Food Production

Question 1

inputs

Answer 1

What a farmer has to put into his farm/business to make it work (material, labour, resources, etc.)

Question 2

processes

Answer 2

The actions a farmer has to do to produce

Question 3

outputs

Answer 3

What a farmer receives/makes from his work

Question 4

feedback loop

Answer 4

When an output becomes an input e.g. manure from livestock becomes fertiliser or inedible parts of plants are fed to livestock

Question 5

commercial farming

Answer 5

The type of farming where the farmer is producing crops or animals for sale (profit)

Question 6

pastoral farming

Answer 6

The rearing (breeding and raising) of animals

Question 7

mixed farming

Answer 7

The growing of crops and the rearing of animals on the same farm

Question 8

extensive agriculture

Answer 8

A very large farm where there is a small amount of money spent or the number of workers employed is low

Question 9

subsistence farming

Answer 9

The type of agriculture that only produces enough food for the farmer and his family (no profit)

Question 10

shifting cultivation / nomadic herding

Answer 10

When a crop is grown or animals are reared and the farm is moved after a certain amount of time

Question 11

arable farming

Answer 11

The growing of crops

Question 12

sedentary farming

Answer 12

When the farmer and the farm stay in the same place the whole time

Question 13

intensive agriculture

Answer 13

A very small farm where there is a large amount of money spent or the number of workers employed is high (e.g. greenhouses)

Question 14

plantation agriculture

Answer 14

When the whole farm is devoted to producing one ‘Cash Crop’, such as coffee or cotton

Question 15

factory famring

Answer 15

A large industrialised farm - especially a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximise production at minimal cost

Question 16

pesticides

Answer 16

Chemicals commonly used in agriculture to kill pests that infest crops (D.D.T. banned in 1972)

Question 17

fertiliser

Answer 17

soil conditioners (e.g. NPK)

Question 18

irrigation

Answer 18

to supply land/crops with water

Question 19

NPK

Answer 19

A complex fertiliser comprised primarily of the three primary nutrients (Nitrogen - Phosphorus - Potassium) required for healthy plant growth. The agriculture industry relies heavily on the use of NPK fertiliser to meet global food supply and ensure healthy crops.

Question 20

organic

Answer 20

When food is grown without the use of pesticides or fertilsers

Question 21

GM crops

Answer 21

The DNA of Genetically Modified crops has been modified using genetic engineering techniques to improve resistance to certain pests, diseases, or environmental conditions, reduce spoilage, or augment resistance to chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide), or improving the nutrient profile of the crop.

Question 22

malnutrition

Answer 22

The condition that develops when the body does not get the right amount of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients it needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ function.

Question 23

Green Revolution

Answer 23

Started in the 1960s when farms began using things such as pesticides and GM crops were introduces

Question 24

growth hormones to animals

Answer 24

Fed to livestock through their food to make them grow quicker and bigger to maximise profit

Question 25

threshing

Answer 25

removing grain from stem by beating on a hard surface

Question 26

winnowing

Answer 26

removing non-grain items by throwing cereal up in the air on a windy day in shallow baskets

Question 27

Common reasons for food shortage

Answer 27

• Drought
• Soil erosion
• Locust Plagues
• Tropical cyclones/hurricanes
• Severe winter weather
• Economic and political factors
• Transport/access issues
• Earthquakes

Question 28

HYV

Answer 28

High Yielding Variety (seeds) high-quality, grow quick, mostly flood an drought resistant, more resistant to pests

Question 29

Agricultural system

Answer 29

Farming is an industry like any other which operates under a system with inputs into the farm, processes which take place on the farm, outputs from the farm and a feedback loop in which outputs become inputs.

Question 30

Biomagnification

Answer 30

The increasing concentration of toxic substances within each successive link in the food chain. So, the animals at the top of the food chain will receive the highest concentrations of toxic substances in their food.

Question 31

Bunds

Answer 31

In wet rice cultivation, these are the elevated barriers of soil between the individual padi fields.

Question 32

DDT

Answer 32

A pesticide that was banned in 1972 because of its serious effects on the environment, notably, bioaccumulation. DDT also has serious health effects on humans such as liver damage (including liver cancer), nervous system damage, birth defects and other reproductive harm

Question 33

Why are fish sometimes found in padi fields?

Answer 33

Because their waste can fertilise the soil and they can then be eaten.

Question 34

What are some of the common ways in which the impacts of food shortage are mitigated?

Answer 34

• Food aid
• Improve agricultural techniques
• Irrigation schemes
• HYV and GM crops
• Loans to the govt. or individuals
• Free trade
• Market access
• Discouraging out-migration so that after a country had recovered from a food shortage, there will be enough farmers left in the country/region

Question 35

What is food security?

Answer 35

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (FAO)

Question 36

What is a food shortage?

Answer 36

This is when people have little/no access to food. This can be caused by different factors. If this persists, famine may erupt.

Question 37

What are some of the conditions required for wet rice cultivation?

Answer 37

• Flat (or terraced) land
• Impermeable subsoil (to hold/retain the water)
• Warm, wet spring, hot summer – monsoon climate (temperature in excess of 20°C)
• Control of water level
• Addition of fertilizer
• Intensive labor
• Social cooperation
• Bunds/banks to control the water level in individual fields

Question 38

What is hunger?

Answer 38

After not having eaten for about 4-5 days; different to malnutrition

Question 39

What is kwashiorkor and some of its symptoms?

Answer 39

Results from a predominance of cereals and a deficiency of proteins. This is more common in children from ages 1-5. Symptoms include: moon face, thin muscles, fat present (puffy limbs), swollen extended belly, skin change, hair ma change to ginger.

Question 40

What is marasmus and some of its symptoms?

Answer 40

A severe protein deficiency most common in children in their first year of life (they are still being breastfed). Symptoms include: look like a skeleton covered in skin (extremely emaciated), thin muscles and little fat, “old man’s face”.

Question 41

What are terraces in padi cultivation and how are they built?

Answer 41

Where there is limited flat land, terraces are created on the steep hill slopes. To build these terraces, the steep hills where probably deforested, then the hill was dug into using hand tools (considering it is in an LEDC).

Question 42

What are the processes (in chronological order) of wet rice cultivation?

Answer 42

• Ploughing
• Sowing seeds into nursery beds (areas where soil is broken down finely (usually by a water buffalo trampling around in the soil) in prep. for seeds)
• Transplanting seedlings (a few weeks old) into padi fields (prepared by flooding to a depth of several cm, water to be controlled to ensure that upper parts of plants aren’t submerged; water fed in from feeder canals, drained by transferring water to adjacent fields)
• Once rice matures, fields are allowed to dry out to enable crop to ripen
• Harvesting/cutting using a knife or sickle – most work done by hand, low-tech
• Threshing (removing rice grains from stem by beating crop on a hard surface)
• Winnowing (removing non-grain items from the rice grains by throwing rice up and down in a shallow basket on a windy day so that non-grain items fly away)
• Drying
• Bagging
• Storing

Question 43

How are loans implicated into subsistence farming?

Answer 43

A subsistence may pay a certain amount of money to borrow a machine/animal as labor (e.g. water buffalo in wet rice cultivation) which would be an input. A farmer may also lend a machine or other useful tool in agriculture to earn some money (output) which in many cases is fed back into the farm as an input.