Food: Gateway 3 (Strategies to overcome Food Shortage) Flashcards
What are the categories of strategies to overcome food shortage?
TASPE
- Technological
- Agricultural
- Social
- Political-economic
What are the technological strategies to overcome food shortage?
- Storage facilities
- Farming technologies
- Biotechnology
Describe storage facilities as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Technological
- Use of refrigerated store houses/trucks to keep food fresh for a longer period of time
Benefits:
- Allows food to be distributed to further places
- Larger variety of food becomes available to more people
- Eg: Use of silos in Timor Leste helped to reduce crops lost to pest attacks (by 20-40%)
Challenges:
- Expensive, makes food production more costly
- Fungi can grow if food not properly dried before putting into silos
Describe farming technology as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Technological
- Use of high yielding varieties, irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides and machinery to increase crop yield
Benefits:
- Enable food to be grown in previously unsuitable areas (green revolution)
- Increased crop yield by 75% (1965-1980)
- Reduced farmers’ dependency on labour
- Eg: High tech farms in SG
Challenges:
- Expensive to small scale farmers (esp in LDCs)
- Long term problems if not managed proplerly (waterlogging, salinisation etc)
Describe biotechnology as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Technological
- Modifying living organisms (GM)
Benefits:
- Higher yields
- Increase income of farmers, food security
- Decrease need for imports
- More resistant crops
- Eg: Drought resistant corn in Western Great Plains of USA
- Longer shelf life–> reduced food wastage
- Eg: GM tomatoes last 45 days, 3x more than normal
Challenges:
- Grown mostly by agribusiness, small scale lack finances
- Potential health risks result in low demand
- Only used on some crops, ignores others
What are the agricultural strategies to overcome food shortages?
- Multiple cropping
- Water and soil conservation
- Leasing farmland
Describe multiple farming as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Agricultural
- Growing crops one after another or growing seasonal crops together
Benefits:
- Roots of leguminous plants help to replenish soil nutrients
- Minimise pest attacks due to smell (eg. garlic/onion planted next to tomatoes)
- Reduces depency on just one crop, harvests year-round
Describe water and soil conservation as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Agricultural
- No-till farming (no removing weeds or creating rows in soil)
Benefits:
- Allows topsoil to be covered with leaves, branches–> decomposition returns nutrients to soil; reduces erosion
Describe leasing farmland as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Agricultural
- Lease farmland from land rich countries
Benefits:
- Income may be channeled to help small-scale farmers improve harvest
Challenge:
- Reduce food supply to country that is renting
- Eg. Ethopia leased out land for income but resulted in serious food shortage
What are the social strategies to overcome food shortages?
- Support local farms
- Population control
Describe supporting local farmers as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Social
- Buying locally produced food
Benefits
- Diversifies sources of food
- Reliance on imports reduced
- Keeps local farmers in business
- Food is cheaper; lower transport costs
Describe population control as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Social
- LDCs food production slower than population growth
- Educate people on family planning and grant access to healthcare
Eg. Philippines
- Staples insufficient to meet demands
- Community based family planning programmes provide contraceptives to slow down birth rates
What are the political-economic strategies to overcome food shortages?
- National- Agricultural policies
- International- Food programmes
- UN
- World Bank
Describe agricultural policies in Malaysia as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Policial-economic
- Laws for food security–> ensure sufficient food supply at affordable cost
Eg: Malaysia
Federal Land Development Authority (1960-1970)
- Reduce poverty in rural areas through farming
1. Maximise potential of unused land for farming and housing
2. Farmers provided with seeds, land, tools
3. Modern processing facilities built for crops
Benefits:
- More than 90 000 farmers resettled by 1985 (most involved in farming of rubber, oil palm etc)
- More than 1 million acres of jungle turned to farmland
Challenges:
- Food security threatened by growth of cash crops
- Most crops need long-term investment, subject to global market fluctuations, thus high risk to farmers
Describe agricultural policies in Singapore as a strategy to overcome food shortages and the category it is from. What benefits and challenges are there?
Policial-economic
- Laws for food security–> ensure sufficient food supply at affordable cost
Eg: Singapore
High tech farming (1970-now)
- Establish agrotechnology parks to house high tech farms
- Equipped with necessary infrastructure
Benefits:
- Produced 8% veg, 8% fish, 26% eggs
- Reduced reliance on food imports
Challenges:
- High cost of set up
- Production cost passed to consumers
- Shortage of trained staff
- Competition from cheaper food imports
