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Education resources for schools teachers and students - ABC Education

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As much as 2bn tonnes of food are wasted every year - equivalent to 50% of all food produced - according to a report published today by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME)

The IME estimate that 30-50% (1.2-2bn tonnes) of all food produced is "lost before reaching a human stomach". Consumer affairs correspondent Rebecca Smithers writes today:

The UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) blames the "staggering" new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and Western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with "poor engineering and agricultural practices", inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities.

Major supermarkets have also been blamed for food waste by rejecting crops of edible fruit and vegetables which don't meet their exacting standards for their physical characteristics (such as size and colour). Up to 30% of the UK's vegetable crop is never harvested due to this type of practice the report claims.

The publication entitled 'Global food: waste not, want not' also aims to highlight the wastage of energy, land and water. Approximately 3.8tn cubic metres of water is used by humans annually with 70% being consumed by the global agriculture sector. The amount of water wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer is estimated at 550bn cubic metres.

IME claim that water requirements to meet food demand in 2050 could reach between 10-13.5tn cubic metres per year - about triple the current amount used annually by humans.

Meat production requires a much higher amount of water than vegetables. IME state that to produce 1kg of meat requires between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water whereas to produce 1kg of wheat requires between 500 and 4,000 litres of water.

The table below shows typical values for the volume of water required to produce common foodstuffs. Chocolate tops the list with 17,196 litres of water need to produce 1kg of the product. Beef, sheep and pork meat all require high volumes of water for production also. Tea, beer and wine use the least according to the list. Compared to the production of meat, vegetable foodstuffs require considerably less water - 1kg of potatoes for example uses 287 litres of water.

Look at the table below to see how much water is required to produce a selection of common foodstuffs. Also if you want to see how much water we consume indirectly through eating and drinking different foods, we have previously published a great interactive visualisation by Italian graphic design specialist Angela Morelli.

What can you do with this data?

Data summary

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SOURCES: Institution of Mechanical Engineers
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How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste?

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As much as 2bn tonnes of food are wasted every year - equivalent to 50% of all food produced - according to a report published today by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) The IME estimate that 30-50% (1.2-2bn tonnes) of all food produced is "lost before reaching a human stomach".

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Food and medicine shortages after a no-deal Brexit could trigger riots in prisons, ministers fear.

A leaked document warns of "severe consequences" and sets out the need for "a clear understanding of the 'real' operational impact" of crashing out of the EU.

The memo was withdrawn from the database of government contracts after the M inistry of Justice was alerted to its contents, which were not properly redacted by officials.

Phillip Lee, a Conservative MP and former justice minister, seized on the warning, saying: "It's clear that no deal would be disastrous for our country."

The supporter of the People's Vote campaign added: "No one voted for unrest in prisons, shortages of food supplies or any of the other indignities that could result from a disastrous no deal.

"This is yet another example of how the Brexit being delivered is a million miles away from the one that was being promised in 2016."

Richard Burgon, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said: "This shocking revelation is yet more evidence of the threat a no-deal Brexit poses to our justice system.

"From ending access to the European Arrest Warrant, to our prisons being up for grabs by American corporations in a post-Brexit US trade deal, it is clear that a no-deal Brexit risks further damaging our justice system which has already been weakened by nearly a decade of cruel Tory austerity."

Only last week David Gauke, the justice secretary, admitted to MPs that a no-deal Brexit risked "significant impacts across the justice system, including potential disruption to goods and services to our prisons".

The fears are revealed in a consultancy agreement, worth £458,000, awarded to the firm Ernst & Young and seen by the POLITICO website.

It set out how Ernst & Young would work with the department, and other areas of government, on contingency plans for either an orderly Brexit with a withdrawal deal or a no-deal departure.

In the event of no deal, it said: "Not progressing these actions plans could have severe consequences for MoJ Operations, eg unrest in prison because of undersupply of foods or medicines."

