3.5 Food Resources

3.5 Food Resources

1. 3..5.1 Outline the issues in the imbalance in global food supply

   • Import tarrifs: Imposed by governments on food. This makes food more expensive for those that are reliant on exports and has little/no effect on those that are self-sufficient.
   • Export subsidies: Provided by governments to make local goods more competitive on the global market.
   • Cash crops: Local produce used to generate foreign income rather than to feed the locals.
   • Food prices: Heavily reliant on related goods. ie. Oil price increase will result in higher food prices

2. 3.5.2 Compare and contrast the effeciency of terrestrial and aquatic food productions systems

   • Differences:
     • Terrestrial systems: Most food is harvested from relatively low trophic levels.
     • Aquatic systems:Most food is harvested from higher trophic levels as total storage are smaller.
   • Similarities:
     • Energy is lost through the trophic levels.

3. 3.5.3 Compare and contrast the inputs and outputs of materials and energy (energy effeciency), the systems characteristics and evalauate the relative environmental impacts for two named food production systems

   • Food production systems
     • Types:
       • Subsistence: Intends to feed own family using produce
       • Commercial: Intends to make a profit from produce
     • Charateristics
       • Intensive: Small area of land yeilds high output
       • Extensive: Uses low labour, capital relative to the land being farmed.
   • Cereal farming in North America vs. Subsistence farming in the Philipines
     • Characteristics:
       • SF: Polyculture
       • CF: Extensive commercial farming
     • Inputs
       • CF: Technology and fertilzers
       • SF: Crop rotation, compost/manure and
     • Outputs
       • CF: Low per hectare and High per farmer
       • SF: Enough to feed the family
     • Efficiency
       • CF: Medium effeciency
       • SF: High effeciency
     • Environmental Impacts
       • SF: Low
       • CF: High
     • Advantages
       • CF: Genetic modification technology may be used to improve crop yeild
       • SF: Still mainly produces the current food production
     • Disadvantages
       • SF: Soil nutrient depletion and environmental damage in densely populated areas
       • CF: Limits habitat for wild native species. Loss of biodiversity and/ soil erosion

4. 3.5.4 Discuss the links that exist between social systems and food production systems

   • Shifting cultivation eg. slash and burn: burning old forests to create new land
   • Agribusiness: Maximizing profits and productivity
   • Factors affecting the development of food production systems
     • Education: determines the degree of exchange of ideas for farming practices
     • Land ownership and/ migration patterns: determine land use
     • Economy and technology: determine the systems