Food production and Industry

Sectors of Economy 

Characteristics of Intensive farming:
High inputs of capital, fertilizers, labour and pesticides (the amount of money spent as input in high such as in Denmark)
Farm size is smaller comparison to the number of workers (Ganges delta)
Produced high yields

Characteristics of Extensive farming:
Involves low input of materials and labour (Amazon basin)
Large farm size (American Prairies)
Low yield in comparison to farm the size

Slash and burn farming: The process of cutting down areas of forest and then burning the stubble/roots in order to farm. Land becomes infertile very quickly, slash and burn farmers will move land every few years.

Ranching: is the practice of raising herds of animals on large tracts of land. Ranchers commonly raise grazing animals such as cattle and sheep.
Ranching is common in temperate, dry areas, such as the Pampas region of South America, the western United States, the Prairie Provinces of Canada, and the Australian Outback. In these regions, grazing animals are able to roam over large areas. Cowboy culture is an important part of the identity of ranching regions. Cowboys are responsible for herding and maintaining the health of animals across these vast ranches. Cowboys often work with horses to herd cattle and sheep.

Environmental and social problems related to agriculture:

Overgrazing– as more and more ranchers grazed their animals on the open range, the quality of the land became degraded. Cattle that are not native to the land, had to compete with native grazing animals.

Famine: When the demand for food exceeds the supply of food leading to undernourishment.
Drought: When the demand for water exceeds the supply of water causing water stress (water shortages).
Soil Degradation: A reduction in the quality of soil, making it harder to grow plants.
Soil exhaustion: leads to low crop yields. It is a result of over cropping (growing too much over a plot of land), monoculture (growing of only one type of crop), insufficient addition of manure and use of heavy chemical fertilizers. Soil exhaustion leads to soil degradation.
Desertification: The process of soil becoming degraded and turning to desert.
Soil erosion: The removal of topsoil (topsoil is normally the most fertile layer) usually by wind and water.
Subsidies: Subsidies are financial help given to industries to make their production cheaper. The EU gives many of its farmers subsidies in order to protect tradition, to be self sufficient and to protect from foreign competition. CAP: The Common Agricultural Policy is the EU’s farming policy aimed at creating a single European market for farm products, become self sufficient, increase farm income and provide financial support.
NIMBY: NIMBY stands for not in my back yard and it is the phenomenon of people approving of certain developments, but not wanting them to happen near where they live e.g. a wind turbine.

Causes of food shortage, crisis and food insecurity

• Increase in population led to farm land expansion and rapid urbanization. This has led to soil exhaustion, deforestation, desertification and severe soil erosion. All these are the principle causes of reduction in the productivity of land and a sharp decrease in the carrying capacity. Drought, flood, tropical cyclone and other extreme weather events may cause crops to fail. On the other hand, natural disaster like earthquakes affect food supply by disrupting the transport links and related infrastructure needed to produce crop.Outbreaks of disease like cholera, malaria, HIV/AIDS (in Malawi) affect food protection as farmers are not able to work on their farms and grow food. Civil wars like those in Darfur (Sudan) and in sierra Leone disrupt food supply as farmers are afraid to go out to their fields, transport routes are destroyed and soldiers demands food from local farms. This has also caused increasing number of refugees creating presure on the available supply of food in the surrounding regions.Climate Change due to global warming as well as global dimming, cause desertification and drought as in Nigeria.

Some Solutions:

• Food aid
• Appropriate technology, HYV crops, Green revolution
• Political will and investment to build proper infrastructure to support Efficient production system
• Social welfare schemes for the farmers.

Distribution of undernourished population in the world

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Click here to see the Global Hunger Map, 2017 by World Food Program. 

Article Review

The FAO estimates that as many as 25,000 people die every day as a result of hunger. That adds up to roughly 9 million people who die of starvation each year. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 800 million people lack the necessary food to live a healthy lifestyle. Financially  around $750 billion is spent on producing or purchasing food that ends up in the garbage. Compared to the amount of money spent on food waste, the number required to feed the world’s  hungry children is actually quite small, according to the World Food Programme, the cost comes to nearly $4 billion per year. Click here to review World hunger statistics: Think before you waste food.

Food shortage in Venezuela: How a rich country collapsed?  

Food Insecurity: Hunger and famine in East Africa

Causes of famine and food shortage in Sudan and South Sudan

Sudan and  South Sudan were the single country of Sudan untill 2011. Both the countries have suffered food shortages for decades due to long civil war  and ethnic conflict between the government in Khartoum and the rebel forces of Darfur region, drought and other associated  social and economic causes. The civil war was accelerated on the issue of sharing of oil (petroleum) between the government controlled north and oil-rich south of the country.

Click here to find out what’s going on in Darfur, Sudan from the Oxfam report.

Buddinggeographers at work: Imagine yourself as an entrepreneur or CEO of a company. What product you would like to launch or what would be your business idea?

References

Action Against Hunger. (2017). Nutrition and health. Retrieved from https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/impact/nutrition.

Glicken, M. D. (2010). Social work in the 21st century: An introduction to social welfare, social issues, and the profession. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Black, R. E., Morris, S. S., & Bryce, J. (2003). Where and why are 10 million children dying every year?, The Lancet, 361(9376), 2226-2234.

Bryce, J., Boschi-Pinto, C., Shibuya, K., Black, R. E., & WHO Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group. (2005). WHO estimates of the causes of death in children. The Lancet, 365(9465), 1147-1152.