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3 Systems

• 1. Croplands grains 76 of all food
• 2. Rangelands livestock 17 of all foods
• 3. Ocean fisheries 7 of all foods

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Staggering increase in global production from all
3 systems

• 1. increased use of tractors and farm
  machinery
• 2. inorganic chemical fertilizers
• 3. irrigation
• 4. pesticides
• 5. high yield wheat, corn and rice
• 6. densely populated feedlots
• 7. farm fishing

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Some believe we cannot continue to produce more
food because

• 1. environmental degradation
• 2. pollution
• 3. lack of water for irrigation
• 4. overgrazing
• 5. overfishing
• 6. loss of ecological resources

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Major Crops

• The major crops in use today (wheat, rice, corn)
  are annuals and must be replanted each year
• Sustainable farms may use a perennial
  poly-culture in the future

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2 major types of agricultural systems

• 1. Industrialized high output uses large amounts
  of fossil fuels, energy, water, fertilizers and
  pesticides.
• Plantation agriculture is a form of
  industrialized ag primarily in tropical areas
• Feedlots for cattle and pork
• 2. Traditional low output family farm may
  be a thing of the past
• Traditional subsistence ag, mostly human and
  draft animals for labor for a family farm
• Traditional intensive ag, higher yield per acre
  pf cultivated land for family and some to sell
• Croplands produce 1.3 trillion annually

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The Green Revolution

• Since 1950 farmers have increased global food
  production and it involves 3 steps
• 1. Planting monocultures with high-yield
  such as wheat, rice, corn. Selectively bred or
  genetic engineered
• 2. Producing high-yield crops by using
  fertilizers, pesticides, and water
• 3. Multiple cropping increases the amount of
  crops per year on a plot of land

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2nd Green Revolution

• A second green revolution is now taking place by
  using dwarf varieties of rice and wheat, which
  grow very fast and can produce 2 to 5 times the
  yield. The drawback is that this type of farming
  uses high amount of pesticides, fossil fuels, and
  water. High input green revolution uses 8 of the
  worlds oil output.

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Agribusiness

• Agribusiness in the U. S. is greater in annual
  sales than the auto, steel and housing industries
  combines.
• 1. 18 of the countrys GNP
• 2. 19 of all jobs, more than any other
  industry
• If we include livestock, the U.S. food production
  system uses about 3 units of fossil fuel energy
  to produce one unit of food energy

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Interplanting

• planting several different crops together on the
  same plot. Reduces the chances of losing all of
  the crops to pests, bad weather and other
  misfortunes. Found mostly in developing
  countries, some of the strategies are stated
  below

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• 1. Polyvarietal cultivation one plot with
  several varieties of the same crop
• 2. Intercropping two or more different
  crops on the same plot
• Example grain that uses soil nitrogen and a
  legume that puts it back
• 3. Agroforestry crops and trees planted
  together
• 4. Polyculture more complex than
  intercropping because crops have different mature
  times. The advantages are
• (1) roots at different depths requires less
  fertilizer
• (2) little erosion due to crops year round
• (3) multiple habitats are created and need fewer
  pesticides
• (4) weeds have trouble competing with multitude
  of crop plants no need fro herbicides
• (5) less effect from bad weather

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Polyculture vs Monoculture

• Average low-input polyculture (4 or 5 different
  crops) produce higher yields than high-input
  monoculture.

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Good News

• 1950-1990, world grain production triples and the
  per capita gain rose by 36
• World Bank study price has dropped by 30 in the
  same time frame

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Good News Cont

• Good News According to the UN Food and
  Agriculture Organization (FAO)
• Average caloric intake has risen sharply since
  1961 and is projected to continue rising through
  2030
• Chronically undernourished of malnourished fell
  from 918million in 1970 to 826 million in 2000
• The percentage of undernourished or malnourished
  fell from 35 in 1970 to 17 in 2000 and is
  projected to decline to 6 by 2030

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Bad News

• Population is outstripping food production
• Since 1985 world grain production has leveled off
  and per capita grain production has declined
• Why?
• 1. lower price for grain less incentive to
  grow (supply and demand)
• 2. grain yields dropped in the USSR after
  break up
• 3. limits on water, fertilizer and
  pesticides that green revolution crops can
  tolerate
• 4. erosion and salinization of soil and lack
  of water for irrigation

