Agriculture now and choice topics Flashcards
How much of the world’s food is still produced by small family farms?
~3/4.
What is the advantage of small farms vs large scale agriculture?
Small farms produce a larger variety of food but larger farms produce a huge amount of one particular crop.
Where was the greenhouse example given in class? How big was it?
RedSunFarms in Mexico, a greenhouse that is 30 hectares big (~42 soccer fields).
How is light intensity controlled in the greenhouses we talked about in class?
With GH plastic and different paints.
Why would higher than atmospheric CO2 be maintained in a greenhouse?
Increases photosynthesis in the plants.
How can greenhouses be heated?
Solar, geothermal, or natural gas.
What is the yield (in kg/m^2) of peppers grown in a high-tech greenhouse? What about a conventional greenhouse? A field?
High-tech: 45 Kg/m^2
Conventional: 20-25 Kg/m^2
Field: 5 Kg/m^2
If the highest quality vegetable products from greenhouses go to international exports, what happens to the second grade product?
The lesser quality product is distributed for national sale.
Why is it less efficient to grow vegetables in Canada that to truck them in from elsewhere?
The fuel cost of transport is less than the cost of heating a green house locally.
What is the significance of common camas here in the Pacific Northwest?
Eaten as a starch by local first nations.
What part of common camas is consumed?
The bulbs which make up the camas “roots”.
How is camas prepared before consumption? Why?
Must be cooked for a long time to be digestible. Often cooked with lichen to make carbohydrates more available.
What lichen is used in camas cooking? How much (%) does this improve carbohydrate availability?
Wila (Bryonia fremontii)(hair lichen), increases availability by ~74%.
Springbank clover, a pea-tasting first nations crop in the legume family, was often grown alongside ______, from the ____ family.
Grown alongside silverweed, from the rose family.
What family does northern rice root (indian rice, eskimo potato, etc) belong to? How was it historically consumed?
From the lily family, steamed or boiled for consumption.