Warning it was "necessary to prioritise mitigation actions", the document added: "Refining the focus of planning efforts is imperative to ensure that the most critical contracts can continue undisrupted post-EU Exit.

The redaction error also revealed the names of civil service personnel working on the contract, including the commercial director who signed it off.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice did not address the fears about potential for violence in prisons, but said: "The government has responsibly been preparing for no deal for the last three years, including to ensure the continued supply of food and medicines in such an event.

"The very purpose of this contract and our wider planning is to minimise disruption to the justice system."

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Leaked government document says no-deal Brexit could trigger prison riots as food shortages grip country

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Food and medicine shortages after a no-deal Brexit could trigger riots in prisons, ministers fear. A leaked document warns of "severe consequences" and sets out the need for "a clear understanding of the 'real' operational impact" of crashing out of the EU.

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Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.

A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.

Humans now exploit 72% of the planet's ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth's growing population, the report warns. At the same time, agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, about half of all emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The impact of intensive agriculture - which has helped the world's population soar from 1.9 billion a century ago to 7.7 billion - has also increased soil erosion and reduced amounts of organic material in the ground.

In future these problems are likely to get worse. "Climate change exacerbates land degradation through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, wind, sea-level rise and wave action," the report states.

It is a bleak analysis of the dangers ahead and comes when rising greenhouse gas emissions have made news after triggering a range of severe meteorological events. These include news that:

* Arctic sea-ice coverage reached near record lows for July;

* The heatwaves that hit Europe last month were between 1.5C and 3C higher because of climate change;

* Global temperatures for July were 1.2C above pre-industrial levels for the month.

This last figure is particularly alarming, as the IPCC has warned that rises greater than 1.5C risk triggering climatic destabilisation while those higher than 2C make such events even more likely. "We are now getting very close to some dangerous tipping points in the behaviour of the climate - but as this latest leaked report of the IPCC's work reveals, it is going to be very difficult to achieve the cuts we need to make to prevent that happening," said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

The new IPCC report emphasises that land will have to be managed more sustainably so that it releases much less carbon than at present. Peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut to reduce methane production; while food waste will have to be reduced.

Among the measures put forward by the report is the proposal of a major shift towards vegetarian and vegan diets. "The consumption of healthy and sustainable diets, such as those based on coarse grains, pulses and vegetables, and nuts and seeds ... presents major opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

There also needs to be a big change in how land is used, it adds. Policies need to include "improved access to markets, empowering women farmers, expanding access to agricultural services and strengthening land tenure security", it states. "Early warning systems for weather, crop yields, and seasonal climate events are also critical."

The chances of politicians and scientists achieving these goals are uncertain, however. Nations are scheduled to meet in late 2020, probably in the UK, at a key IPCC conference where delegates will plant how to achieve effective zero-carbon emission policies over the next few decades.

The US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will have just had its presidential elections. A new Democrat incumbent would likely be sympathetic to moves to control global heating. Re-election of Donald Trump, who has called climate change "a hoax", would put a very different, far gloomier perspective on hopes of achieving a consensus.
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intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc)

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IPCC leaked report: Going vegetarian and controlling land use are key to climate crisis

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Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.

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This fact underscores "the immense challenge" to achieving the Zero Hunger target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019.

The report, launched on the margins of the High-level Political Forum ( HLPF) - the main UN platform monitoring follow-up on States' actions on the SDGs - currently under way in New York, breaks down statistics by region, and shows that hunger has risen almost 20 per cent in Africa's subregions, areas which also have the greatest prevalence of undernourishment.

Although the pervasiveness of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean is still below seven per cent, it is slowly increasing. And in Asia, undernourishment affects 11 per cent of the population. Although southern Asia saw great progress over the last five years, at almost 15 per cent, it is still the subregion with the highest prevalence of undernourishment.

"Our actions to tackle these troubling trends will have to be bolder, not only in scale but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration," the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD), the UN Children's Fund ( UNICEF), the World Food Programme ( WFP) and the World Health Organization ( WHO) urged in their joint foreword to the report.

