Chapter 18 Food Resources: A Challenge For Agriculture

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Chapter 18Food Resources A Challenge For
Agriculture
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Overview of Chapter 19

• Food and Nutrition
• World Food Problems
• Principle Types of Agriculture
• Challenges of Producing More Crops and Livestock
• Environmental Impact of Agriculture
• Solutions to Agricultural Problems
• Fisheries of the World

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Food and Nutrition

• Carbohydrates
• Sugars and starches metabolized by cellular
  respiration to produce energy
• Proteins
• Large, complex molecules composed of amino acids
  that perform critical roles in body
• Lipids
• Include fats and oils and are metabolized by
  cellular respiration to produce energy
• Vitamins and Minerals

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Human Foods
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World Food Problems

• Feeding growing population is difficult
• Annual grain production (left) has increased
  since 1970
• Grain per person has not (right)

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World Food Problems

• Famine
• Failure of crops caused by drought, flood or
  catastrophic event
• Temporary but severe shortage of food
• Maintaining World Grain Carryover Stockpiles
• Amounts of rice, wheat, corn and other grains
  remaining from previous harvest
• Provides measure of food security
• Decreased each year since 1987
• UN feels carryover stock should not fall below 70
  days

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World Grain Carryover Stock

• Why the decline?
• Rising temperatures
• Falling water tables and droughts
• Ethanol production
• More grain is going towards feeding livestock

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World Food Problems

• Poverty and Food
• 1.3 billion people are so poor they cannot afford
  proper nutrition
• More common in
• Rural than urban areas
• Infants, children and the elderly
• Economics and Politics
• Cost money to store, produce, transport and
  distribute food
• Getting food to those who need it is political

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Principle Types of Agriculture

• Industrialized agriculture
• Modern agriculture methods that require large
  capital input, and less land and labor

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Principle Types of Agriculture

• Subsistence Agriculture
• Traditional agricultural methods, which are
  dependent on labor and large amounts of land
• Examples
• Shifting cultivation
• Slash and burn agriculture
• Nomadic herding
• Intercropping

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Challenges of Producing More Crop and Livestock

• Domestication and Genetic Diversity
• Domestication of crops and livestock causes a
  loss of genetic diversity
• Farmer selects and propagates animals with
  desirable agricultural characteristics

• Many high yielding crops are genetically uniform
• High likelihood that bacteria, fungi, viruses,
  etc. will attack and destroy entire crop

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Challenges of Producing More Crop and Livestock

• Increasing Crop Yield

• Food production increased in developed countries
  (wheat (left)
• Pesticides
• Selective breeding

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Case-In-Point Green Revolution

• High Yielding Rice Varieties

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Challenges of Producing More Crop and Livestock

• Increasing Livestock Yields
• Hormone supplements
• US and Canada do this
• Europe does not citing human health concerns
• Antibiotics
• 40 of antibiotics produced in US are used in
  livestock operations
• Problems with increased bacteria resistance

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Antibiotic Use and Resistance
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Genetic Engineering

• Manipulation of genes by taking specific gene
  from a cell of one species and placing it into
  the cell of an unrelated species

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Issue with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

• Determined to be safe for human consumption
• Concerns about GMO seed or pollen spreading in
  wild
• Backlash against GMOs
• GMOs are not currently labeled
• FDA finds it would be counterproductive and
  expensive to label

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Question of the day

• What are some examples of local sustainable
  agriculture?
• What is a CSA?
• Can fish be farmed? How?

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Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

• High use of fossil fuels and pesticides
• Air pollution
• Untreated animal wastes and agricultural
  chemicals
• Water pollution
• Harms fisheries
• Insects, weeds, and disease-causing organisms
  developing resistance to pesticides
• Contaminate food supply

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Environmental Impact of Agriculture

• Land degradation
• Decreases future ability of land to support crops
  or livestock
• Habitat fragmentation
• Breakup of large areas of habitat into small,
  isolated patches
• Cultivating marginal lands
• Irrigating dry land
• Cultivating land prone to erosion

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Solutions to Agricultural Problems- Sustainable
Agriculture
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Sustainable Agriculture

• Examples
• Natural Predator-prey relationships instead of
  pesticides
• Crop selection
• Crop rotation and conservation tillage
• Supplying nitrogen with legumes
• Organic agriculture
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
• Limited use of pesticides with sustainable
  agriculture practices

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Fisheries of the World- Problems

• No nation lays claim to open ocean
• Resource susceptible to overuse and degradation
• Overharvesting
• Many species are at point of severe depletion
• Cod (right)
• 62 of worlds fish stock are in need of
  management action

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Fisheries of the World- Problems

• Overharvesting (continued)
• Sophisticated fishing equipment
• Bycatch killed off
• Magnuson Fisheries Conservation Act

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Fisheries of the World- Problems

• Ocean Pollution - dumping ground
• Oil
• Heavy metals
• Deliberate litter dumping
• Stormwater runoff from cities and agricultural
  areas

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Fisheries of the World- Problems

• Aquaculture
• Growing of aquatic organisms for human
  consumption
• Great potential to supply food
• Locations of fisheries may hurt natural habitats
  ocean cage farming, ponds
• Produce waste that pollutes adjacent water

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Aquaculture (Fish farming)
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http//www.lakesidefishfarm.com/environment.html
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Taking Sides

• Can organic farming feed the world?
• You will be arguing from the point of view of the
  article you read.