Population - 4.3 Population-resource relationships

Question 1

Food security

Answer 1

Food security is when all people at all times have access to safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle. While the total amount of food produced in the world today in enough to provide for everyone, some LIC’s still suffer food shortages

Question 2

Causes of food shortages

Answer 2

About 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger. The natural problems that can lead to food shortages include:

Soil exhaustion
Drought
Floods
Tropical cyclones
Pests
Disease

Economic and political factors that can lead to food shortages include:

Low capital investment
Rapidly rising population
Poor distribution / Transport difficulties
Conflict situations

Question 3

Consequences of food shortages

Answer 3

Malnutrition can affect a considerable number of people, particularly children, within a relatively short time period when food supplies are significantly reduced. With malnutrition people are less resistant to disease like rickets. Malnutrition reduces people’s ability to work so the land may not be properly tended which can create an endless cycle of ill-health.

Question 4

Carrying capacity

Answer 4

Carrying capacity is the largest population that the resources of a given environment can support. Resources can be classed as either natural or human. The capacity is not fixed as advances in technology can significantly increase a country’s carrying capacity. The distinction is between renewable and non-renewable resources.

Question 5

Optimum population (underpopulation and overpopulation too)

Answer 5

Optimum population is when the exploitation of a country’s resource base is being efficiently used, enabling living standards to rise. The highest average living standard marks the optimum population, or economic optimum. Before that is reached, a country is underpopulated. As population growth rises above the optimum, a region is said to be overpopulated. As a country’s population does not stagnate, we operate a optimum rhythm of growth model whereby population growth responds to substantial technological advances.

Question 6

What is the role of technology and innovation in food production?

Answer 6

Contemporary food science and technology have made major contributions to the success of modern food systems by integrating key elements to solve specific problems, such as improving nutritional deficiencies and food safety.

Agricultural technology includes:

• The development of high yielding seeds.
• Genetic engineering, which remains a controversial issue although its use has spread significantly around the world in the last decade.
• Precision agriculture, the growing information to improve agricultural knowledge and addressing site-specific production targets.
• The Green Revolution which saw a high yielding variety programme, started in 1966-67 that produced new hybrids of the five cereals; wheat, rice, maize, sorghum and millet. All which were drought-resistant. Yields were twice to four times greater than traditional varieties. But, high inputs of fertiliser and pesticides are required.