Hunger is increasing in many countries where economic growth is lagging, particularly in middle-income countries and those that rely heavily on international primary commodity trade.

The annual UN report also found that income inequality is rising in many of the countries where hunger is on the rise, making it even more difficult for the poor, vulnerable or marginalized to cope with economic slowdowns and downturns.

"We must foster pro-poor and inclusive structural transformation focusing on people and placing communities at the centre to reduce economic vulnerabilities and set ourselves on track to ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition," the UN leaders said.

Food insecurity

This year's edition of the report takes a broader look at the impact of food insecurity - beyond hunger.

It introduces, for the first time, a second indicator for monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Target 2.1 on the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity that shows that 17.2 per cent of the world's population, or 1.3 billion people, lacked regular access to "nutritious and sufficient food".

"Even if they were not necessarily suffering from hunger, they are at greater risk of various forms of malnutrition and poor health", according to the report.

The combination of moderate and severe levels of food insecurity brings the estimate to about two billion people, where in every continent, women are slightly more food insecure than men.

Low birthweight still a major challenge

Turning to children, the report disclosed that since 2012, no progress has been made in reducing low birthweight.

Additionally, while the number of under-age-five children affected by stunting has decreased over the past six years by 10 per cent globally, the pace of progress is too slow to meet the 2030 target of halving the number of stunted children.

Furthermore, overweight and obesity continue to increase throughout all regions, particularly among school-age children and adults.

Income inequality increases the likelihood of severe food insecurity - UN report

To safeguard food security and nutrition, the 2019 report stresses the importance to economic and social policies to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they arrive, while avoiding cuts in essential services.

It maintains that the uneven pace of economic recovery "is undermining efforts to end hunger and malnutrition, with hunger increasing in many countries where the economy has slowed down or contracted", mostly in middle-income nations.

Moreover, economic slowdowns or downturns disproportionally undermine food security and nutrition where inequalities are greater.

"Income inequality increases the likelihood of severe food insecurity, and this effect is 20 per cent higher for low-income countries compared with middle-income countries", the report spells out.

The report concludes with guidance on what short- and long-term policies must be undertaken to safeguard food security and nutrition during episodes of economic turmoil or in preparation for them, such as integrating food security and nutrition concerns into poverty reduction efforts using pro-poor and inclusive structural transformations.

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Over 820 million people suffering from hunger; new UN report reveals stubborn realities of 'immense' global challenge

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After nearly a decade of progress, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased over the past three years, with about one in every nine people globally suffering from hunger today, the United Nations said in a new report released on Monday.

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Updated July 17, 2019 14:30:55

Farmers and scientists are finding new ways to keep food on the table as rainfall patterns move and heatwaves increase.

Longreach grazier Peter Whip runs cattle on country that neighbours the desert.

The climate there has always been variable. Dry times are a familiar foe and big variations in rainfall are all too common.

That makes it hard to pinpoint how climate change is directly affecting him.

But there is one measurement that illustrates it all too well - days over 35 degrees Celsius.

"There's a noticeable increase in days over 35," Mr Whip says.

"And the reason that's important is because once you get over 35 degrees, that's when the temperature starts to make an impact on cattle."

At that temperature cattle don't want to eat as much. By 40 degrees, their intake of dry matter can drop by up to 50 per cent.

Mr Whip says it really hit home during a heatwave in 2014 when the temperature recorded on his property was between 46-50 degrees for 12 days straight.

"I think we lost probably two or three in that time, which were, you know, unexplainable.

"They weren't poor, they just sort of stopped. I think they stopped eating and just gave up the ghost a bit."

It is something Mr Whip is trying to get to the bottom of and he is working with researchers from the University of Southern Queensland to find ways to keep cattle going through extreme heat.

He has destocked his farm, changed breeding and put other measures in place. For example, he is ready with high-energy supplements to feed his animals.

