Chapter 12: Food Production and The Environment

Question 1

It is likely that some areas that currently contain farms may become unusable for farming due to increasingly severe and prolonged droughts in future years.

Answer 1

true

Question 2

To prevent famine at its root, it is most important to develop programs that____.

Answer 2

reduce global poverty

Question 3

The term undernutrition refers to people who consume ____.

Answer 3

insufficient daily calories

Question 4

Which of these is the most effective as an action that a farmer could take to help to mitigate climate change?

Answer 4

use a no-till technique to avoid plowing the land

Question 5

What is a disadvantage of using aquaculture to produce fish?

Answer 5

Makes dense fish populations more vulnerable to disease

Question 6

To reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance due to heavy antibiotic use, it is important to____,

Answer 6

find other ways to promote animal growth and health, such as improved living conditions

Question 7

To address chronic malnutrition, it is especially important to provide ____.

Answer 7

protein

Question 8

Famine is a severe shortage of food in an area and which can result in mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption.

Answer 8

TRUE

Question 9

What is a disadvantage of modern synthetic pesticides?

Answer 9

They may become less and less effective over time.

Question 10

Overnutrition and undernutrition are both key factors in which of the following health problems?

Answer 10

lower life expectancy

Question 11

Efforts to reduce food insecurity will be most effective if they focus on ____.

Answer 11

efforts in less-developed countries where this is most common

Question 12

To improve our ability to adapt to climate change and other threats, it is important to ____.

Answer 12

diversify the species that we use for food

Question 13

Slash and burn agriculture is a type of ____.

Answer 13

low-input polyculture

Question 14

Leaving crop residues on the ground can help to protect land by helping to preserve topsoil.

Answer 14

true

Question 15

One way to help address climate change is to ____.

Answer 15

find ways to reduce methane emissions from cows

Question 16

Which of the following is true of India?

Answer 16

The dramatic decrease in the number of rice varieties planted puts the food supply at risk.

Question 17

One of the most important characteristics of a pesticide is how long it will remain deadly in the environment, a characteristic called ____.

Answer 17

persistence

Question 18

As a country’s income grows, its people tend to eat less meat.

Answer 18

false

Question 19

Compared with the threat of undernutrition, the threat of overnutrition ____.

Answer 19

is worsening and contributing to lower life expectancies in developed countries

Question 20

Crossbreeding and genetic engineering are both ways to develop improved varieties of crops.

Answer 20

true

Question 21

Providing iron supplementation would be most effective in reducing rates of ____.

Answer 21

anemia

Question 22

One way to maintain soil fertility is through ____.

Answer 22

SOIL CONSERVATION

Question 23

Plantation agriculture is a form of high-input agriculture that involves growing cash crops and is primarily used in ____.

Answer 23

tropical, less-developed countries

Question 24

One benefit to the use of GMOs is that ____.

Answer 24

they may increase shelf life of produce

Question 25

With industrialized food production, how many units of nonrenewable fossil fuel energy are required to produce each unit of energy put on the table in the United States?

Answer 25

10

Question 26

Since 1960, there has been only a slight increase in global food production from all systems.

Answer 26

FALSE

Question 27

The overall aim of integrated pest management is to reduce crop damage to an economically tolerable level.

Answer 27

TRUE

Question 28

High-input agriculture is a form of industrialized agriculture used primarily in less-developed tropical countries that involves growing cash crops such as bananas, coffee, vegetables, soybeans, sugarcane, and palm oil.

Answer 28

FALSE

Question 29

The root cause of food insecurity is ____.

Answer 29

POVERTY

Question 30

The world’s industrialized fishing fleets use 12.5 times more energy catching fish than that the fish provide to the people who eat them.

Answer 30

true

Question 31

Hundreds of thousands of children under 6 years of age go blind each year because of a lack of iron.

Answer 31

false

Question 32

One way to improve American food security is ____.

Answer 32

to develop the use of cell cultures to provide meat

Question 33

Raising animals in feedlots leads to ____.

Answer 33

less land use

Question 34

The term overnutrition refers to ____.

Answer 34

energy intake exceeding energy use

Question 35

What is an advantage of modern synthetic pesticides?

Answer 35

They increase yields.

Question 36

At least three million children under the age of 5 die each year from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

Answer 36

TRUE

Question 37

To improve industrialized agriculture, it will be important to focus on using single crops that have been carefully developed for valuable traits, rather than using a wide variety of crops.

Answer 37

FALSE

Question 38

Which soil conservation technique involves plowing and planting crops in rows across the slope of the land rather than up and down?

Answer 38

Contour planting

Question 39

With traditional subsistence agriculture, farmers increase their crop yields by ____.

Answer 39

increasing their inputs of human and draft-animal labor

Question 40

Governments use subsidies to attempt to strengthen food security.

Answer 40

true

Question 41

A second green revolution has been taking place since 1967, based on ____.

Answer 41

fast-growing rice and wheat

Question 42

Over the past 30 years, total global meat consumption has decreased significantly.

Answer 42

true

Question 43

Micronutrients include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Answer 43

true

Question 44

Which of these actions can we take to reduce desertification?

Answer 44

Decrease human contribution to climate change

Question 45

Each year, at least 250,000 children under 6 years of age go blind from a lack of ____.

