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Geography > Food and Agriculture > Flashcards

Food and Agriculture Flashcards

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1
Q

What are Agriculture’s challenges?

A
  1. feed everyone (produce enough food, distribute food equitably)
  2. maintain ecosystems
  3. provide livelihoods
  4. support culture and identity
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2
Q

What are the two major forms of food production?

A
  • intensive agriculture
    (large-scale production, high inputs, low human labour)
  • alternative agriculture
    (smaller-scale prod, low inputs, high human labour)
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3
Q

What do we mean by agricultural inputs?

A
  • synthetic fertilizers, pesticides
  • machinery
  • modified (“improved”) seeds
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4
Q

What do we mean by agricultural labour?

A
  • clearing land, tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting
  • may be performed by humans, animals and/or machinery
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5
Q

What are the features of intensive agriculture?

A
  • monoculture (one crop at a time)
  • highly mechanized
  • high use of fertilizers, pesticides, modified seeds
  • heavily reliant on fossil fuels
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6
Q

What are the drivers of intensive agriculture?

A
  • economies of scale
  • consolidation of agri-business
  • north america, europe: policy incenties
  • global South: export based economies
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7
Q

What are the intensive strategies to increase yields in agriculture?

A
  • synthetic fertilizer
  • mechanization
  • irrigation
  • specialization
  • pesticides
  • hybrid plant varieties
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8
Q

What is synthetic fertilizer?

A
  • provides nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
  • made from ammonium nitrate (NH3)
  • producing fertilizer is energy intensive
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9
Q

why is producing fertilizer energy intensive?

A

natural gas (methane) used as both an ingredient and a fuel

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10
Q

What is the “Green Revolution”?

A
  • effort to increase agricultural yields in Asia, Latin America starting in 1960s
  • technologies imported from US
  • Yields were seen as a measure of progress
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11
Q

What were the green revolution methods?

A
  • synthetic fertilizer
  • mechanization
  • irrigation
  • monoculture
  • pesticides
  • transgenic seeds
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12
Q

What is the challenge of food distribution?

A
  • 733M ppl facing hunger
  • 3 billion+ cannot afford healthy diet
  • amt of food wasted could feed 2 billion ppl per year
  • obesity continues to increase
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13
Q

What are they key factors on unequal distribution?

A
  • Threats to food security
    (availability and affordability of food)
  • changing diets
    (higher demand for animal products, processed or imported foods as incomes rise)
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14
Q

What are the environmental impacts of intensive agriculture?

A

maintaining ecosystems:
- habitat and biodiversity loss (deforestation)

  • water pollution (runoff)
    (nitrogen contamination; algae blooms)
  • impacts on wildlife (pesticides)
  • pollinating insects declining
  • soil degradation
    (erosion, nutrient depletion)
  • water use (irrigation)
  • fossil fuel use and carbon emissions
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15
Q

What are the environmental benefits of intensive agriculture?

A
  • “spares” land for conservation
  • technology helps use water efficiently (precision irrigation)
  • growing bigger livestock means that fewer animals provide more calories
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16
Q

How does intensive agriculture provide livelihoods in global north?

A
  • fewer famers, larger farms
  • more reliance on machines/technology
  • farmers increasingly rely on off-farm employment (high cost mechanization)
  • migrant labour performs many tasks
17
Q

How does intensive agriculture provide livelihoods in global south?

A
  • dependence on cash crops makes farmers vulnerable to price fluctuations, crop dmg
  • low-paid, insecure plantation work
  • land tenure issues: small farmers may be displaced for large investors
18
Q

What are the features of alternative agriculture?

A
  • common in the Global South
  • Polyculture: producing a variety of crops and livestock together
  • mixture of subsistence (for household consumption) and market production (to sell)
  • low inputs, high human labour
19
Q

What is agroecology?

A
  • app of ecological concepts and principals to design and manage sustainable agricultural ecosystems
  • aim to produce food while enhancing habitat both in the soil and above ground
  • draws on local and Indigenous knowledge
20
Q

What is food sovereignty?

A
  • farming based on small farmer autonomy, ecological methods, culturally appropriate foods, gender equity, non-exploitative labour
  • La Via Campesina: worldwide peasant movement pushing for food sovereignty
21
Q

What is Indigenous food sovereignty?

A
  • the focus on cultureally significant foods
  • reciprocal replationships w plants, animals
  • we can see food itself as having ‘sovereignty’
22
Q

What are some examples of (re)localizing food systems?

A
  • Community Supported Agriculture, farmers’ markets
  • Urban agriculture, Food Not Lawns
  • Foraging, ‘guerrilla gardening’
  • Food cooperatives, seed banks
23
Q

What is the challenge to produce enough food?

A

productivity in low-input farming

  • polyculture, crop roation help maintain soils
  • resilience: one crop may fail, but not all
  • yield may be lower than intensive agriculture, but total productivity may be higher
24
Q

What is the challenge of distributing food equitably?

A
  • Small-scale farming usually oriented toward local markets and community-level food systems
  • Food sovereignty movement focuses more on the needs of food producers than urban consumers
25
Q

What is the challenge to maintaining ecosystems?

A
  • Rotate crops, plant trees to conserve soil
  • Use few or no chemicals
  • Plant heritage varieties; intercrop to use less water
  • Fewer GHG emissions, greater resilience to climate change than intensive agriculture
26
Q

What is the challenge of providing livelihoods?

A

High labour requirements: many people involved

Food sovereignty movement is pushing for political changes at national and international levels to protect small farmer livelihoods and ways of life

E.g. helped negotiate United Nations guidelines on land tenure

27
Q

What is the challenge of identity and culture?

A

Local and international networks of small farmers

Direct relationships between farmers and consumers

Farmer autonomy means having the choice to grow culturally important foods

Other initiatives: regional designations, “slow food,” cultivating heritage crop varieties

Geography (10 decks)

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