"It's now ready to go, if we get back into those extreme conditions again, we'd look at trying to feed [cattle] that, just as a ... bit of an energy boost, a bit of a kickalong just for that period."

Adapting to a changing climate

Farmers are intimately connected to the land and dependent on the climate to produce food, but the unpredictable nature of the climate is changing things.

Professor Richard Eckard from the University of Melbourne says agriculture relies on a predictable local climate.

"Every crop exists where it does because we know the distribution of rainfall and we know the distribution of temperature," he says.

"Climate change threatens those, it threatens the rainfall and it threatens the temperature regimes that a crop or a system is adapted to."

Generally there is a southward movement in weather systems, with both temperatures and rainfall zones on the move.

"And so, it affects almost everything we can grow in the future," Professor Eckard says.

But from cattle to wheat and fruit, he says farmers across the country are adapting.

"We think a lot of adaptation taking place amongst farmers even if they're not overtly acknowledging that it is climate change, we're just seeing them responding to the environment.

"I guess that's what farming is, it is adaptive management to your environment and if those changes are taking place, they adapt."

When grain farmer Mark Adams first started out 30 years ago, his biggest challenge to growing crops was waterlogging.

But on his property at Mt Barker in the Great Southern region of WA, rainfall patterns have changed drastically.

"Our annual rainfall has declined about 15 per cent, but probably the biggest change has been the distribution of rainfall, so our rainfall now occurs outside of our traditional winter months," Mr Adams says.

The declining rainfall is challenging many farmers but for others their once too-wet land is now perfect for growing crops, and cropping regions across the country are moving south.

The combination of lower rainfall and better farming techniques has helped Mr Adams increase his productivity by 25 per cent.

"We've been adapting for the last 30 years and I don't think we're going to stop adapting to what the climate throws at us," he says.

"I don't have a fear in regards to climate change. We've managed with the changes to date and we've increased our production."

Farming scallops in warming seas

In Port Phillip bay overlooking Melbourne, Andrew Zapantis is preparing his boat for the opening of the scallop season.

On the back of his boat is a harvester that goes down 50 metres to retrieve the scallops.

"It's a fishery that goes from one extreme to the other. So you could be riding a really high wave and then not, that's just the way the scallop industry is," Mr Zapantis says.

Right now, he says, the industry is riding a high, with all signs pointing to a good season, which runs from July to December every year.

But that won't last forever. Seas off south-east Australia are some of the fastest warming waters in the world.

A report from the University of Melbourne warns together with changes in oxygen and food, this could mean Southern scallops could disappear entirely.

On top of that, increasing acidity in the water thins their shells, reduces their growth, survival and reproductive success.

"That is a concern. I'm not sure where it's all going to head but obviously you won't have much of an industry left. It's not a good feeling that's for sure," Mr Zapantis says.

Extreme heat takes toll on fruit, nuts

On the edge of the Gawler River in South Australia, farmer Annmarie Brookman has been ripping up pistachio, walnut and apple trees.

She planted the pistachios 30 years ago because they grow with relatively little water and tolerate high temperatures, but they rely on winter chill to regenerate.

"So warmer night temperatures in winter have affected us in terms of pollination. And the way that happens is that if you do not reach enough winter chill, then the synchronisation of bud burst in spring doesn't happen," Mrs Brookman says.

Apples also rely on winter chill and on top of that MrsBrookman's apples weren't coping with extreme heatwaves.

Despite not being in a traditional apple-growing region, she said the first 15 years went well, but that all changed with record-breaking heatwaves that saw multiple days over 42 degrees andovernight temperatures in the high 20s.

"Nothing had a chance to recover overnight and start the next day off fresh, we just found that it completely cooked the apples and the nashis on the sides that were exposed," Mrs Brookman says.

Harder than pulling out the apples, she says, was the decision to pull out the walnut trees.

"The sad thing is pulling them out but the good thing is seeing how other things cope and you know, we've already had good crops of pomegranates and we've had good crops of jujubes so I guess all is not lost."

