Soil, Agriculture, and the Future of Food Flashcards
What occurs when people receive fewer calories than the minimum dietary requirement?
Undernutrition
What is food security?
It is the guarantee of an adequate, safe, nutritious, and reliable food supply.
What is malnutrition?
This is the shortage of specific nutrients such as vitamins, lipids, and minerals.
What is the practice of raising crops and livestock for human consumption called?
Agriculture
What is rangeland?
This is land that is used for grazing livestock.
_________ is where farmers grow vast areas of a single crop in orderly rows
Monoculture
What does industrial agriculture lead to?
High rates of irrigation;
increase in the use of synthetic fertiliser;
increase in the use of chemical pesticides;
Monocultures
A system consisting of disintegrated rock, microorganisms, organic mattter, water, gases, and nutrients is called?
Soil
What is the make up of soil?
50% mineral matter, 5% organic matter, and 45% pore space
What is primary succession?
This is process of soil formation where water, air, and living organisms break down parent material in the lithosphere.
_________ is the base geographical material in a particular location.
Parent material
What is parent material made up of?
Volcanic ash, hardened lava, sediments deposited by glaciers or flowing water, wind-blown dunes, or bedrock.
What is bedrock?
The mass of solid rock that makes up most of the Earth’s crust.
The process that breaks down parent material into smaller particles is called what?
Weathering
What are the types of weathering?
Physical Weathering: This results from wind, rain, freezing, and thawing.
Chemical Weathering: This occurs when water or gases chemically alter rock.
Biological Weathering: This involves living things such as lichens producing acid, or tree roots rubbing against rock.
What is humus?
It is partially decomposed organic matter that is very productive for plant life.
What is each layers of the soil called?
Soil horizon
What is soil profile?
The cross-section of soil as a whole.
What is soil horizon O?
Organic level, made up of humus.
What layer consists of mineras with humus; inorganic and organic material that is the most nutritive for plants?
Soil horizon A, the topsoil.
What is soil horizon E?
The eluviation layer, leached minerals and organic matter.
What layer is made up of deposited minerals and metal salts?
Soil horizon B, the subsoil.
What is soil horizon C?
Parent rock, partly weathered rock
What layer is the unweathered parent rock?
Soil horizon R, Bedrock.
What is the process when dissolved particles move down through horizons called?
Leaching.
What is sweden agriculture?
This is the cultivation of a plot for a few years, then allowing it to grow into a forest.
In sweden agriculture, the process whereby plots are burned first in order to convert the tree nutrients to soil is called?
Slash-and-burn agriculture.
What is the artificial provision of water beyond what is provided by precipitation called?
Irrigation
What are the problems associated with irrigation?
Waterlogging: The soil is oversaturatd to the point where water drowns plant roots, depriving them of gases.
Salinisation: Build up of salts in the surface soil layers.
What is fertiliser?
Substances that contain essential nutrients for plant growth.
____________ fertiliser is composed of organism’s wastes like manure, crop residue, charcoal, fresh vegetation, and compost
Organic
What is inorganic fertiliser?
These are nutrient supplements that are mined or synthetically manufactured mineral supplements.
The mixture produced by decomposers as they breakdown organic matter in a controlled environment is?
Compost
What is precision agriculture?
This involves monitoring soil nutrient levels and only applying specific types of fertiliser when needed.
What are some causes of erosion?
The overcultivation of fields through poor planning or excessive tilling/plowing.
The overgrazing of rangeland with more livestock than it can support.
Cleaning forests on steep slopes.
A large degradation where more than 10% of productivity is lost is called what?
Desertification.
How do farmers fight erosion?
Counterplowing and terracing.
The process whereby water is plowed sideways across a hill instead of allowing it to move downhill is called?
Counterplowing.
What is terracing?
This is where farmers create level platforms on very steep terrains to slow water erosion.
List some sustainable agriculture practices
- Intecropping: The planting of bands of different crops
- The use of cover crops to reduce erosion.
- The use of legumes to restore nitrogen.
- The use of shelter belts.
What are shelter belts?
Rows of trees or shrubs that serve as windbreaks.
What is the use of a pest’s natural predators to control it called?
Biological control or bio-con trol.
List some integrated pest management methods.
Biocontrol, chemical control, population monitoring, habitat alteration, crop rotation, alternative tillage methods, mechanical pest removal.
