Chapter 19 Food Resources

World Food Security

 Famine-  Maintaining Grain Stocks  Amount of grain remaining from previous harvest  Provides measure of food security  Decreased each year since 1987

Reason for Decline in Grain Stock  Rising temps  Falling water tables and droughts  Ethanol production  More grain is going towards feeding livestock  Increased meat consumption in developing countries

World Food Security  Economics and Politics  Cost $ to store, produce, transport and distribute food  political  Poverty and Food  ________people are so poor they cannot afford proper nutrition 1.3 billion

Animals as food  Constitute 40% of the calories consumed in developed countries  Only comprise 5% of calories consumed in developing countries

Vegetarianism

  One personal act that can have a profound impact on these issues is reducing meat consumption.   To produce 1 pound of feedlot beef requires about 2,400 gallons of water and 7 pounds of grain (42).   If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million Vegetarianism

Principle Types of Agriculture  Industrialized agriculture  Modern methods that require large capital input, and less land and labor  Subsistence Agriculture  Traditional methods, dependent on labor and large amounts of land  Ex: shifting cultivation, Slash and burn agriculture, Nomadic herding, Intercropping

 Domestication and Genetic Diversity Challenges of Producing More Crop and Livestock Irish Potato Famine

 Pesticides  Selective breeding Challenges of Producing More Crop and Livestock

Challenges of Producing More  Increasing Livestock Yields  Hormone supplements  US and Canada  Not used in Europe  Antibiotics  40% of antibiotics produced in US are used in livestock operations

Antibiotic Use and Resistance

Genetic Engineering

Genetically Modified Organisms  Add beneficial characteristics to crops  Additional nutrition  Resistance to pests  Drought resistances  Herbicides

Safety in Genetic Engineering  Concerns about GMOs?  Backlash against GMOs  GMOs are not currently labeled  Prop 37

Environmental Impacts of Agriculture

Solutions to Agricultural Problems- Sustainable Agriculture

 Overharvesting  Many species are at point of severe depletion  62% of world’s fish stock are in need of management action Fisheries of the World - Problems  No nation lays claim to open ocean

Fisheries of the World - Problems  Overharvesting  Bycatch killed off  Magnuson Fisheries Conservation Act

Fisheries of the World - Problems  Ocean Pollution -  Oil  Heavy metals  Deliberate litter dumping  Stormwater runoff from cities and agriculture  Aquaculture waste

    sumer/151/10-toughest-things-to-get-rid-of.html sumer/151/10-toughest-things-to-get-rid-of.html   sumer/146/signs-of-a-green-hypocrite.html sumer/146/signs-of-a-green-hypocrite.html   sumer/62/decoding-plastics-recycling.html