Food Resources

1
Food Resources

• Chapter 13

2
Were not in Kansas anymore

• New technology for Kansas Prairies
• Polyculture
• Plant perennial grasses
• Legumes (return nitrogen to the soil)
• Sunflowers
• Grain crops
• Plants that provide natural pesticide

3
This makes Toto very happy

• Perennial polyculture blended with monoculture
  helps in the following way
• Less plowing lower soil erosion
• Less pollution from pesticide use/fertilizer
• Less need for irrigation (deep root systems)

4
How is the world fed?

• Cropland (produce grain mostly)
• Rangeland (livestock)
• Oceanic fisheries
• Food production has increased to keep up with the
  growing population
• Machines,inorganic fertilizers,irrigation,
  pesticides, high-yield varieties of wheat/rice,
  increased density in feedlots, aquaculture

5
What are the implications of increased food
production

• Environmental degradation
• Soil loss, lost habitat, contaminated water
• Pollution nitrogen, phosphates, pesticides
• Lack of water diminishing water table
• Overgrazing reducing grassland productivity
• Overfishing reducing fish stocks (?)
• Loss of ecological services

6
What do we really eat

• (other than McDonalds, of course)
• 15 plants and 8 animals make up 90 of the food
  we consume
• Big 3 grains wheat, rice, corn
• Big 3 meats beef, pork, chicken
• Fish important food source for more than a
  billion people
• What, no tofurkey?

7
Types of Agriculture

• Industrialized or high input
• Uses high amounts of
• fossil fuel energy
• Water
• Commercial inorganic fertilizer
• Pesticide use
• monocultures

8
Types of Ag continued

• Plantation Agriculture (a variety of industrial)
• In tropical areas
• Growing cash crops (tobacco, coffee, sugarcane,
  cocoa, bananas, soybeans)

9
Types of Ag continued

• Traditional Subsistence Ag
• Uses mostly human and animal labor
• Low use of inorganic fertilizer
• Low pesticide use
• Usually food for family only, small surplus
• Includes shifting cultivation in tropical areas
  and nomadic livestock

10
Types of Ag continued

• Traditional Intensive Ag
• High labor
• High fertilizer/pesticide use
• High yield (able to sell for profit)
• Typical of rice production

11
Green Revolution

• High input monocultures to the rescue?
• Three steps
• Developing high yield monocultures
• Using large inputs of fertilizer/pesticide/water
• Increase the frequency and density of farming
• First green revolution US and Europe
• Second green revolution Tropical areas
  especially rice in Asia

12
The US and Food

• With only 0.3 of the farm labor force, the US
  produces 17 of the worlds grain
• US spends only about 10-12 of their income on
  food (18 Japan, 40-70 developing countries)
• In the US it takes 10 units of fossil fuel to
  produce 1 unit of food ( as compared to intensive
  which takes 1 unit to produce 10)

13
Growing Techniques

• Monoculture only one plant type
• Interplanting several monocultures on one plot
  of land (including)
• Polyvarietal cultivation several varieties of
  the same plant
• Intercropping two or more plant types grown at
  the same time
• Alley cropping plants and trees together
• Polyculture several types of plants on one plot
  at one time harvested at different times usually

14
Increase in food production

• Since 1950 grain production has tripled
• Average food price dropped 25
• Food traded worldwide quadrupled
• Meat production has risen for 41 years

15
Problems with production

• Areas with 2 billion (sub-Saharan Africa) growth
  is surpassing food production
• Grain production has leveled off
• Limits to irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide
• Loss of topsoil, agricultural land, and
  salinization of the soil

16
Nutrition

• Nutrition affects life expectancy, disease
  resilience, and life quality
• Undernutrition do not get enough food
• Malnutrition do not get enough key nutrients
  (vitamins and minerals)
• WHO says that 10 million die annually (most under
  5) from poor nutrition and diseases associated
  with it

17
Effects of Food Production

• Biodiversity loss clearing land, pesticide
  runoff, lack of predators
• Soil degradation- erosion, loss of fertility,
  salinization, desertification
• Air pollution- fossil fuel emissions, dust
• Water- sediment, fertilizers, pesticides, aquifer
  depletion, increased runoff
• Human Health- nitrates in water, pesticides,
  bacterial contamination of meat

18
GMO

• Genetically Modified Organisms
• Faster than crossbreeding, less costly, unlimited
  combination
• Nearly 2/3 of US food in supermarkets contains
  GMOs
• Do not know all the long term effects on the
  environment

19
Meat Production

• Rangeland 40 of the planets ice free land,
  mostly grasslands
• Pasture managed grasslands and meadows, often
  irrigated, normally fenced
• Rangeland plants- anchor soil, extract deep water
  (survive drought), store nutrients
• Most grasses can have the top eaten and grow back
  easily

20
Problems with meat production

• Concentrated production facilities
• Foul odor, water pollution (wastes) ( aquifer)
• Overgrazing
• Lower productivity of grasses
• Reduces plant cover (soil erosion wind/water)
• Compacts soil
• Increase amount of woody shrubs
• Major cause of desertification

21
Pesticide and pest control
22
Do you know

• What are the problems with pesticide?
• What are the different types of pesticide?
• When should pesticides be used?
• How are pesticides part of a negative feedback
  loop?

23
Pesticide problems

• Kills many other organisms
• Only about 2 reaches target species
• Kills genetically weak species, strengthening the
  species overall
• Often the toxin has a long life span
• Creates birth defects
• Kills natural predators

24
Types of pesticide

• Herbicides weed killers
• Fungicides fungus killers
• Nematocides worm killers
• Rodenticides rat and mouse killers
• DDT first of the second generation pesticides
  and worlds most used pesticide in 1948. In the
  US most pesticide is used on corn and cotton (90
  of insecticide and 80 herbicide)

25
Pros for pesticide

• Human lives are saved by killing disease carrying
  pests (mosquitoes)
• Increased food supply
• Increased profit for farmers
• Pesticides work quickly to remove pests
• When used appropriately the health risk to humans
  is low compared to the benefit (ACSH)

26
Pesticide info

• Insecticide
• Chlorinated hydrocarbons DDT, aldrin, diedrin,
  chlordane, toxaphene, mirex
• These are the bad ones
• Long lasting
• Biologically magnified

27
Pesticide info continued

• Most other types of pesticide are relatively safe
  low persistence (up to a few weeks) and are not
  biologically magnified
• Organophosphates malathion, DDVP
• Carbamates aldicarb
• Botanicals extracted from plants
• Micro botanicals fungi, bacteria, protozoa
• Synthetics lasso, roundup

28
Bad types continued

• Fumigants are generally bad. Not only do they
  last a long time, and biomagnify, they often are
  spread vast distances with the wind
• Carbon tetrachloride
• Ethylene dibromide
• Methyl bromide

29
Positive feedback loop

• Pesticides increase genetic resistance making
  bugs stronger each generation
• Natural predators are also killed
• New pest populations can explode when predators
  are killed
• Leads to pesticide treadmill having to use more
  and more pesticide to kill the pests because of
  the feedback loop

30
First pesticide awareness

• Rachel Carson Silent Spring, opened the
  publics eyes to the danger of pesticide.
• Linked birth defect rise in population back to
  pesticide use.

31
The real problems

• Pesticides linger in the air and on foods
• Workers are exposed to high levels
• Animals are exposed to toxins while pregnant
• Tolerance levels are not set based upon health
  concerns, but upon crop concerns
• There is little enforcement of use of pesticides