The right time and place for carrots

Angelo Lamattina's family has been growing carrots in the north-west corner of Victoria since 1991.

"The reason why we chose the area we're in is because it had plenty of water and the soil was perfect for growing carrots and the climate conditions were also perfect."

But in recent years it's been getting too hot.

After hard times during drought in the early 2000s they decided to buy another property in Kaniva, 300 kilometres south of the family farm. And a few years ago, they bought a third property at St George in southern Queensland.

They grow carrots in Queensland for 10 weeks of the year, at Kaniva for six months, and four months at Wemen.

"That gives us the opportunity to grow the carrots at the exact right time of the year with no risks, having the best soil at the time and economically using the water," Mr Lamattina says.

"If you're growing your product at the right time of the year, it's not too hot, not too cold. The amount of water you need to grow [carrots] is a lot less."

Mr Lamattina says climate change is a big issue for a lot of farmers.

"The point is actually the climate is changing and so we need to adapt, we have done that.

"We sort of feel that we're nearly, not say droughtproof, but droughts then can come and go and not affect the business as much as it would have 20 years ago."

But Professor Eckard warns that as climate change accelerates, it's getting harder for food producers, and there needs to be more investment from both state and federal governments.

"A lot of research is still needed to understand what are the adaptation options and to progress some of the adaptation options," he says.

"Because if they are about breeding shorter-season varieties, well we actually need quite a long lead time to get there. It doesn't happen tomorrow."

Grazier Peter Whip says the political discussion about climate change is hampering that progress.

"Generally, most farmers are good at adapting. They have to be to survive, to manage drought," he says.

"I guess my hope for the future would be that rather than government using agriculture as a bit of a political football, that we would all get on the same page - environmentalists, farmers, government."

Data sources

Cattle, apples and carrots: Bureau of Meteorology's closest available station with sufficient historical record

Wheat: Bureau of Meteorology Climate Change - trends and extremes

Scallops: Supplied by Andrew Lenton, CSIRO

Topics: climate-change, rural, horticulture, grain, fruit, fishing-aquaculture, vegetables, weather, beef-cattle, longreach-4730, kaniva-3419, gawler-5118, melbourne-3000, st-george-4487, mount-barker-6324

First posted July 17, 2019 06:17:39

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How climate change is affecting what we grow and eat

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Updated July 17, 2019 14:30:55 Farmers and scientists are finding new ways to keep food on the table as rainfall patterns move and heatwaves increase. Longreach grazier Peter Whip runs cattle on country that neighbours the desert. The climate there has always been variable.

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Integration of Aboriginal methods in Northern Territory

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Education resources for schools teachers and students - ABC Education

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ABC Education has 5000+ educational games, videos and teaching resources for schools and students. Free Primary and Secondary resources covering history, science, English, maths and more

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Aboriginal Elder, Les Bursill, talks about sustainable conservation retrieved from -  http://aries.mq.edu.au/projects/deewr_indigenous_concepts/index.php

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Join Craig Reucassel in this three-part series, on a mission to see if we, as a nation, can reduce our waste. #WarOnWasteAU

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Australian Ethical - Super and Managed Funds

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While much of the global population goes to bed hungry, developed nations including Australia have developed a shameful and totally unnecessary problem of our own: food waste. Globally, more than 870 million people are chronically undernourished yet 1.3 billion tonnes of perfectly edible food is wasted each year.

To put this in perspective, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, Jacques Diouf says: "Feeding the world's hungry could be achieved with around US$30 billion, yet, in a single country, food wastage can amount to US$100 billion annually."

A report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates approximately one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. According to statistics from FoodWise, Australians discard up to 20% of the food they purchase. That's four million tonnes, or roughly 140kg per person of food going to landfill each year. To give you a visual picture, that's enough waste to fill 450,000 rubbish trucks which, stretched end to end, would bridge the gap between Australia and New Zealand just over three times.
Why are we throwing food away?
A combination of consumer behaviour and lack of communication in the supply chain underlies the higher levels of food waste in affluent societies.

