6.9 - Food Security Flashcards
What is food security?
Food security occurs when all people are able to access enough safe and nutritious food to meet their requirements for a healthy life, in ways the planet can sustain into the future
What are the 2 key features of food security?
- Sustainable for the planet into the future
- Access enough safe and nutritious food to meet their requirements for a healthy life
What are the 6 factors that affect food security?
- Environmental change
- Changing diets in wealthier populations
- New pests and pathogens
- Sustainability
- Cost of agricultural inputs
- Conflicts
How does environmental change affect food security? (2)
- Environmental changes may impact our ability to produce food. For example, changes to the global climate such as increased temperatures could affect the growth patterns of crops, which could result in a reduction in yield.
- Other changes such as pollution could also reduce our ability to grow crops
How do changing diets in wealthier populations affect food security? (2)
- As people become wealthier, their diets are likely to change to include a wider variety of foods. An example of this is people eating more meat, which is more expensive to buy
- This increased demand for meat can be bad for food security. Animals being reared for meat can be fed crops that would be otherwise eaten by humans and graze on land that could be used to grow crops to feed humans
How do new pests and pathogens affect food security?
Pests (e.g. certain insects) and pathogens (e.g. bacteria, fungi and viruses) can result in the loss of crops or livestock and could lead to widespread famine
How does sustainability affect food security?
If we use unsustainable methods to produce food (e.g. farming practices that permanently damage the environment or rely on non-renewable resources), this is likely to negatively impact the level of food security
How do costs of agricultural inputs affect food security? (3)
- Agriculture relies on several inputs such as fuel, chemicals, animal feed, etc.
- The high input costs of farming can make it too expensive for people in some countries to start or maintain food production, meaning that there sometimes aren’t enough people producing food to feed everyone
- Also, agricultural inputs can be expensive and these costs are often passed onto the consumer, which means food becomes more expensive
How do conflicts affect food security?
Conflicts such as wars can disrupt the production and transportation of food, so often cause food prices to rise, and in some cases can cause famine
Give 2 ways in which changing diets could negatively affect food security
- Increased consumption of resource intense foods such as meat
- Increased consumption of foods that have to be transported long distances across the world
Give 3 factors that could negatively affect food security
Any 3 from:
- Rising population
- Sustainability
- Environmental change (higher temperatures, droughts, floods, changing rainfall etc)
- Changing diets
- Pests and pathogens
- More expensive agricultural inputs (like fuels, pesticides, fertilisers etc)
- Conflicts/wars
What methods can be used for improving food security? (6)
- Improved nutrition
- Chemical control of pests
- Protection against pathogens
- Hormones
- Selective breeding
- Biotechnology
How can improved nutrition be used for improving food security?
Making sure that livestock have access to all of the necessary nutrients for their health and growth. Farmers also use fertilisers on soils to provide elements needed for plant growth.
How can chemical control of pests be used for improving food security?
Pesticides can be used to reduce damage done by pests, by killing them
How can protection against pathogens be used for improving food security?
Livestock may be vaccinated against certain diseases caused by pathogens. Antibiotics can also be given to livestock to protect them against bacterial pathogens
