Geography - Food supply

• ARABLE


  Refers to land suitable for growing crops
• ARABLE


  • Typically involves the cultivation of crops like grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes
  • Requires good soil quality, adequate water supply, and favourable climate conditions
• PASTORAL


  Relates to livestock farming, particularly raising animals like cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs
• PASTORAL


  • Often practised in areas with grasslands or meadows suitable for grazing
  • Requires management of animal health, nutrition, and breeding
• MIXED farming


  Involves a combination of arable and pastoral activities on the same farm
• MIXED farming


  • Farmers cultivate crops and raise livestock simultaneously
  • Provides diversification of income sources and risk management
• Agriculture as a system


  Encompasses the production process of food, fibre, and other products by cultivating plants and raising animals
• Agriculture as a system


  • Includes interconnected components such as inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides), production practices, processing, distribution, and marketing
  • Influenced by environmental, social, economic, and technological factors
• Subsistence farming


  Primarily focused on producing enough food to meet the needs of the farmer and their family
• Subsistence farming


  • Often practised in developing countries or rural areas with limited access to markets and resources
  • Relies on traditional methods and may have low productivity
• Commercial farming


  Aimed at producing goods for sale in markets to generate profit
• Commercial farming


  • Involves large-scale operations, modern technologies, and specialised equipment
  • Typically found in developed countries or regions with access to advanced infrastructure and markets
• Sustainability


  Using resources in such a way that future generations can still use it
• Conserve


  To protect/take care of
• Causes of soil erosion


  • Water running down hills
  • Wind
• Reasons for soil erosion

  • Lack of vegetation (exposed soil)
  • Soil becoming loose/damaged by poor agricultural practices
• Components of soil


  • Minerals
  • Organic matter
• Minerals


  Come from rocks, weathering releases nutrients
• Organic matter


  Decaying plant matter
• Ways minerals are lost from soil

  • Used by plants
  • Washed away by heavy/regular rainfall
• Terracing


  Retaining walls are built on a slope with the soil piled up and flattened, flat ground
• Contour ploughing


  Ploughing takes place across a slope. This means that water doesn't run down the furrows and wash soil away
• Crop rotation


  Different crops are grown each year for three or four years. The different crops take different nutrients from the soil
• Fallow periods


  The land is 'rested' every few years, it allows it to regain lost nutrients meaning it won't become exhausted, lose its structure, and become loose and easily eroded
• Strip cultivation + inter-cropping


  Different crops are grown in narrow bands in a single field, and they are harvested at different times, so the field is never left completely bare
• Reducing stock density


  A piece of land doesn't become overgrazed because they have fewer livestock, and there is a cover of vegetation to protect the soil
• Afforestation


  Planting large areas of trees reduces soil erosion in various ways
• Irrigation


  Careful irrigation keeps the soil moist and prevents it from being picked up, especially by the wind
• Shifting cultivation


  A plot of land that is cleared and the ash from burning the vegetation and used as a fertilizer
• Poverty cycle


  When people are born into poverty, and poverty continues from one generation to the next
• Under-nutrition responsible for one-third of child deaths (under 5 years)
• Diseases linked to protein deficiency


  • Marasmus (thin babies)
  • Kwashiorkor (swollen bellies and rounded faces)
• Effects of food shortages


  • Increase death rate, especially infant mortality
  • Diseases linked to protein deficiency
  • Increased expenditure on health services
  • Slower economic growth and output because the weaker workforce results in a drain on the economy
• Food aid

  1. Emergency aid to deal with natural disasters such as drought. 2. Longer-term aid to deal with more general poverty and poor nutrition
• Previously they supplied food aid directly during emergencies, and via governments during non-emergency times
• This led to farmers thinking that they would always be supplied with food even when there were no emergencies
• Farmers must

  Contribute and have a sense of ownership, rather than just relieving something for nothing
• When drought crippled Swaziland's agriculture, farmers didn't know anything other than food aid because their parent had given up on farming. They never got to acquire much-needed agricultural skills
• Farmer decisions

  • Grow food crops to feed their families directly
  • Grow cash crops that they can sell for money to buy food and other goods
• Over the last 30 years many small-scale farmers have been persuaded to abandon food crops such as maize and join co-operative growing sugar can instead