Agriculture and the Environment July 21, 2009. Can We Feed the World?
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Transcript of Agriculture and the Environment July 21, 2009. Can We Feed the World?
Can We Feed the World?
• History of agriculture is a series of human attempts to overcome environmental limitations and problems.
• 38% percentage of world’s land area is agricultural
How We Starve
• People “starve” in two ways:
• Major problem of undernourishment
• Food emergencies affected 34 countries worldwide at the end of 20th century
Crops
• Rangeland- provides food for grazing and browsing animals w/o plowing and planting.
• Pasture- is plowed, planted and harvested to provide forage.
Aquaculture
• Most marine and freshwater food obtained by hunting.– Not sustainable
• Aquaculture- – Important protein source
• Mariculture
An Ecological Perspective on Agriculture
• Farming creates novel ecological conditions– Agroecosystem– Differ from natural systems in six ways
Organic Farming
• Organic faming typically considered to have three qualities:
• One of the fastest growing sectors in US agriculture
Eating Lower on the Food Chain
• Some people believe it is ecologically unsound to use domestic animals for food.
• On the best agricultural land this hold true but on rangelands area better suited to livestock