Unit 5

• Consumption of food varies around the world, both in total amount and source of nutrients
• Variation results from a combination of level of development, physical conditions, and cultural preferences.
• Level of Development: People in developed countries tend to consume more food and from different sources than do people in developing countries
• Physical conditions: Climate is important in influencing what can be most easily grown and therefore consumed by developing countries. Developed countries have food shipped long distances from locations with different climates
• Cultural preferences: Some food preferences and avoidances can be explained as expressions of culture rather than the result of physical and economic factors
• The most typical farmer is an Asian farmer who grows enough food to survive with little surplus
• Dietary energy consumption: the amount of food that an individual consumes. The unit of measurement is the Kilocalorie or calorie
• Obesity is more prevalent than hunger in the U.S. as well as other developed countries.
• Food security: physical, social, and economic access at all times to safe and nutritious food sufficient to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life
• Undernourishment: dietary energy consumption that is continuously below that needed for a healthy life and carrying out light physical activity  Most prevalent in sub-saharan Africa and South Asia
• The greatest challenge to world food security has been food prices rather than food supply. Fierce competition among supermarkets help keep prices lower in developed countries
• The UN attributes the record high food prices to four factors:

  • poor weather especially in major cropping regions of South Pacific and North America
  • higher demand especially in China and India
  • smaller growth in productivity especially without major new Miracle breakthroughs
  • use of crops as biofuels instead of food especially in Latin America
• Most humans derive most of their kilocalories through consumption of cereal grain which is a grass that yields grain for food.
• Grain is the seed from a cereal grass
• The three leading serial grains are wheat, maze, and rice. Together they account for nearly 90% of all grain production and more than 40% of all dietary energy consumed worldwide.
• In developed countries the leading source of protein is meat products including beef pork and poultry.
• In most developing countries cereal grain provide the largest share of protein
• Because meat is generally expensive, the higher percentage of meat consumption in developed countries is a reflection of higher incomes
• Agriculture originated when humans learn to domesticate plants and animals for their use
• Agriculture is the deliberate modification of Earth's surface through cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to obtain sustenance or economic gain
• Before the invention of agriculture All Humans obtained the food they needed for survival through hunting and Gathering
• The direction and frequency of migration depended on the movement of game and the seasonal growth of plants at various locations
• The Agricultural Revolution is the process that began when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering
• Environmental factors: the first domestication of crops and animals coincided with climate change that marked the end of the last ice age. Ice melted resulting in the massive redistribution of humans, plant, and animals
• Cultural factors: A preference for living in a fixed place rather than as Nomads led hunters and gatherers to build permanent settlements and to store surplus vegetation there. Plant cultivation evolved from a combination of observations and experiment into a deliberate process.
• Agriculture originated in multiple hearths including Southwest Asia, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.
• Columbian Exchange: the transfer of plants, animals, people, culture, and technology between the Western Hemisphere and Europe, as a result of European colonization and trade
• Farmers in developing countries practice subsistence agriculture, whereas farmers in developed countries practice commercial agriculture
• Subsistence agriculture: the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer's family
• Commercial agriculture: the production of cash crops primarily for sale off the farm
• Cash crop is grown for sale rather than for the farmers own use
• The main features that distinguish commercial agriculture from subsistence agriculture include the percentage of farmers in the labor force, the use of machinery, and farm size.
• The percentage of people working in agriculture is much higher in developing countries than in developed countries
• In developed countries a small number of commercial farmers can feed many people because they rely on Machinery to perform work rather than manual labor. In developing countries subsistence farmers do much of the work with manually
• In commercial agriculture the average farm is relatively large. Farm size depends on mechanization. Machinery performs most efficiently at very large scales and their expense can't be justified on a small farm. Commercial agriculture is an expensive business.