Unit 3 Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is sustainability?
Sustainability is the relationship or balance between social, economic and environmental issues.
What is sustainable development?
The development that meet the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Why is global food demand increasing rapidly?
- Rising Population
- Changing consumer habits
- Improvements in development
What are the reasons for population growth?
- Better health systems therefore less people are dying
- Lack of contraception
- People are living longer
- People are having more than one child
- Children are seen as an economic asset
- Abortion is illegal in some countries
- High infant mortality rate in some countries
- Religious reasons/cultures
- Better sanitation and homes
What is food security?
Food security is when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Why is it not possible to achieve 100% food security?
Disease and diet
What are agrochemicals?
They destroy organisms harmful to cultivated crops or animals and include herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and ensure a good harvest with plenty of food.
What are the advantages of using argrochemicals?
- Helps to produce more food
- Produces crops more efficiently
- More food being produced means more profit for farmers.
What are the disadvantages of using agrochemicals?
- Causes eutrophication, bioaccumulation and biomagnification which can affect the food chain.
- They are very expensive
What mechanisation?
When new modern technology is being deployed in agriculture to boost productivity. This includes ploughs, tractors, sprayers, combine harvesters.
What are the advantages of mechanisation?
- Makes farming easier for farming.
- Crops are produced faster
- More crops being produced means a greater profit for farmers.
What are the disadvantages of mechanisation?
- Are very expensive and cost a lot of money to run i.e. petrol
- Hedgerows and ponds and being removed to make space for the machinery. This causes habitat destruction and decrease in biodiversity
- Increased release of Carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide as they run on petrol.
What is irrigation?
Irrigation is the artificial application of water on to the land and involves taking water from rivers, lakes/ponds and underground water and putting it onto the land.
What are the advantages of irrigation?
- Increases wheat yield by three times in ELDC’s
- Good for countries with lack of water
- Pumps for the water are cheap to install
- More crops means increased profits for farmers.
What are the disadvantages of irrigation?
- 60% of water does reach crops by evaporation, leaks and spillage.
- Can contribute to water shortages, pollution, land degradation and waterborne diseases. It also lowers the water table.
- Over pumping
lowers water table, causes wells to dry up or have a poor water quality.
What are high yield variety crops?
Are plants that are selectively bred to produce a high yield.
What are advantages of using high yield variety crops?
- Starvation and famine has been reduced in ELDC’s
- Can produce 10 times usual crop yield.
- Able to grow crops 3 times per season
What are the disadvantages of using high yield variety crops?
- Requires a lot of fertilisers and water to grow.
- They are very expensive to buy and grow
- Increases pollution.
What are GM crops?
They are crops where scientists have altered the DNA in order to produce a characteristic such as disease resistant, high yield, taste better or grow bigger.
What are the advantages of GM crops?
- increased crop yields
- larger crops could be produce
- may need less fertilisers
- reduces the amount of raw materials used in manufacturing farming chemicals.
- Could help hunger in developing countries
- Do not require a lot of water and therefore droughts would no longer cause famine.
- engineered to last longer so less food wasted
What is Hydroponics?
A method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solution in water without soil. They control the light temperature and humidity the plants receive.
What are the advantages of using hydroponics?
- Produces yield faster meaning more can be produced.
- This means they can be grown all year round
- Could create new jobs
- there would be less pests.
- could lower fuel and transportation costs as families would grow their own.
- lowers food miles.
What are the disadvantages of using hydroponics?
- Expensive to buy but beneficial in the long term
- Requires a lot of water to run and could lead to water shortage
- Still uses fertilisers which could cause bioaccumulation and biomagnification
What are vertical farms?
When plants such as herbs and vegetables are grown vertically in stacked layers. Temperature, light intensity and humidity are controlled.
