B3 - Food Production Flashcards
Why can the efficiency of a food chain be improved by reducing the number of stages in a food chain?
Animals in the food chain use energy for movement, growth and maintaining a constant body temperature. Some of it is also lost in waste products such as faeces and urine. To increase the efficiency the human should eat the producer/plant because then all the energy will be transferred.
How can food production be managed to make it more efficient?
Intensive farming techniques can be employed.
The animals movement can be restricted (eg. battery hens, calf crates, pig barns…) this loss of movement means that less energy is lost during respiration by the muscle cells.
The temperature can be controlled which means animals spend less of their energy keeping warm so more energy is conserved.
Animals can also be fed protein rich foods which are easy to digest and as they are protein rich the animals will grow faster and possibly lay more eggs.
It is also good because the animals can easily be protected from predators and they are easier to vaccinate which will stop infections.
The disadvantages are that the process is very inhumane.
The animals live very close together which increases the risk of disease spread. There are also heating and lighting costs for the farmers which may not be incurred if the animals lived in fields etc.
How can levels of fish stocks be maintained?
The fishing nets can be made with larger holes - this allows the smaller fish to be able to escape the net so that they can go on to mature and breed to increase the population of fish.
Quotas can be imposed so that only certain amounts of certain types of fish can be caught and these can be targeted specifically for the fish breeding seasons so that the fish have a chance to breed and increase in numbers.