FoodWise estimates 20% to 40% of fruit and vegetables are rejected before they reach supermarket shelves. This is due stringent regulations on how food looks - a consequence of our unrealistic aesthetic expectations as consumers. Vegetables are frequently left to rot in the field then ploughed straight back into the ground.

The fishing industry also plays a significant role in wastage - despite the catastrophic over-fishing of the world's oceans. Fish populations of some key seafood species have been reduced to only 10% of what they were in the 1950s. Despite this, up to 60% of all fish caught is discarded - either because they are the wrong size, species, or because of government quota systems. Across the seafood industry in southeastern Australia alone, it is estimated more than 20,000 tonnes of fish product waste is produced annually.

Food labelling is another issue contributing to waste. Confusion about sell-by dates and overzealous labelling by brands and supermarkets often means perfectly edible food is discarded long before it's actually out of date.

World hunger aside, the environmental implications of mass food production and, consequently, food waste are devastating. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates the carbon footprint from food produced and not eaten to be around 3.3 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent, making it the third highest emitter in countries like China and the US. In Australia alone, food waste is responsible for 15 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions every year.
What's the solution?
The Food and Agriculture Organisation outlines three general levels where action is needed on a global scale.
1. Reducing food wastage in the first place.
This includes developing better food harvest, storage, processing, transport and retailing processes. A key factor in this is the relaxation of legislation related to labelling and packaging.

The development of new technologies is slowly starting to aid the reduction of food waste. Improved rice-storage bags in the Philippines have helped cut losses by 15% and in West Africa, use of solar dryers to extend the shelf life of fruit is showing promise in reducing post-harvest losses.
2. Re-use surplus food within the human food chain.
In Australia, there are a number of initiatives dedicated to finding secondary markets for unwanted food. A good example is the donation of food to vulnerable members of society. OzHarvest is a perishable food rescue organisation in Australia, collecting quality excess food from commercial outlets and delivering it, direct and free of charge, to close to 500 charities across Australia. They deliver 480,000 meals or 160 tonnes of meals each month.

If food is not fit for human consumption, the next best option is to divert it for livestock feed, conserving resources that would otherwise be used to produce commercial feedstuff.

Gleaning, or the practice of gathering food straight from the field is another growing trend where organisations and, in some places, entrepreneurs are spotting opportunities to acquire produce at reduced rates.
3. Where re-use is not possible, recycling, and recovery should be pursued.
By-product recycling, anaerobic digestion, compositing, and incineration with energy recovery allows energy and nutrients to be recovered from food waste, representing a significant advantage over dumping it in landfills. Uneaten food that ends up rotting in landfills is a large producer of methane, a particularly harmful greenhouse gas. Again, technology is being developed in this space to turn food waste into green energy.
What can you do at home to reduce waste?
There are a number of simple actions we can all do as individuals to reduce the deplorable four million tonnes of food we send to landfill every year.

- Write a shopping list based on a weekly meal plan.

- Store food correctly. This useful guide will show you how to increase the shelf life of a huge number of products

- Reuse left overs for lunch or as the basis for another meal.

- Check out FoodWise's Cheat sheets.

Australian Ethical invests in a number of organisations dedicated to reducing or managing waste. Darling Ingredients is a US-based processor of food industry waste, producing useful goods from waste that is otherwise difficult to dispose of. Without these services, landfills would struggle to cope with the large volume of food industry waste.

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Food waste: a growing Australian problem - Australian Ethical - Super and Managed Funds

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While much of the global population goes to bed hungry, developed nations including Australia have developed a shameful and totally unnecessary problem of our own: food waste. Globally, more than 870 million people are chronically undernourished yet 1.3 billion tonnes of perfectly edible food is wasted each year.

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Explore the differences in subsistence farming, commercial agriculture and GMO.

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Explore the differences in subsistence farming, commercial agriculture and GMO.

