Food

What food isA drastic oversimplification

Plant growthlight + water + air+ other nutrients

Animal growthwater + nutrients

(soil)

(plants or animals)

Figure 38.9

Food

Food?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkies

Food?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A516836

• Enriched Wheat Flour • Sugar • Corn syrup • Water • High fructose corn syrup • Vegetable and/or animal shortening • Dextrose • Whole eggs • Modified corn starch • Cellulose gum • Whey • Leavenings • Salt • Cornstarch • Corn flour • Corn syrup solids • Mono and diglycerides • Soy lecithin • Polysorbate 60 • Dextrin

enriched with ferrous sulphate (iron), B vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate [B1], riboflavin [B12] and folic acid).

containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed or canola oil, and beef fat.

(sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate)

• Calcium caseinate • Sodium stearol lactylate • Wheat gluten • Calcium sulphate • Natural and artificial flavours • Caramel colour • Sorbic acid (to retain freshness) • Colour added (yellow 5, red 40)

The Historical Importance of Agriculture

ConnectionsBBC, 1978

Food Access

Urban Food Deserts

“...a neighborhood in which residents typically must travel twice as far to reach the closest supermarket or local grocer as people in better-appointed neighborhoods...”

Food Waste

96,000,000,000pounds of food disposed of every year in the US

FoodPolitics

“The US wastes 40% of all food produced per year.”

GOOD.ishttp://www.good.is/post/the-u-s-wastes-40-percent-of-all-

food-produced-per-year-how-about-we-stop-doing-that/

Environmental Impact

“We must recognize that our food production system was conceived in different times;

what worked then is inadequate, even

dangerous, now.”

“...our food production system remains structurally blind to ecological and

social imperatives. Designed to create wealth and distribute cheap food, the system has been slow to factor in its responsibilities for the health of the land and the people.”

“...on a global basis

Agriculture is the largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functionof any single human activity.”

United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Why does biodiversity matter?

Ecosystem Services

PollinationPredation of pestsDecompositionStabilization of soilNitrogen fixation

SustainingLife

Resilience

Reduction of Genetic Diversity

livestock production based on 15 mammal and bird species

food supply based on 12 plant species

90%

75%

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_ug99_fungus/

Stem Rust

Gene flow from cultivarsto wild species

Pollution

Eutrophication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/algal_bloom

Habitat Destruction

Land Degradation

wind and water erosion

soil salinization

soil habitat disturbance

due to flood irrigation

due to removal of vegetative coverand pulverization of soil by tillage, livestock and machinery

Eat local, save your foodshed

“Foodsheds are the farmbelts around our cities that once provided most urban food.”

Saving local foodsheds- preserves an area’s• agriculture land• traditions• varietal crops

- increases an area’s• resilience• quality of life

Further Reading