Geography - Food supply

Cards (51)

  • 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