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The goals and objectives of this chapter are to:

Compare and contrast the differences between subsistence and commercial agriculture.

Analyze if current and future food production will support a human population of 9 billion by 2050.

Determine the similarities and differences between nutritional needs, hunger, and obesity.

HUNTER GATHERS
Before the invention of agriculture, humans acquired food through the hunting of animals and gathering of various types of edible plants. Most hunter-gatherers tended to live in small tribes for reasons of mobility and efficient distribution of food, water, and resources. Most migration patterns of these early humans were dependent on the movement of seasonal migration patterns of animals and seasonal growth patterns of plants growth. Hunter-gathers still exist today, but in very isolated regions of the world.

BIRTH OF AGRICULTURE
There is various debates within the scientific community between human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists as to why agriculture arose throughout various locations, called hearths, around the world. Even the date of origin varies within the community, but most believe the birth of agriculture began around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel and other products used to sustain life. Cultivate means "to care for", and a crop is any plant cultivated by people. During this time, humans began domesticating animals such as dogs, cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats along with the cultivation of various plants for consumption. Social scientists also do not agree if the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals was because of environmental or cultural push factors. It is likely that it was a combination of both since a variety of agricultural hearths were grown around the world. From a climate science perspective, the likely catalyst of agriculture was that around 10,000 years ago the earth was shifting away from the Pleistocene Ice Age and into a warming period called an interglacial period.

Today, there are basically two divisions of agriculture, subsistence and commercial, that roughly correspond to the less developed and more developed regions. One of the most significant divisions between more and less developed regions is the manner in which people obtain the food they need to survive. Most people in less developed countries are farmers, producing the food they and their families need to survive. In contrast, fewer than 5 percent of the people in North America are farmers. Yet these farmers are able to produce enough to feed the remaining inhabitants of North America and to produce a substantial surplus.

INTENSIVE SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE
Subsistence agriculture is the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer and mostly found in less developed countries. In subsistence agriculture, small-scale farming is primarily grown for consumption by the farmer and their family. Sometimes if there is a surplus of food it might be sold, but that is not common. In commercial agriculture, the primary objective is to make a profit.

The largest type of agriculture practised around the world is intensive subsistence agriculture, which is highly dependent on animal power, and is commonly practised in the humid, tropical regions of the world. As the word implies, this form of subsistence agriculture is highly labor intensive on the farmer using limited space and limited waste. This is a very common practise in East, South, and Southeast Asia where population densities are high and land use is limited. The most common form is wet rice fields, but could also include non-wet rice fields like wheat and barley. In warm locations and long growing seasons, farmers may be able to efficiently get two harvests per year from a single field, a method called double cropping.

SHIFTING CULTIVATION
Another form of subsistence agriculture is called shifting cultivation, because the farmers literally shift around to new locations every few years to farm new land. There are two processes in shifting cultivation: 1) farmers must remove and burn the earth in a manner called slash-and-burn agriculture where slashing the land clears space, while burning the natural vegetation fertilizes the soil, 2) farmers can only grow their crops on the cleared land for 2-3 years until the soil is depleted of its nutrients then they must move on and remove a new area of the earth; they may return to the previous location after 5-20 years after the natural vegetation has re-grown. The most common crops grown in shifting cultivation are corn, millet, and sugarcane. Another cultural trait of LDCs is that subsistence farmers do not own the land; rather the village chief or council controls the earth. The satellite image above shows deforestation between along the border of Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right), highlighting their political boundaries. Slash-and-burn agriculture has been a major contributor to deforestation around the world. Yet in order to address deforestation and the protection of species, humans need to address root issues such as poverty and hunger.

PASTORAL NOMADISM
Pastoral nomadism is similar to subsistence agriculture except that the focus is on domesticated animals rather than crops. Most pastoral nomads exist in arid regions such as the Middle East and Northern Africa because the climate is too dry for subsistence agriculture. The primary purpose of raising animals is to provide milk, clothing, and tents. What is interesting with pastoral nomads is that most do not slaughter their herds for meat; most eat grains by trading milk and clothing for grain with local farmers.

