Agriculture & food consumption

• What does agricultural productivity mean?

  the ratio of agricultural outputs to agricultural inputs
• What is agriculture?

  The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of soil and the rearing of animals
• Name all the different agricultural systems :

  • arable
  • mixed
  • extensive
  • intensive
  • pastoral
  • subsistence
  • commercial
• What is Arable farming?

  Cultivating crops (farming only crops)
• What is Mixed farming?

  Combining crop cultivation and livestock raising on the same farm (crops and meat)
• What is extensive farming?

  Farming which involves large areas of land with low inputs and low labor requirements per unit of land.
• What is intensive farming?

  Intensive farming is a method of agriculture that aims to maximize productivity by using high inputs of labor, capital, and technology on a small area of land
• What is pastoral farming?

  Raising livestock
• What is subsistence farming?

  Self-sufficient farming, where crops are grown only to support those growing the crops family or community, making little to no profit
• What is commercial farming?

  Large-scale farming for profit
• What is the agricultural system?

  The inputs, processes and outputs during farming
• What are the different types of inputs within an agricultural system?

  A) Physical

  B) Cultural

  C) Economic

  D) The Farmer

  
• Give a list of Physical environmental factors that can influence agriculture:

  1. Temperature
  2. Precipitation
  3. Wind & Storm frequency
  4. Growing season
  5. Soil type
  6. Relief
• List the ways cultural inputs can affect agricultural systems:

  1. Land ownership
  2. Inheritance
  3. Farm Size
  4. Local Dirt
  5. Gender Issues
• List the ways economic inputs can affect agricultural systems:?

  1. Storage & other facilities
  2. Processing Plants
  3. Farm Machinery
  4. Fertilisers / pesticides
  5. Transport
  6. Type of government
  7. Money available
  8. Seeds / breeding stock
• List the ways "the farmer's" inputs can affect their own agricultural system (profit and productivity etc) :

  1. Age & experience
  2. Knowledge & Skills
  3. Openness to new ideas
  4. Ambition
• List all the different types of outputs of an agricultural system:

  1. Cereal Crops
  2. Vegetable Crops
  3. Market garden crops
  4. Animal products
  5. Fruit
• List the reasons why there may be losses within an agricultural system:?

  1. Soil erosion and leaching of soil nutrients
  2. Poorly stored crops
  3. Droughts
  4. Hail
  5. Fire
  6. Crop disease
• The agricultural system is an open system
• Temperature - dictates the length of the growing season
• Precipitation - determines water supply
• Wind and Storm frequency - restricts cultivation of grain crops — but can also help melt snow to increase the growing season
• Soil quality - fundamental to successful agriculture
• As a country develops a dependence on physical factors like growing seasons, temperature, precipitation etc becomes less important because of technological improvement eg bad soil — eg no sunshine fixable by greenhouses
• As an area develops the physical factors become less important as the human inputs increase
• Global food consumption has increased significantly in recent years and there are similar spatial variations across in the globe. Reasons for the increase include:

  • levels of development
  • More highly developed countries can afford to invest in food production technology to increase yields and can also afford to import more food if it can’t be grown locally
  • Consumption by lower-income countries has also increased as they have developed, but total consumption by these countries is lower and increasingly more slowly than in developed countries
• Food security – when people do not suffer hunger or malnutrition due to lack of access to sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food
• The FAO estimates that around 690 million people were undernourished in 2013.
• In 2015, 795 million people suffered from chronic undernourishment globally, with Sub Saharan Africa having the highest prevalence at 23%
• Productivity is a key measure of the economic performance of agriculture and an important driver of a farmers income.
• Agricultural productivity represents how efficiently the agricultural industry uses available resources to turn inputs into outputs.
• What can have short-term effects on agricultural productivity?

  1. Weather
  2. Animal diseases
  3. Policy interventions
  4. General economic conditions
• Agricultural productivity is measured in terms of yield – how many kg of grain per hectare, kg of meat per animal or litres of milk per cow. The most commonly used measurement of productivity is Total Factor Productivity (TFP)
• How can arable (crop) farmers improve total factor productivity?

  1. Growing higher-yielding crops
  2. Disease resistance crops
  3. Drought/flood tolerant crops
  4. More efficient and timely cultivation and harvesting practices
  5. Using technologies that indicate precisely when and how much water and fertiliser to apply
• How can pastoral (livestock) farmers improve total factor productivity?

  1. Breeding animals for favourable genetic qualities and behaviours
  2. Using better animal care
  3. Using better disease management practices
  4. Using higher quality animal feed (food)
• Raising productivity in LICs requires massive investments in agricultural research and development, rural infrastructure and support for the special needs of smallholder farmers, women producers and cooperative producer associations.
• In HICs, decades of public and private investment have had a powerful impact on agricultural research and development, rural infrastructure and the extension of productive technologies and innovations to the farm level.