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Bad News Cont

• One of 6 people in developing countries is
  chronically undernourished or malnourished
• 10million people die each year from under or
  malnutrition
• 1. causes infectious disease rate to go up
• 2. drinking contaminated water
• Impact on children is the greatest

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Definitions

• Undernutrition people who consumer 100-400 less
  calories per day than they need to maintain body
  weight and perform light activity
• Malnutrition deficiencies in protein and key
  nutrients

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Overnutrition

• is a problem in developed countries. 61 of US
  adults are overweight and 27 are obese.
• According to the FAO there is enough food
  produced in the world to feed every person but
  because of differences in soil, political power
  and income it is not distributed equally.
• Poverty is the problem not lack of food

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Environmental Effects of Producing Food

• 1. Biodiversity loss
• 2 Soil erosion and other problems
• 3. Air pollution
• 4. Water pollution
• 5. Human health problems due to pollution
• According to Ecologists the future ability to
  produce food will be limited by
• 1. soil erosion
• 2. desertification
• 3. water deficits
• 4. salinization and waterlogging
• 5. loss of wild species and genetic
  resources
• 6. global warming

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Increasing World Crop Production

• 1. Crossbreeding (slow process)
• 2. Genetically modified organism (quick
  results) GM Food
• Many scientist and environmentalists oppose the
  use of bioengineering in food products because
  there is not enough research to determine the
  harm or lack of it on the human body and the
  environment

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Limiting Factors on future success of the green
and gene revolution

• 1. need huge amounts of fertilizer
• 2. green and gene engineered crops need huge
  amounts of water and pesticides
• 3. increasing these resources eventually
  does not produce more food
• 4. Vandana Shiva (Indian environmentalist,
  economists, food production expert) says the
  yields from the green and gene revolution are
  much lower than claimed
• 5. Crop yields may drop for environmental
  reasons
• soil erosion, salinization, waterlogging, water
  depletion, rapidly breeding pests immune to
  pesticides.
• 6. loss of biodiversity limits genetic
  material for future development of green
  revolution crops

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New Foods

• Winged bean fast growing legume, low fertilizer
  use, protein rich
• Microlivestock insect high in protein and
  vitamins 1,500 edible species (1) Black ant
  larvae Mexico (2) giant waterbugs (Thailand) (3)
  Mopani emperor moth caterpillars, South Africa
  (4) Cockroaches (5) Butterflies Bali (6) Fried
  ants Columbia

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Irrigated Cropland

• Since 1950 the worlds irrigated cropland has
  tripled but is expected to fall short in the
  future because
• 1. world population is growing faster than
  irrigated ag
• 2. water is being pumped faster than it can
  be replaced in the aquifers
• 3. irrigation water is used inefficiently
• 4. crop productivity dropped due to soil
  salinization
• 5. urbanization puts cities and farmers in
  competition for limited water supply
• 6. global warming disrupts water supply
• 7. irrigation is costly and farmers cannot
  afford it

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Limits on Cultivating More Land

• Tropical soils poor in nutrients
• Savanna in Africa has tsetse fly that transmit a
  parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans
  and kills livestock
• Much of usable land in Australia and Africa is
  dry and would require irrigation

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Producing More Meat

• Rangeland is land that is too dry for crops and
  used for grazers and browsers. Generally these
  ecosystems are sustainable because the animals
  raised eat only the tops of plants. Overgrazing
  occurs when they eat the whole plant and they
  die. This degrades the ecosystem allowing
  invaders to take over.
• Increases in meat production most likely will
  take place in feedlots. This industrialization
  causes
• 1. concentrates pollution, contaminating
  water wells by nitrates from animal waste, and
  surface water from flooding
• 2. increases pressure on grain supply and
  fish supply (because fish are used to feed
  livestock)
• 3. increased output of fossil fuels
• 4. increases spread of infectious disease
  such as mad cow disease and hoof and mouth
  disease

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Sustainability

• Sustainable form of meat ag would be fish and
  poultry instead of beef and pork. Fish and
  poultry are more grain efficient.