Answer 45

vitamin A

Question 46

Farmers who use traditional intensive agriculture try to obtain higher crop yields by using higher inputs of human and draft animal labor, animal manure for fertilizer, and water.

Answer 46

true

Question 47

A decline of the productive potential of soil, especially on arid or semiarid land, by 10% or more because of prolonged drought and human activities is called ____.

Answer 47

desertification

Question 48

One benefit to polyculture is that can have the environmental benefit of reducing fertilizer runoff.

Answer 48

true

Question 49

If a farmer has continued problems with flooding, then ____.

Answer 49

no till farming would not be feasible

Question 50

Government subsidies to farmers and fishing fleets can promote unsustainable practices.

Answer 50

true

Question 51

Irrigation is used frequently despite its limitations because it ____.

Answer 51

boosts crop productivity on farms

Question 52

Crops that have to be planted from seed every year are known as perennial crops.

Answer 52

false

Question 53

Plantation agriculture uses heavy equipment along with large amounts of financial capital, fossil fuels, water, commercial inorganic fertilizers, and pesticides.

Answer 53

false

Question 54

To reduce potential damage to beneficial insects, it is important to use broad spectrum pesticides more commonly than selective pesticides.

Answer 54

false

Question 55

An effective way to prevent the development of irreversible brain damage through malnutrition is to make certain that children consume enough ____.

Answer 55

iodine

Question 56

What is the largest cause of soil erosion?

Answer 56

flowing water

Question 57

Many of the world’s poor only have access to a low-protein, high-carbohydrate, vegetarian diet and suffer from ____.

Answer 57

chronic malnutrition

Question 58

Compared to high-input industrialized monoculture, low-input polyculture ____.

Answer 58

produces similar yields with less energy per unit of yield

Question 59

Spiders kill far fewer crop-eating insects every year than humans do by using insecticides.

Answer 59

false

Question 60

Climate change will make it easier to expand green revolutions.

Answer 60

false

Question 61

Compared to traditional tillage, conservation tillage ____.

Answer 61

reduces topsoil erosion

Question 62

Which product is commonly grown in plantation agriculture?

Answer 62

coffee

Question 63

To reduce the drawbacks of no-till farming, it will be important to find ways to reduce associated herbicide use.

Answer 63

false

Question 64

To be considered organic, a farm must avoid using pesticides or herbicides but can use antibiotics.

Answer 64

false

Question 65

About two-thirds of the world’s human population survives primarily by eating one or more of the three grain crops. What are these three grains?

Answer 65

Rice, wheat, and corn

Question 66

Reducing the use of GMOs could reduce the cost of organic products.

Answer 66

true

Question 67

What process adds water until the water table rises and envelops the deep roots of plants, resulting in a loss of productivity and ultimately killing them?

Answer 67

Waterlogging

Question 68

Compared to traditional tillage, conservation tillage ____.

Answer 68

reduces topsoil erosion

Question 69

Traditional subsistence agriculture combines energy from the sun with the labor of humans and draft animals to produce enough crops for a farm family’s survival, with little left over to sell or store as a reserve for hard times.

Answer 69

true

Question 70

To reduce the risk of ____, people living in dry climates need to work to reduce overuse of irrigation.

Answer 70

salinization

Question 71

Of the estimated 30,000 plant species that people can eat, only ____ of them supply an estimated 90% of the world's food calories.

Answer 71

14

Question 72

Overnutrition is most common in developed countries, rather than in less-developed countries.

Answer 72

true

Question 73

What percentage of the food products currently on U.S. supermarket shelves contains some form of genetically modified food or ingredients?

Answer 73

80%

Question 74

When people cannot grow or buy enough food to meet their basic energy needs, they develop chronic undernutrition and may develop health problems.

Answer 74

true

Question 75

Due to technological advances, people in the United States spend about ___ of their disposable income on food.

Answer 75

less than 10%

Question 76

Organic fertilizer is derived from ____.

Answer 76

plant and animal materials

Question 77

A major difference between chronic undernutrition and chronic malnutrition is that people with chronic malnutrition cannot obtain enough calories whereas people with chronic undernutrition can.

Answer 77

false

Question 78

Genetically modified crops ____.

Answer 78

could reduce biodiversity

Question 79

What occurs in alley cropping?

Answer 79

Crops are planted in strips between trees and shrubs.

Question 80

Many people may lack access to sufficient water for irrigation unless ____.

Answer 80

climate change is slowed or substitute water sources are found to replace the melting mountain glaciers on which they rely

Question 81

The major goal of industrialized agriculture for any crop has been to steadily increase each crop’s ____.

Answer 81

yield

Question 82

What occurs in alley cropping?

Answer 82

Crops are planted in strips between trees and shrubs.

Question 83

About two-thirds of the world’s human population survives primarily by eating one or more of the three grain crops. What are these three grains?

Answer 83

Rice, wheat, and corn

Question 84

Reducing the use of GMOs could reduce the cost of organic products.

Answer 84

true

Question 85

Overnutrition is most common in developed countries, rather than in less-developed countries.

Answer 85

true

Question 86

What percentage of the food products currently on U.S. supermarket shelves contains some form of genetically modified food or ingredients?

Answer 86

80%

Question 87

To reduce the drawbacks of no-till farming, it will be important to find ways to reduce associated herbicide use.

Answer 87

false