Food Provenance Flashcards
When animals are farmed intensively there are often concern as about how they are treated. This is known as..?
Animal Welfare
What is used to in order to protect crops from pests and weeds?
Artificial pesticides
What is Animal Welfare?
When animals are farmed intensively and there are concerns about how they are treated
Name an example of a symbol used on foods to show that animals are treated with the highest standards of care
Freedom Food logo
What does the term ‘provenance’ mean?
The place of origin of food and ingredients
In the UK, what logo are organic foods labelled with?
Soil Association
Why are fertilisers used?
To replace nutrients in the soil when crops are grown intensively
What are used to replace nutrients in the soil when crops are grown intensively?
Fertilisers
In organic farming, are artificial fertilisers or pesticides used?
No
Intensive farming
Where large quantities of a crop such as wheat are grown together
Genetic Modification
Helps farmers breed new types of plants and animals to obtain desirable characteristics
Why was genetic modification developed?
Enabled farmers to breed new types of animals or plants that have:
Better resistance to pests and diseases
Faster or stronger growth rates
A different nutrient profile
A more intensive flavour or colour
How does GM work?
GM is a complex scientific technique whether the code for a particular characteristic in a gene is copied in a laboratory and inserted into a completely different plant or animal
Organic farming
Healthier and non artificial method of producing crops
What do farmers do in organic farming?
Farmers develop healthy, fertile soil by adding organic matter and compost so that the plants receive plenty of naturally produced nutrients
Farmers rotate their crops so that the soil doesn’t have all the goodness taken out
Farmers have a piece of land fallow for a year to break the life cycle of pests and allow the soil to naturally become fertile again
Pesticide use is severely restricted - farmers encourage wild, natural predators such as ladybirds and other insects to control pests
What do farmers do in organic farming to ensure soil fertility?
Crop rotation - growing different types of crops.
Leaving fallow - not growing anything
In organic farming, what do farmers do for natural pest control?
Using row covers, which are translucent insect barriers.
Using hot water to spray crops.
Using biological pesticides.
Using sticky traps (coloured material coated in a sticky substance to catch insects).
Bringing in natural predators.
Examples of organic farming methods
Use organic matter to add nutrients to the soil
Crop rotation
Leaving fallow
Natural pest control
Advantages of organic farming
Better for the environment than intensive farming, as chemical pesticides are not used and it uses few non-renewable resources.
Healthier for farmworkers as chemical pesticides are not used.
Food contains fewer residues
Disadvantages of organic farming
Crops tend to be of a lower yield.
Production costs are higher than for intensive farming, so organic food is more expensive
Which farming strategy has the primary aim of achieving the highest possible yield?
Intensive farming
Advantages of GM crops
We can make crops grow faster.
Farmers get a higher crop yield, so production costs are lower.
Lower production costs mean lower consumer prices.
We can modify GM crops to contain nutrients that people lack in their diets.
We can modify crops to have longer shelf lives to reduce food waste.
We can make some seasonal foods available sooner in the year by modifying crops to ripen earlier
Disadvantages of GM crops
May affect the number of flowers and weeds and insect populations, so reducing farmland diversity.
Possible health effects (no science yet).
Sellers are restricted in parts of the world.
E.g. some GM foods cannot be imported under EU law.
People could develop allergies to GM foods.
GM genes could cause issues in the wider environment
What are the knock-on effects of farmers getting a higher yield from GM crops?
Lower production costs
Lower consumer prices