Food Resources: A Challenge for Agriculture

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Food Resources A Challenge for Agriculture
Chapter 19
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Food and Nutrition

• Important molecules to our diets
• Carbohydrates
• Proteins
• Lipids
• Minerals
• Vitamins
• Nutrition problems
• Undernourished fewer calories than needed
• Malnourished wrong kinds of calories
• Overnourished food in excess (fats sugars)
• Cancers, heart disease, obesity

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Food and Nutrition

• Human Foods

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World Food Problems

• In 2004
• 86 countries are low-income, food deficient.
• 800 million people were food deficient
• 182 million children severely malnourished and
  underweight

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World Food Problems

• Common diseases due to malnourishment
• Marasmus low calories
• and protein wasting
• away, infants
• Kwashiorkor protein
• deficiency, swollen
• belly, children

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World Food Problems

• Producing Enough Food

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World Food Problems

• Famines
• 1983-1985 Drought in Africa resulted in 1.5
  million deaths in Ethiopia and Sudan
• 1993 civil unrest and drought resulted in 2
  million starving Somalis
• 1990s flooding and drought resulted in 2
  million deaths in North Korea

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World Food Problems

• Maintaining Grain Stockpiles
• World grain carryover stocks

U.N. estimates that carryover stocks should not
fall below 70 days. Why?
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Lifeboat Ethic

• 50 people in a boat that seats 60. 100 drowning
  people want to get in
• Scenario 1
• Scenario 2
• Scenario 3

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World Food Problems

• Why the decline in carryover stocks?
• More grain is going towards feeding livestock
  (eating higher on food chain).

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World Food Problems

• Poverty and Food
• Making Food Affordable for the Poor
• Poverty ? Poor nutrition
• Malnutrition more common in urban than rural
  areas in developing countries
• Infants, children, and elderly most susceptible
  to hunger and poverty.

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The Principle Types of Agriculture

• Industrialized (modern) agriculture

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The Principle Types of Agriculture

• Subsistence agriculture self and family, little
  technology
• Shifting cultivation changing fields
• Slash-and-burn agriculture - rainforest
• Nomadic herding - animals
• Intercropping several plants, same
  field
• Polyculture in season at different times

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• The Effect of Domestication on Genetic Diversity
• Genetic diversity enhances long-term species
  survival

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• The Effect of Domestication on Genetic Diversity

Lower Genetic Diversity in Domesticated Animals /
Plants
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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Global Decline in Domesticated Plant and Animal
  Varieties defines modern farming.
• In past, many localities had special varieties,
  such as

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• The Global Decline in Domesticated Plant and
  Animal Varieties

Many world farmers now using just a few varieties
on a limited amount of land. Land is cultivated
more efficiently to produce higher yields.
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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Increasing Crop Yields

US wheat yields
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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Increasing Crop Yields
• Case-in-Point The Green Revolution

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Increasing Livestock Yields
• Modern livestock production commonly relies
  upon
• hormone supplementation
• antibiotics in feedstuff
• (Both are controversial)

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Issues with Genetic Engineering
• The Safety of Genetic Engineering
• The Backlash Against Genetically Modified Foods
  (GMOs)
• Should Foods from Genetically Modified Crops and
  Livestock Be Labeled?

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The Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

• Most livestock now grown in feedlots

Leads to problems like sewage disposal. Cruelty??
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The Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

• Insects are becoming increasingly resistant to
  pesticides

Leads to increases in the amount of pesticides
applied. Leads further to pesticide residue on
foods and contaminated land / water.
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The Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

• Other problems
• Land degradation
• Habitat fragmentation
• Cultivating marginal lands

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Solutions to Agricultural Problems

• Sustainable Agriculture

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Fisheries of the World

• Major types of seafood

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Fisheries of the World

• Problems and Challenges for the Fishing Industry
  Pollution, Overfishing

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Fisheries of the World

• Overharvesting is the most serious problem

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Fisheries of the World

• Aquaculture Fish Farming
• 2003 aquaculture production of fin fish and
  shellfish 41.9 million tons
• In US aquaculture accounts for 6 of all
  seafood consumed 900 million-a- year industry
• Major drawback its expensive

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Fisheries of the World

• Ocean Pollution and Deteriorating Habitat
• 80 of global ocean pollution comes from human
  activities on land

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Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock

• Genetic Engineering

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Solutions to Agricultural Problems

• Making Subsistence Agriculture Sustainable and
  More Productive
• Slash-and-burn agriculture in rainforests is
  sustainable, if few people practice it
• Researchers trying to find ways to increasing
  long-term productivity