Feeding the World - Chapter 11 Flashcards
Undernutrition
The condition in which not enough calories are ingested to maintain health.
Malnutrition
Having a diet that lacks the correct balance of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.
Food Security
A condition in which people have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
Famine
The condition in which food insecurity is so extreme that large numbers of deaths occur in a given area over a relatively short period.
Anemia
A deficiency of iron.
Overnutrition
Ingestion of too many calories and a lack of balance of foods and nutrients.
Industrial Agriculture
Agriculture that applies the techniques of mechanization and standardization.
Energy Subsidy
The fossil fuel energy and human energy input per calorie of food produced.
Green Revolution
A shift in agricultural practices in the twentieth century that included new management techniques, mechanization, fertilization, irrigation, and improved crop varieties, and that resulted in increased food output.
Mechanization
work done by machines, such as plowing, planting, irrigating, weeding, protecting from pests, harvesting, preparing for next season.
Economic of Scale
The observation that average costs of production fall as output increases.
Compaction
reduces the permeability of soil to water and air, if the soil is subjected to pressure, pore spaces can collapse, decreasing pore space
Waterlogging
A form of soil degradation that occurs when soil remains under water for prolonged periods.
Soil Salinization
Soil salinization is the buildup of salt in surface soil layers
Commercial Inorganic Fertilizer
Commercially prepared mixture of plant nutrients such as nitrates, phosphates, and potassium applied to the soil to restore fertility and increase crop yields.
Animal Manure
Poop and urine of animals used as a form of organic fertilizer.
Green Manure
Freshly cut or still-growing green vegetation that is plowed into the soil to increase the organic matter and humus available to support crop growth.
Compost
Partially decomposed organic plant and animal matter used as a soil conditioner or fertilizer.
Monocropping (monoculture)
An agricultural method that utilizes large plantings of a single species or variety.
Pesticides
A substance, either natural or synthetic, that kills or controls organisms that people consider pests.
Insecticides
A pesticide that targets species of insects and other invertebrates that consume crops.
Broad-spectrum pesticides
A pesticide that kills many different types of pest.
Biological Pest Control
A method of pest control that involves the use of naturally occurring disease organisms, parasites, or predators to control pests
Boomerang Effect
banned chemicals end up back in US on food grown in other countries
Pesticide Treadmill
A cycle of pesticide development, followed by pest resistance, followed by new pesticide development.
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is the Federal statute that governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides in the United States.
Food Quality Protection Act
Is designed to ensure that levels of pesticide residues in food meet strict standards for public health protection.
Genetically Modified Food (GMO)
An organism produced by copying genes from a species with a desirable trait and inserting them into another species.
Bt Gene
gene that codes for a toxin used against insect pest
Conventional Agriculture
agriculture that applies the techniques of mechanization and standardization
Shifting Agriculture
An agricultural method in which land is cleared and used for a few years until the soil is depleted of nutrients.
Slash-and-burn agriculture
Cutting down trees and other vegetation in a patch of forest, leaving the cut vegetation on the ground to dry, and then burning it.
Desertification
productive potential of land falls by 10% or more because of a combination of natural drought from climate change and human activities that reduce or degrade topsoil
Intercropping
type of polyculture. two or more different crops grown at the same time in a plot
Crop Rotation
reduces nutrient depletion by alternating heavy nutrient users (corn, cotton, tobacco) with nutrient producers (legumes with nitrogen-fixing bacteria)
Agroforestry
An agricultural technique in which trees and vegetables are intercropped.
Contour Plowing
An agricultural technique in which plowing and harvesting are done parallel to the topographic contours of the land
No-till Agriculture
An agricultural method in which farmers do not turn the soil between seasons as a means of reducing topsoil erosion.
Polyculture
many different plants are planted together, produces much higher yields then monoculture. ( up to about 20 different plants)
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
An agricultural practice that uses a variety of techniques designed to minimize pesticide inputs.
Organic Agriculture
Production of crops without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
CAFO
A large indoor or outdoor structure designed for maximum output. (concentrated animal feeding operation)
Artificial Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)
Used in feed lots; causes kids to go into puberty early.
Free-range Meat
Meat from animals that do not eat corn; opposite of CAFO; meat that grazes on rangeland.
Fishery
A commercially harvestable population of fish within a particular ecological region.
Fishery Collapse
The decline of a fish population by 90 percent or more.
Bycatch
The unintentional catch of nontarget species while fishing.
Individual Transferable Quotas
A fishery management program in which individual fishers are given a total allowable catch of fish in a season that they can either catch or sell. (ITQ)
Aquaculture
Farming aquatic organisms such as fish, shellfish, and seaweeds.
Annual
A plant that lives only one season.
Perennial
A plant that lives for multiple years.
