5.2 Terrestrial food production systems and food choices

Significant ideas:

The sustainability of terrestrial food production systems is influenced by sociopolitical, economic and ecological factors.
Consumers [YOU!] have a role to play through their support of different terrestrial food production systems.
The supply of food is inequitably available and land suitable for food production is unevenly distributed among societies, and this can lead to conflict and concerns.

The Sustainability of Food Production

The sustainability of terrestrial food production systems is influenced by factors such as scale; industrialization; mechanization; fossil fuel use; seed, crop and livestock choices; water use; fertilizers; pest control; pollinators; antibiotics; legislation; and levels of commercial versus subsistence food production.

Activity

There are a number of factors that affect how sustainable food production is. Can you match up the factor with an explanation of what it is? Play below!

Too easy? Try playing gravity and see how many factors you can name: https://quizlet.com/418827771/gravity

Activity

Head over to this Venn diagram and move the factors to the appropriate position.

Activity

Read 5.2.1 and, if you have time, 5.2.2 in Kognity

Activity

There was a table that compared commercial and subsistence farming in terms of each of these factors. It would have been super useful for you, but sadly it fell apart. Oops. Head over to this Lucid Chart, make a copy for yourself and see if you can put the table back together (the row headers are the factors, and the columns are 'commercial' and 'subsistence'. Work in pairs.

https://www.lucidchart.com/invitations/accept/f0b35690-05b7-4e85-91d5-56985d4a9858

Once you've done: score each farming system, one point for each row it wins on sustainability.

Inequalities in production and distribution

Inequalities exist in food production and distribution around the world.

Activity 3

PearDeck time!

5.2

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World provides an excellent summary of these issues - find time to read the key messages and executive summary.

WFP-0000106760.pdf

Food Waste

Food waste is prevalent in both LEDCs and more economically developed countries (MEDCs), but for different reasons.

Activity

Webquest - contribute to this Explain Everything sheet using research from the internet. You have 15 minutes to research and then 10 minutes to contribute.

LBYXYHET

Explain Everything didn't work, so we used a Google Doc to produce the below instead:

Food waste

A summary document:

Food Production, Distribution and Waste

Food and Population

As the human population grows, along with urbanization and degradation of soil resources, the availability of land for food production per capita decreases.

Activity

Data analysis.

Work individually or in pairs.

Go to drive.google.com.
Make a folder called '[Your name] DP ESS'.
Share it with me.
Create a Google Doc.
Call it '[Your name] Food and Population'.
Answer the questions below in the doc.

Figure 1

What does this graph tell us? How does the scale affect our interpretation of the data?

Figure 2

This graph has two Y axes! What would be a good strategy to chunk up this graph?

Figure 3

How would this impact on our ability to provide equitable access to food?

Figure 4

And how could this impact on our ability to provide equitable access to food?

What does this look like in the real world? Visit this OneTab link. These are all recent news stories about:

Pressures on farming land
Pressures on food supply and prices
Rising human populations

Contribute a page to this Google Slides document, including in your page:

A very short summary of the story.
The background/causes of the situation.
An explanation of how it reduces (or increases) the land available for growing food.

Food Supply Case Studies

Meat

The yield of food per unit area from lower trophic levels is greater in quantity, lower in cost and may require fewer resources.
Cultural choices may influence societies to harvest food from higher trophic levels.

Back to the Pear Deck!

Now it's time for you to compare different diets. Work in groups on writing pros and cons for one of the diets. After 10-15 minutes, we'll switch so you look at a different diet and add to that.

5.2 Evaluating Diets

Comparing Food Production Systems

Terrestrial food production systems can be compared and contrasted according to inputs, outputs, system characteristics, environmental impact and socio-economic factors.
Socio-economic, cultural, ecological, political and economic factors can be seen to influence societies in their choices of food production systems.

Activity

The Agriculture Debate

In two teams you will debate the following statement:

With the World population predicted to rise to 11 billion by 2100, intensive commercial farming is the only way we can ensure the wellbeing of our species.

The team allocated the house will defend the statement and the debate will follow the debate style of:

Opening speaker
Arguments 1-3
Closing remarks
Each speech will be 2 minutes with up to two points of information.

Create your team research in a google slides (make sure to open/save it within your ESS folder). You will need to consider:

Inputs
Outputs
Environmental Impact
Socio-economic factors
Cultural factors
Political factors
Economic factors
System characteristics (i.e. how it interacts with other areas)

You may wish to account for examples of farming systems such as:

North American cereal farming
Subsistence farming in Southeast Asia
Intensive beef production in South America
The Maasai tribal use of livestock

Core resources:

246-247 of OUP book
5.2.1 and 5.2.2 of the Kognity book

We will spent 10 minutes reading and researching individually before breaking off into groups.

Increasing sustainability

Increased sustainability may be achieved through:
- altering human activity to reduce meat consumption and increase consumption of organically grown and locally produced terrestrial food products
- improving the accuracy of food labels to assist consumers in making informed food choices
- monitoring and control of the standards and practices of multinational and national food corporations by governmental and intergovernmental bodies
- planting of buffer zones around land suitable for food production to absorb nutrient runoff.

Activity

What are you going to do about it?

Congratulations! You have just been appointed as agriculture minister for Placeovia, an central European MEDC of around 7 million people. There is a strong sheep-farming lobby in the country, an industry which provides the people with lamb for their beloved national dish and contributes 2% of Placeovia's GDP. Your party, The People's Party of Placeovia (PPP) manifesto promised the citizens of Placeovia a π500 million investment in improving the sustainability of agriculture. Everyone wants a piece of the π (who doesn't love a Greek pun?) but how are you going to spend it? Write a 2-minute speech for the PPP party conference describing your plans. In attendance will be:

The national press.
Members of the sheep-farming lobby.
Activists from an eco-centric local NGO.
Supportive members of the PPP

As is always the case when you join a national government, your key sources of information will be:

OUP book page 259-260
Kognity 5.2.4
The list of options from above, taken from the ESS syllabus

And you will save the text of the speech in your ESS folder.

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