Week 8 Flashcards
Why is food culturally important?
Food is divine
Food tells us about our culture
Food connect us
Great Famine (Ireland) (1845-1852), Total death: 1 million
Great Chinese Famine (1959 and 1961), Total death: 15-55 millions
Food can create war (hunger
What was on the prehistoric menu?
Analyses of Stone Age settlements reveal that the hunters would gladly eat anything they could get their hands on
fish, meat, animal fat, wild plants
The Stone Age menu was widely different depending on the region, climate and season.
What is the history on human food?
Control of fire 1.9 mya
Major evolutionary shift to chase down food - 180,000 ya
Development of agriculture - 9,000 ya
Development of modern flour 200 ya
What is agriculture?
Agriculture is defined with varying scopes, in its broadest sense using natural resources to “produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops, and their related services
What is the difference between domestication, cultivation and agriculture?
Domestication the morphological (and genetic) changes in plants
Cultivation the human practices (creating an ecology for plants)
Agriculture the cultivation on scales and economic change
How has agriculuture impacted human population?
Human population increased from 5-10 millions to 7 billions
How many centres of global crop domestication?
16 independant regions of domestication each region having unique crop eg middle east and wheat
What happened as a consequence of the domestication of wheat?
Changes to grain size, shape and range of phenotypic variation
What is an overview of climate and agriculture?
Temperature fluxuations before but stabalised after 9,000 BP
Wheat was domesticated due to change in middle east temperature from cool and dry to warm and dry
What is an overview of the work of Rachel Carson?
Book ‘Silent Spring’ about fertilisers and envriomental and health effects brought about from green revolution
What was the outcome of the work of activists like Rachel Carson?
The early activists of the new environmental movement had several successes attributed to Carson — from the Clean Air and Water Acts to the establishment of Earth Day to President Nixon’s founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970.
What is an overview of the slow food movement?
The Slow Food international movement officially began when delegates from 15 countries endorsed this manifesto, written by founding member Folco Portinari, on December 10, 1989.
To promote local more sustainable food
What is an overview of organic farming groups?
IFOAM - Organics International
National groups like USDA organic, Australian certified organic
What is the difference between conventional and organic farming?
Conventional : Organic
Low soil quality : Higher soil quality
Low biodiversity : Medium biodiversity
High costs medium profit : Medium costs high profit
High pesticide residues : Low pesticide residues
What are the quote by Norman Borlaug about organic farming?
There are 6.6 billion people on the planet today. With organic farming we could only feed four billion of them. Which two billion would volunteer to die?
What is the historical evolution of farming?
(a) Disciplinary basis of principles articulated within agroecology.
(b) Scales (adapted from Wezel et al. 2009).
(c) Aspects, showing the emergence of the three manifestations of agroecology (science, practice and social movement) with key topics and the nature and scope of research (adapted from Silici 2014, based on Wezel et al. 2009 and Wezel and Soldat 2009).
What is agroecology?
The application of ecological principles to agricultural systems and practices, or the branch of science concerned with this
As a scientific discipline, agroecology provides the ecological knowledge that underpins sustainable practices under the other approaches.
What are the subdivisions of agroecology?
Conservation agriculture
Regeneration agriculture
Organic agriculture
Climate-shape agricultureW
What are the pillars of agroecology?
Envrionmental stewardship
Prosperous social livelihood
Profitable farm income
What are the FAO 10 elements of agroecology?
Diversity
Sharing knowledge
Synergies
Efficiency
Recycling
Circular and solidarity economy
Cultural food traditions
Responsible governence
Resilience
Human and social values
What are examples of pratical use of agroecology?
Diverse diet
New, Neglected and underutilized crops/plants
Crop rotations and legumes
Integrated Pest Management
Low input farming
Breeding for low input farming
Breeding for pest and diseases
Breeding for Nitrogen Use Efficiency
What is an overview of negelected species?
Neglected and underutilized species are those to which little attention is paid or which are entirely ignored by agricultural researchers, plant breeders and policymakers.
They are wild or semi-domesticated varieties and non-timber forest species that are not typically traded as commodities
How does agriculture reduce crops used?
~250,000 species of plants
~7,000 crop species throughout history
3 (Rice, maize and wheat) make up >50% of food intake
12 crops that together woth 5 animal species provide 75% of the worlds food intake
What is an overview of Chenopodium quinoa?
Was a neglected species from latin america but now is regulary consumed