1. Food and Soil Resources
G. Tyler Miller’s
Living in the Environment
14th Edition
Chapter 14

2. Two Worlds

3. Soil, a limited resource we depend upon, but take for granted

4. Chapter 14: Key Concepts Methods of producing food
Increasing food production
Soil degradation
Increasing sustainability

5. Aldo Leopold
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery store, and the other that heat from the furnace.

6. Section 1: How Is Food Produced?
What systems provide us with food?
What plants and animals feed the world?
What are the major types of food production?

7. How Food Is Produced Historically: Croplands (77%) Rangeland (16%)
Ocean Fisheries (7%)
Since 1950 there has been a staggering increase in all production.
Huge technology increase

8. How Food Is Produced Technology Changes:
Farm machinery
Fishing equipment
Fertilizers
Pesticides
Irrigation
GE Foods
Feedlots
Fish farms
Each improvement brings new challenges

9. How Food Is Produced
Can we meet the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050?
W/O Degradation of environment
And reduce poverty (1 of 5 do not produce enough food)

10. How Food Is Produced 30,000 possible plant species people can eat
Since ag. rev. 10,000 consumed
Today: 14 plants, 8 terrestrial animals provide 90% calories
3 (wheat, rice and corn) provide ½ world’s calories – all annuals (potatoes huge also)
Dramatic reduction in biodiversity of agriculture
Most cannot afford meat

11. How Is Food Produced? Sources of food
3 Primary plants: wheat, corn, and rice
4 Primary animals: fish, beef, pork, and chicken

12. Major Types of Agriculture
Industrialized agriculture
Plantation
Traditional subsistence agriculture
Traditional intensive agriculture

13. Major Types of Agriculture
Industrial Agriculture:
Fossil Fuel Energy
Heavy Water Use
Single Crops (monoculture)
Commercial fertilizers
¼ of all cropland
Mostly in developed countries

14. Industrial agriculture in California

15. Major Types of Agriculture
Plantation Agriculture:
Form of industrial agriculture in tropical developing countries
Cash crops: banana, coffee, sugar cane, cocoa
Monoculture for sale in developed countries
Increasing large livestock
Coffee Plantation

16. Major Types of Agriculture
Traditional Subsistence Agriculture:
Human labor and draft animals producing food form family survival
Nomadic herding
42% of world’s people uses traditional agriculture

17. Major Types of Agriculture
Traditional Intensive Agriculture:
Increasing human and animal labor, fertilizers, water to get higher yields
Enough food for family and to sell locally
Agriculture is world’s leading industry

18. World Food Production
Fig p. 275

20. Hunterdon County, New Jersey

21. Section 2: Producing Food by Green-Revolution Techniques
High-input monoculture
Selectively bred or genetically-engineered crops
High inputs of fertilizer
Extensive use of pesticides
High inputs of water
Multiple cropping

22. Green Revolution in Agriculture
Since the 1950s farmers having been getting huge increases in crop production per unit of land.
First Step: develop and plant monocultures of GM high-yield crops like corn, rice and wheat
Cavendish Banana

23. Green Revolution in Agriculture
Second Step: Use large inputs of fertilizers, pesticides and water.
Third Step: Increase number of crops grown per year on a plot of land (more crop less land)
These techniques produce huge increases in crops BUT need lots of water, fossil fuels, machinery, pesticides, fertilizers
* Uses 8% of world’s oil *

25. Green Revolution in U.S.
Agribusiness: loss of the family farm to corporate farming…Superfarms
U.S. Ag. More total sales than auto, steel and housing combined
18% of Gross National Income (1/5 of all U.S. private sector jobs)
0.3% of world’s farmers produce 17% of world’s grain (1/2 of world’s corn and soybeans)
Huge increase in efficiency

26. Green Revolution in U.S.
Developed Countries: People spend about 40% of income on food
Developing Countries: 70%
Industrial Ag. Needs cheap fossil fuels…putting food on table accounts for 17% of energy used in U.S.
Energy used to grow, store, process, package, transport, refrigerate, cook
10 units of energy for 1 unit of food energy in your stomach

27. Green Revolutions First green revolution (developed countries)
Second green revolution
(developing countries)
Major International agricultural
research centers and seed banks
Fig p. 277

28. Producing Food by Traditional Techniques
Interplanting
Polyvarietal cultivation
Intercropping
Agroforestry (alley cropping)
Polyculture
Look up terms on page 278

29. Showing where energy is used in food production in U. S
Showing where energy is used in food production in U.S. Food travels avg. of 1,500 miles from farm to fork in U.S.

