HUNTER GATHERS BIRTH OF AGRICULTURE Today, there are basically two divisions of agriculture, subsistence and commercial, that roughly correspond to the less developed and more developed regions. One of the most significant divisions between more and less developed regions is the manner in which people obtain the food they need to survive. Most people in less developed countries are farmers, producing the food they and their families need to survive. In contrast, fewer than 5 percent of the people in North America are farmers. Yet these farmers are able to produce enough to feed the remaining inhabitants of North America and to produce a substantial surplus. INTENSIVE SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE The largest type of agriculture practiced around the world is intensive subsistence agriculture, which is highly dependent on animal power, and is commonly practiced in the humid, tropical regions of the world. As the word implies, this form of subsistence agriculture is highly labor intensive on the farmer using limited space and limited waste. This is a very common practice in East, South, and Southeast Asia where population densities are high and land use is limited. The most common form is wet rice fields, but could also include non-wet rice fields like wheat and barley. In warm locations and long growing seasons, farmers may be able to efficiently get two harvests per year from a single field, a method called double cropping. SHIFTING CULTIVATION PASTORAL NOMADISM Most probably believe that nomads wander randomly throughout the area in search for water, but this is far from the truth. Rather pastoral nomads are very aware of their territory. In fact, each group controls a particular area and will rarely invade another area. Each area tends to be large enough to contain enough water and foliage for survival. Some nomad groups migrate seasonally between mountainous low-lying regions, a process called transhumance. COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE PLANTATIONS Recall about human population that English economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) proposed that the world rate of population growth was far outrunning the development of food supplies. Malthus proposed that human population was growing exponentially, while food production was growing linearly. Below is an example:
MALNUTRITION
FOOD SECURITY ISSUES
OBESITY IN MORE DEVELOPED COUNTRIESOn the flip side, the world is dealing with a malnutrition problem on the other spectrum of overeating and obesity. In fact, more of the world is overweight and obese than living in hunger. Heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes is occurring in rich and poor countries as food high in sugar and fat become more common. So it is becoming more apparent that the world isn't facing a shortage of food production, rather it is an uneven distribution problem. Current statistics show that 65 percent of the U.S. population is considered overweight and that Americans throw away over 40 percent of prepared food into the landfills. Below are a series of videos that look directly and the obesity issue in the United States with attention to our public schools, daily lives, and even national security. The United Nations states that over 1.2 billion people lack access to fresh drinking water and 2.5 billion do not have access to water for sanitation. In the United States, the average American uses over 100 gallons of water a day. Now have you ever thought about how much water is required for the food you eat? Below is how much water is used to produce our food based on the book When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce:
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNSRecall that food insecurity is defined as an individual or society’s ability or inability to obtain sufficient quantities of healthy food for survival. Over the past several decades, food has been unevenly distributed around the world creating food insecurity issues. In 1960, the world population was around 3 billion and about 1.8 billion had food insecurity issues. Today, the world population is 7 billion and nearly 1 billion have food security concerns. The reason is because world population growth has increased 1.7 percent since 1960, whereas food production has increased 2.2 percent per year. Today, food insecurity issues are based on a combined problem of economic, environmental, and social situations. It is believed that 6 million children die every year from hunger or malnutrition. Hunger issues occur when political instability, war, conflict, or environmental degradation displace populations, removing people from their farms. Often times, droughts, desertification, and famines are confused with each other. A drought is a natural phenomenon where a particular region experiences a short-term deficit of water based on average conditions. A desert can have a drought if precipitation occurs less than average conditions. Desertification is the long-term deterioration of productive soil into unusable "dirt" that is unusable for growing food. Famines are considered mostly "man-made" events because of large-scale food shortages with widespread starvation, social disruption, and economic collapse. Lack of adequate infrastructure, social nets, and government resources tend to cause famines. THE GREEN REVOLUTION
Organic production involves mixing a variety of farming strategies: crop rotation retains soil fertility; mixed cropping reduces pest risk, and organic fertilizers and pesticides reduce costs of commercial inputs. Organic methods are more sustainable, but don't lend themselves to the industrial scale production of conventional agriculture, which involves vast expanses of a single crop. Like with the Green Revolution, the organic movement has positive and negative aspects. The benefits of the organic movement include:
Finally, genetically modified crops (GM) have borrowed genes inserted into their DNA, allowing them to produce or tolerate new kinds of organic substitutes. Genetically modified seeds have increased the efficiency and nutrients of various farm types. The positive benefits of GM food includes:
Humans have been modifying the environment ever since the domestication of animals and the growth of agriculture around 10,000 years ago. Today there are two major types of agriculture: subsistence and commercial. There are varying types of subsistence agriculture such as intensive like rice patties, shifting cultivation that has lead to deforestation in the rain forests, and migrating cattle for milk, clothing, and tents called pastoral nomadism. Commercial agriculture is what most in the more developed world are use to with large scale farming practices. Another form of commercial agriculture are plantations, large-scale farms that usually focus on one type of crop. As mentioned in the chapter on population, there is some concern that as the world reaches 8 or 9 billion people by 2050, the planet may not be able support such large numbers in terms of food, fresh water, and other natural resources. So far technology has made it so that food production has outpaced population growth, but there may be a limit to this trajectory. There is also concern about the quality of food, specifically with the nutrients within our foods. Less developed countries tend to have problems with malnutrition and become deficient in important types of vitamins. But in more developed countries, the lack of nutrition comes from the fact that many in the United States and Europe eat foods high in fat, highly processed carbohydrates, and low in quality nutrients leading to a obesity problem where society eats too much, but is still deficient in nutrients. Finally, there is growing concern about how humans should grow crops. The Green Revolution came from the era of World War I when chemical warfare was developed. Technology allowed us to take that ability and begin a "war on pests" with the development of fertilizers and herbicides. But there is growing scientific data to suggest that humans are beginning to accumulate too much of these toxic chemicals within our bodies leading to many diseases. Organic food production is always attractive because pesticides and herbicides are dramatically reduced and environmental concerns are more focused on. But organic food tends to be a luxury for most humans and there are growing concerns about the lack of regulations with labeling food as organic. Finally, genetically modified food has become quite controversial. Most of us eat food that we can't pernouce the ingredients, but now we are hearing more about how GM foods are out competing native plants. There is also a lot of talk about cloned food, specifically with meat such as hamburger. But GM food has a bright side too. Scientists have been able to create rice that is high in Vitamin A, which has saved millions of lives in less developed countries. So the war on food continues as these three types of food productions are debated scientifically and in the masses. |