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Overgrazing

• 1. lowers Net Primary Productivity of grassland
  vegetation
• 2. causes soil erosion
• 3. compacts soil and diminishes its capacity to
  hold water
• 4. enhances invasion by woody shrubs
• 5. causes desertification
• 20 of the worlds rangeland has lost
  productivity mostly by desertification
• 64 of the US rangeland is in fair to poor
  condition, up from 84 in 1936.

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Sustainable Rangelands and Management Methods

• 1. controlling the number, types, and
  distribution of grazing livestock
• 2. deferred grazing (moving cattle from area
  to another and allowing each area to remain
  untouched for 2 years)
• 3. rangeland restoration (reseeding native
  grasses and removal of nonnative plants)

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Carrying capacity of a particular rangeland is
difficult and costly to determine. Factors
include

• 1. climatic conditions
• 2. past grazing use
• 3. soil type
• 4. invasions by new species
• 5. kinds of grazing animals
• 6. intensity of grazing

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Fisheries

• Concentrations of particular aquatic species
  suitable for commercial harvesting in a given
  ocean area or inland body of water.
• Commercial fishing industry uses
• 1. satellite positioning equipment
• 2. sonar
• 3. nets
• 4. spotter planes
• 5. factory ships that process and freeze the
  catch

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Harvesting methods

• Trawler fishing to catch bottom dwelling fish and
  shellfish, using huge nets that drag on the
  bottom, this destroys the bottom habitat
• Purse-seine fishing to catch surface dwelling
  fish, using purse-seine nets which is closed like
  a drawstring purse to trap fish.
• Longlining in which fishing vessels put out lines
  with thousands of baited hooks to catch open
  ocean fish.
• Drift-net fishing in which fish are caught by
  huge drifting nets. This method was banned by the
  UN in 1992, because it kills many sea mammals but
  compliance is voluntary and hard to monitor.

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The commercial fish catch per capita has been
falling since 1982 due to

• 1. overfishing
• 2. pollution
• 3. habitat loss
• 4. population growth of people

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Sustainability

• Fish are renewable resources and could be
  sustainable if we left enough breeding stock for
  the next year. It is difficult to determine to
  sustainable yield.
• According to the US National Fish and Wildlife
  Foundation
• Even if all fishing stopped immediately it would
  take up to 20 years for stocks to recover.

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Aquaculture

• 1. Fish farming cultivation in a controlled
  environment and harvesting only when they are
  the desired size
• 2. Fish ranching fish live part of their
  lives in captivity and part in the wild. Example
  salmon
• Even under the most optimistic projections,
  increasing the wild catch and aquaculture will
  not increase world food production because
  currently fish only provide 1 of the energy and
  6 of the protein in the human diet.

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Government AG Policy

• 3 approaches
• (1) Keep food prices artificially low
• (2) Give farmers subsidies to keep them in
  business and encourage them to increase food
  production. (500billion globally and 100 billion
  in the US)
• (3)Eliminate most or all price controls and
  subsidies and let farmers and fishers respond to
  the market demand without government
  interference. (will most likely increase food
  prices and change what we eat)

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Sustainable Agriculture

• There two ways to increase crop yield
• (1) expand total cropland
• (2) increase yield per acre
• Both are unlikely because of reasons given on
  previous pages
• If correct we must do the following steps to
  reduce hunger and malnutrition
• 1. slow population growth
• 2. reduce poverty
• 3. develop sustainable agriculture (low
  in-put organic farming) over the next 3 decades.

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Organic Farming

• 1. produces equivalent yield with lower CO
  emissions
• 2. uses 50 less energy than conventional
• 3. improves soil fertility
• 4. provides more habitat for wild plant and
  animal species
• 5. generally more profitable
• Proponents call for high-yield polyculture and
  high-yield monoculture for growing crops

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Food for Thought

• The need to bring birth rates well below death
  rates, increase food production while protecting
  the environment, and distribute food to all who
  need it is the greatest challenge our species has
  ever faced.
• Paul and Anne Ehrlich

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THE END