Food, Soil and Pest Management

Food Security

• daily access to enough nutritious food to live active and healthy lives

• vs. “food insecurity” - chronic hunger, malnutrition

• enough food is produced to meet the basic nutritional needs of everyone on earth

• 1 out of 6 in less developed countries has food insecurity

Why is food security difficult to attain?

• poverty

• war

• corruption

• prolonged drought or heat are reasons

• climate scientist Battisti and food scientist Naylor (2007) : 90%+ chance that by the end of this century, 1/2 of world’s population will have food shortages due to climate change

Chronic Hunger and Malnutrition worldwide• most of world’s poor live on grain - wheat, rice, or

corn; lack protein, vitamins, minerals

• weak, vulnerable to disease, hinders mental, physical development of children

• according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 870 million suffer from food insecurity (1 in 8); 852 million are in developing countries (worldhunger.org)

• 16,400 children under 5 die prematurely daily

Overnutrition• same problems as underfed and

underweight - disease, lower life span, lower productivity and life quality

• 1.2 billion

• treatment for obesity-related illnesses = $147billion in U.S.

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies

• iodine - affect thyroid (metabolism); stunted growth, brain damage; 26 million children each year; 600 million - goiter

• iron - anemia; death in childbirth; 1/5 in the world are anemic

• vitamin A - 500K under 6 blind and 1/2 death within 1 yr.

Food Production

• 40% of world land used for food

• croplands = 11% of land; 77% of food

• rangeland, pasture, feedlot = 29% of land; 16% of food

• fish farms = 7% of food

• increases in all of these due to technology, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides

Traditional Agriculture• 1/5 of world’s food crops

• polyculture

• 2 types:

• traditional subsistence agriculture sun, human labor, animals to produce enough for a family’s survival with little to sell

• traditional intensive agriculture same, but higher yield and some left to sell

Slash and burn• polyculture

• clear small plots, grow variety of crops until soil depleted, shift to other plots and repeat

• 10 - 30 yrs for recovery

• less fertilizer, less water, manure for fertilizer

• higher yields than monoculture

• main cause for deforestation

Industrialized agriculture

• monoculture- corn, wheat, rice

• not sustainable (biodiversity, relies on fossil fuels, neglects nutrient cycling)

• 80 percent of world’s food

• heavy equipment, machine technology, major transportation systems, factory-style practices

• high water and irrigation, lg. quantities of synthetic fertilizer, pesticide, fossil fuel use

• plantation agriculture - tropical, less developed countries; bananas, soybeans

Industrialized Agriculture: Green Revolution

• develop and plant monocultures of genetically engineered high-yield varieties of key crops

• produce high yields using water, fertilizer, pesticide

• multiple cropping - increase the number of crops grown annually on a plot of land

• wastes harm the environment

• decrease in biodiversity

• human health issues

• development of synthetic fertilizers in 1930s, develop new crop varieties

• engineering farm equipment replaced draft animals

• rural labor decreased - only 2 percent of workforce

Benefits of Industrial Agriculture

• increased yields (30 bushels of corn per acre in 1920 to 134 per acre in 1999)

• reduced hunger

• affordable food

• increased export markets

• large, profitable agriculture industries have thrived: Tyson, ConAgra, Cargill

Corporation Farms

• control genetics

• control the manufacture and distribution, marketing and sales of seed (own patents on seeds), fertilizer, pesticides

• farmers receive 1 cent of 10; other 9 cents for marketing

Costs not included in retail price:

• Environmental: depletion of resources, including biodiversity of plants and animals, water, soil, fossil fuels, erosion,

• Pollution of water, soil, air: combustion, pesticides, fertilizers

• Social and economic: loss of property values, hurts small farmers

Water use• 2/3 of water use worldwide is for irrigation

• aquifers are being depleted for agriculture

Use of Chemicals

• 137 million tons of chemical fertilizers used worldwide in 1998

• ground and surface water contamination crops only use 1/3 of what’s applied

• 1600 chemicals used to manufacture pesticide; most not tested

• 3 million tons of pesticides used annually

• increased risk of reproductive, cancer, nervous system, immune problems

Costs?

• 2005 study estimates environmental and health care costs of pesticide use at recommended levels in U.S. about $12 billion annually

!

• Need to move toward a more sustainable form of agriculture

Environmental Problems from Industrialized Food Production

• topsoil erosion - farming, deforestation, overgrazing - loss of soil fertility, water pollution

• desertification -occurs when productive potential of topsoil falls by 10% or more because of drought, overgrazing, deforestation

• irrigation - as water moves - picks up salts from rocks, earth - can lead to salinization - to compensate - overwater - leads to waterlogging

More environmental problems

• air pollution - deforestation, farm equipment, livestock

• methane emissions annually have an atmospheric warming effect = 33 million cars

Environmental Problems from Meat Production

• smells!

• uses lots of fossil fuels, water

• waste - what to do with it - pollutes water - ground and surface; 130x the amount of human

• antibiotic use - 70% of all used in the US are added to animal feed

Environmental Problems with Aquaculture

• 1/2 of global seafood production

• deplete wild fish to make fish meal

• 3kg of wild fish to produce 1 kg of farmed fish

• contamination from PCBs - higher in farmed vs. wild

• waste

• can escape and interrupt gene pool of wild

• invasives spread