7.5 Food Production

• What does food security give an indication of?

  How much food is available
• Give 6 biological factors which threaten food security


  • Increasing birth rates
  • Changing population
  • Changing diets in developed countries
  • Scarce food resources are transported around the world
  • Changing environment
  • E.g. widespread famine occurring in countries if rains fail
  • Pests and pathogens
  • Costs of agricultural inputs
  • Conflicts
• What is food security?

  Having enough food to feed a population
• What are sustainable methods of farming and producing food needed for?

  Overcoming food shortages and helping populations whose food security is under threat
• What does sustainable food production involve?

  Making enough food but ensuring this is done without using resources faster than they can be renewed and used again
• How can food production be made more efficient with intensive farming? Give two examples

  By restricting energy transfer from food animals to the environment

  • Limiting movement
  • livestock are kept in small pens or cages so they use less energy moving around
  • Controlling the temperature of their surroundings
  • livestock are kept at optimum temperature so that they use less energy to regulate body temperatures
  • Chickens fed high protein diets - grow faster and produce larger eggs
• How is growth in animals increased?

  By feeding them high protein foods
• What are the ethical objections to modern intensive farming methods?

  • Disease can spread easily if livestock are in very confined spaces
  • It is unethical for animals to live in unnatural and uncomfortable conditions
• Give 5 examples of modern farming techniques

  • Livestock raised in small pens and cages
  • Livestock fed antibiotics in their food
  • Monocultures
  • Fertiliser use
  • Hedgerow removal
• What are the pros and cons to feeding livestock antibiotics?

  Pros: prevent diseases and bacterial infections

  Cons: may lead to antibiotic resistance in bacteria
• What are the pros and cons to monocultures?

  Pros: maximises food produced and profits

  Cons: only support a low level of biodiversity
• What are the pros and cons to fertiliser use?

  Pros: increases plant growth and maximises food production

  Cons: runoff causes eutrophication
• What are the pros and cons to hedgerow removal?

  Pros: made fields bigger and easier to maintain with big farm machinery

  Cons: reduces biodiversity as hedgerows provide habitats for a large number of species
• Why are fish stocks declining?

  Due to overfishing
• Give 3 consequences of fish stocks declining

  • Some species of fish completely disappearing in certain areas or going extinct
  • Ocean food chains being disrupted
  • Fewer fish for human consumption
• What are sustainable fisheries?

  Fisheries in which the overall population size of fish species does not decrease, because the number of fish caught does not exceed number of new fish born
• Give 2 ways fish stocks have been conserved at a sustainable level

  • Control of net size
  • Fishing quotas
• How do increasing size in gaps of fishing nets help?

  • Fewer unwanted species will be caught and killed as they can escape through larger gaps in nets
  • Juvenile fish can escape through larger net gaps so they can reach breeding age and have offspring before being caught and killed, ensuring that the population of the fish species are replenished
• How do fishing quotas help?

  They limit the number and size of particular fish species that can be caught in a given area to stop species from being overfished
• What is biotechnology?


  The alteration and use of living organisms to produce products for human use
• What do modern biotechnology techniques include?

  • Genetic modification
  • The ability to culture large quantities of microorganisms for food
• What is mycoprotein?

  A protein-rich food derived from the fungus Fusarium
• How is mycoprotein made?

  1. The fungus Fusarium is cultured on an industrial scale in fermenters (large vats) kept at optimum pH and temperature for the growth of Fusarium
  2. The fungus is grown in aerobic conditions and provided iwth glucose syrup as a food source for respiration
  3. The fungus grows and multiplies in the fermenter
  4. The fungal biomass is then harvested and purified to produce mycoprotein
• What is genetic engineering?

  Changing the genetic material of an organism by removing or altering genes within that organism, or by inserting genes from another organism
• What is a transgenic organism?


  The organism receiving the genetic material
• What is recombinant DNA?


  The DNA of the organism that now contains the DNA from another organism
• Explain the process of genetically modifying bacteria to produce human insulin.

  A) gene

  B) chromosome

  C) Restriction

  D) isolate

  E) plasmid

  F) sticky ends

  G) ligase

  H) ligase

  I) recombinant

  J) bacterial cell

  K) multiply

  L) insulin

  M) protein

  
• Give 3 ways crops have been genetically modified

  
  

  • Resistance to insect pests such as caterpillars
  • Crops such as wheat and maize have been genetically modified to contain a gene from a bacterium that produces a poison to kill insects
  • Resistance to herbicides
  • Herbicides therefore only kill weeds and not crop
  • Production of additional vitamins and improved nutritional value
  • E.g. golden rice contains genes which make the rice grains produce a chemical that is turned into vitamin A in the human body, preventing deficiency diseases
  • Drought-resistance to improve crop yields
• Explain the advantage of making crop plants resistant to herbicides

  • The herbicides only kill weeds, not the crop
  • So there is less competition for light / water / minerals / ions
  • So crops have a higher yield
• What are the advantages of intensive farming?

  • More efficient - less biomass wasted in respiration
  • Food can be controlled - contains all the nutrients they need and less food is wasted
  • (for chickens) Eggs can be more easily harvested if the chickens are kept indoors
• What are the disadvantages of intensive farming?

  • Infectious diseases can spread more easily
  • Being kept in crowded conditions makes them more stressed and more likely to fight
  • Ethical objections
  • Animals should be kept in natural conditions and engaging in normal behaviour
  • Engaging in natural behaviour increases animals' welfare
• What are the advantages of mycoprotein?

  • Suitable for vegetarians
  • Can grow very large amounts of mycoprotein in a relatively small amount of space