4.3 Population - Resource relationships Flashcards
What is meant by food insecurity?
Food insecurity is when people do not have access to sufficient nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.
What are the natural problems that lead to food shortages?
Soil Exhaustion Drought Floods Tropical storms Pests Disease
what are The human problems that can lead to food shortages?
Low capital investment
rapidly rising population
poor distribution/transport difficulties
war and conflict
What are the consequences of food shortages?
Foetal and infant malnutrition - stunted development, frequent infections
Child Malnutrition - reduced intellectual potential
Adolescent Malnutrition - poor performance in a working environment
Elderly Malnutrition - disease
All of the above can lead to disease such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease etc…
What are some ways technology has innovated and developed to increase food production?
High Yielding seeds
Precision agriculture - using information to reach production targets
Remediating land that has been damaged by poor agriculture techniques.
Genetic engineering
Environmental modelling
Pest management
What is the green revoultion?
A package of agricultural improvements designed to answer food problems in LICs and MICs. For example, high yielding seed programmes started in 1966.
What are perennial crops?
Unlike annual crops, they do not need to be replanted each year. After a harvest they naturally grow back.
An example of which is PR23, a rice variant which requires less water to grow and can be harvested much faster.
Describe the problems of food insecurity in South Sudan.
A long lasting civil war has displaced 4.5 million people and killed 400,000. The war has disrupted transport links and damaged infrastructure making it harder to transport food.
There is also a 3% population growth, a corrupt government and poor investment all causing food insecurity.
There is also drought, seasonal flooding and soil erosion all leading towards inefficient crop produce. They crops that are produced are majorly rice and other grains.
This has caused a poor infant health, 1.2-2.4 receiving food assistance. Serve malnourishment and over populated hospitals.
What is carrying capacity
The ability of the land to sustain a certain number of people i.e.; how many people an area’s resources can hold sustainably.
What is overpopulation
whereby the human population rises to an extent exceeding the carrying capacity of the ecological setting
What is optimum population
a density of population which with the given resources and skills, produces the maximum economic welfare and allows the highest standard of living.
What is underpopulation
A situation in which there are too few people to realize the economic potential of an area or support its population’s standard of living.
Describe the ideas of Malthus
Malthus lived in the 18 century and wrote an essay on
the principles of population.
In this essay he stated that population growth would
be checked or stopped by various factors.
His argument was essentially that population grew
geometrically (1,2,4,8,16,32) whereas food production
and resource provision grew at a slower arithmetic
rate(1,2,3,4,5,6).
He concluded that because of this more and more
peasants and subsistence farmers would live poorer
and poorer lives until some checks came into place.
Positive checks = raise the death rate (hunger, disease and war)
Preventative ones = lower the birth rate (abortion, birth control, prostitution, celibacy)
An example of which is the Irish potato famine
Describe the ideas of Boserup
Whet did she think?
Boserup did not like the idea of natural checks. She
argued that food production does not limit or control
population growth. Instead. she said that population
growth controls forming methods.
She believed that people would try not to give in to
disease or famine. Instead. they would invent solutions to the problem. She used the term ‘agricultural
intensification to explain how formers con grow more.
Food from the same piece of land using better forming,
techniques and chemical fertilisers.