30. New Jersey Peach Farm: What are the advantages and disadvantages of eating locally grown food?

31. Section 3: Soil Erosion What causes soil erosion?
How serious of a problem is it?
Good news and bad news from the U.S.
What is desertification?
How do salts degrade the soil?

32. Causes of Soil Erosion Wind Water #1 People
Why care about soil erosion?

33. Impacts of Soil Erosion
Loss of soil fertility
Sediment runoff causes problems in surface water (pollution, clog ditches, boat channels, reservoirs)
#1 source of U.S. water pollution
Renewable only on LONG timeframes (200-1,000yrs. for 1 inch)

35. Soil Erosion
On Ag. land in U.S. today, soil is eroding 16 times faster than it is created

36. Areas of serious concern Stable or nonvegetative areas
Global Soil Erosion
Areas of serious concern
Areas of some concern
Stable or nonvegetative areas
Fig p. 280

37. Soil Erosion in the US Dust Bowl – 1930s: Fig. 14-5 p. 281
Reductions in erosion since 1987
1985 Food Security Act

39. Huge Erosion Problems During “Dust Bowl” era

40. Causes of Desertification
Overgrazing
Deforestation
Erosion
Salinization
Soil Compaction
Natural Climate Change
Refer to Fig p. 283

41. World Desertification
Fig p. 282

42. Desertification: causes and consequences.
Occurring on 1/3 of world’s land

43. Salinization
Irrigation water contains small amounts of dissolved salts
Evaporation and transpiration leave salts behind
Salt builds up on soil

45. Reducing and Cleaning Up Salinization
Reduce irrigation
Switch to salt-tolerant crops
Flush soils
Not growing crops for 2-5 years
Install underground drainage
Refer to Fig p. 283

46. Soil Degradation on Irrigated Land
Salinization
Evaporation
Transpiration
Waterlogging
Less permeable
clay layer
Waterlogging
Precipitation and irrigation water percolate downward
Water table rises
Bad for roots
Fig p. 283

49. Section 4: Soil Conservation
What is soil conservation and how does it work?
What are some methods for reducing soil erosion?
Inorganic versus organic fertilizers

50. Soil Conservation
Involves many ways of reducing soil erosion and restoring fertility to soil.

51. Conventional Tillage
Farmers plow the land and then break up and smoothes soil to make a planting surface
Leaves soil vulnerable to erosion
Midwest tillage often down in fall (winter bare)

52. Conservation Tillage
Disturbing the soil as little as possible while planting crop
Not tilling over winter
Planting without disturbing soil
Special equipment “inject” soil with seed, fertilizer etc.
In % of U.S. farms

55. Solutions: Soil Conservation
Conventional-tillage
Conservation tillage
Terracing
Refer to Fig p. 285
Contour farming
Strip and alley cropping
Windbreaks
Land Classification

56. Terracing
Used on steep slopes
Reduces erosion and water loss

58. Contour planting
Planting crops in rows across the slope
Strip Cropping
Alternating crops from row crops and crops that completely cover surface
Cover Crops: can be planted right after harvest to hold onto soil during winter

60. Alley Cropping: several cops planted together in rows (alleys) Increases shade (less water) Provide windbreaks

61. Windbreaks

62. Soil Restoration Organic fertilizer Animal manure Compost
Crop rotation
Commercial inorganic fertilizer

63. Organic Fertilizer
Has decreased in the U.S. due in part because most farmers no longer raise livestock and it costs too much to transport
Poop Factory and Phillies Soil
Inorganic fertilizers have taken off

64. Inorganic Fertilizers
Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium
Grown in usage worldwide
Credited with increasing crop yields (1/4 of world crops)
W/o could only feed 2-3 billion people
Many problems associated (see next slide)

66. The amount of energy needed to produce a single hamburger is enough to power a small car 20 miles