Soil, Agriculture, and the Future of Food

Question 1

What occurs when people receive fewer calories than the minimum dietary requirement?

Answer 1

Undernutrition

Question 2

What is food security?

Answer 2

It is the guarantee of an adequate, safe, nutritious, and reliable food supply.

Question 3

What is malnutrition?

Answer 3

This is the shortage of specific nutrients such as vitamins, lipids, and minerals.

Question 4

What is the practice of raising crops and livestock for human consumption called?

Answer 4

Agriculture

Question 5

What is rangeland?

Answer 5

This is land that is used for grazing livestock.

Question 6

_________ is where farmers grow vast areas of a single crop in orderly rows

Answer 6

Monoculture

Question 7

What does industrial agriculture lead to?

Answer 7

High rates of irrigation;
increase in the use of synthetic fertiliser;
increase in the use of chemical pesticides;
Monocultures

Question 8

A system consisting of disintegrated rock, microorganisms, organic mattter, water, gases, and nutrients is called?

Answer 8

Soil

Question 9

What is the make up of soil?

Answer 9

50% mineral matter, 5% organic matter, and 45% pore space

Question 10

What is primary succession?

Answer 10

This is process of soil formation where water, air, and living organisms break down parent material in the lithosphere.

Question 11

_________ is the base geographical material in a particular location.

Answer 11

Parent material

Question 12

What is parent material made up of?

Answer 12

Volcanic ash, hardened lava, sediments deposited by glaciers or flowing water, wind-blown dunes, or bedrock.

Question 13

What is bedrock?

Answer 13

The mass of solid rock that makes up most of the Earth’s crust.

Question 14

The process that breaks down parent material into smaller particles is called what?

Answer 14

Weathering

Question 15

What are the types of weathering?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What is humus?

Answer 16

It is partially decomposed organic matter that is very productive for plant life.

Question 17

What is each layers of the soil called?

Answer 17

Soil horizon

Question 18

What is soil profile?

Answer 18

The cross-section of soil as a whole.

Question 19

What is soil horizon O?

Answer 19

Organic level, made up of humus.

Question 20

What layer consists of mineras with humus; inorganic and organic material that is the most nutritive for plants?

Answer 20

Soil horizon A, the topsoil.

Question 21

What is soil horizon E?

Answer 21

The eluviation layer, leached minerals and organic matter.

Question 22

What layer is made up of deposited minerals and metal salts?

Answer 22

Soil horizon B, the subsoil.

Question 23

What is soil horizon C?

Answer 23

Parent rock, partly weathered rock

Question 24

What layer is the unweathered parent rock?

Answer 24

Soil horizon R, Bedrock.

Question 25

What is the process when dissolved particles move down through horizons called?

Answer 25

Leaching.

Question 26

What is sweden agriculture?

Answer 26

This is the cultivation of a plot for a few years, then allowing it to grow into a forest.

Question 27

In sweden agriculture, the process whereby plots are burned first in order to convert the tree nutrients to soil is called?

Answer 27

Slash-and-burn agriculture.

Question 28

What is the artificial provision of water beyond what is provided by precipitation called?

Answer 28

Irrigation

Question 29

What are the problems associated with irrigation?

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

What is fertiliser?

Answer 30

Substances that contain essential nutrients for plant growth.

Question 31

____________ fertiliser is composed of organism’s wastes like manure, crop residue, charcoal, fresh vegetation, and compost

Answer 31

Organic

Question 32

What is inorganic fertiliser?

Answer 32

These are nutrient supplements that are mined or synthetically manufactured mineral supplements.

Question 33

The mixture produced by decomposers as they breakdown organic matter in a controlled environment is?

Answer 33

Compost

Question 34

What is precision agriculture?

Answer 34

This involves monitoring soil nutrient levels and only applying specific types of fertiliser when needed.

Question 35

What are some causes of erosion?

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

A large degradation where more than 10% of productivity is lost is called what?

Answer 36

Desertification.

Question 37

How do farmers fight erosion?

Answer 37

Counterplowing and terracing.

Question 38

The process whereby water is plowed sideways across a hill instead of allowing it to move downhill is called?

Answer 38

Counterplowing.

Question 39

What is terracing?

Answer 39

This is where farmers create level platforms on very steep terrains to slow water erosion.

Question 40

List some sustainable agriculture practices

Answer 40

1. Intecropping: The planting of bands of different crops
2. The use of cover crops to reduce erosion.
3. The use of legumes to restore nitrogen.
4. The use of shelter belts.

Question 41

What are shelter belts?

Answer 41

Rows of trees or shrubs that serve as windbreaks.

Question 42

What is the use of a pest’s natural predators to control it called?

Answer 42

Biological control or bio-con trol.

Question 43

List some integrated pest management methods.

Answer 43

Biocontrol, chemical control, population monitoring, habitat alteration, crop rotation, alternative tillage methods, mechanical pest removal.