The type of animals chosen by nomads is highly dependent on the culture of the region, the prestige of animals, and the climate. Camels can carry heavy cargo and travel great distances with very little water; a great benefit in arid regions. Goats require more water, but can eat a larger variety of food than the camel.

Most probably believe that nomads wander randomly throughout the area in search for water, but this is far from the truth. Rather pastoral nomads are very aware of their territory. In fact, each group controls a particular area and will rarely invade another area. Each area tends to be large enough to contain enough water and foliage for survival. Some nomad groups migrate seasonally between mountainous low-lying regions, a process called transhumance.

COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE
In contrast to LDCs, more developed nations tend to have commercial agriculture with a goal to produce food for sale in the global marketplace called agribusiness. The food in commercial agriculture is also rarely sold directly to the consumer; rather it's sold to a food-processing company where it is processed into a product. This includes produce and food products.

An interesting difference between LDC and MDC in terms of agriculture is the percent of the workforce that actually farm. In LDCs, it is not uncommon that over half of the workforce are subsistence farmers. Yet in MDCs like the United States, the workforce that are farmers are far fewer than half. In the United States alone, less than 2 percent of the workforce are farmers, yet have the knowledge, skills, and technology to feed the

One of the reasons why only 2 percent of the United States workforce can feed the entire nation has to do with machinery, which can harvest crops at a large scale and very quickly. MDCs also have access to transportation networks to provide perishable foods like dairy long distances in a short amount of time. Commercial farmers rely on the latest scientific improvements to generate greater yields, including crop rotation, herbicides and fertilizers, hybrid plants, and animal breeds.

PLANTATIONS
Another form of commercial agriculture found in warm, tropical climates, are plantations. A plantation is a large-scale farm that usually focuses on the production of a single crop such as tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar cane, rubber, and cotton to name a few. These forms of farming are commonly found in LDCs, but often owned by corporations in MDCs. Plantations also tend to import workers and provide food, water, and shelter necessities for workers to live there year-round.

Recall about human population that English economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) proposed that the world rate of population growth was far outrunning the development of food supplies. Malthus proposed that human population was growing exponentially, while food production was growing linearly. Below is an example:

Today: 1 person, 1 unit of food

25 years from now: 2 persons, 2 units of food

50 years from now: 4 persons, 3 units of food

75 years from now: 8 persons, 4 units of food

100 years from now: 16 persons, 5 units of food

During Malthus's time, only a few relatively wealthy countries had entered Stage 2 of the demographic transition model high population growth (see Module 2 for a refresher). He failed to anticipate that relatively poor countries would have the rapidest population growth because of a medical revolution. Many social scientists and even environmentalists are strong supporters of Malthus's hypothesis of the coming global food shortage and are taking it several steps further. Human population growth and consumption may be outstripping a wide variety of the earth's natural resources, not just food production. Billions of people may soon be engaged in a search for food, water, energy, and resources. Now days, technology is allowing us to convert food into fuel called ethanol. In the United States, large amounts of corn are being used to create biofuel as a way to remove ourselves from our addiction to oil. This has caused global corn prices to rise dramatically. Wars and civil violence will increase in coming years because of scarcities.
Others discredit Malthus because his hypothesis is based on world supply of resources being fixed rather than flexible and expanding. Technology may enable societies to be more efficient with scarce resources or allow for the use of new resources that were once not feasible. Some believe population growth isn't a bad thing either. A large population could stimulate economic growth and, therefore, the production of food.

Marxists believe that their is no direct connection between human population growth and economic development within a particular area. Social constructs of hunger and poverty is the result of unjust social and economic power structures through globalization, rather than because of human population growth.

So even with a global community of 7 billion, food production has grown faster than the global rate of natural increase. Better growing techniques, higher-yielding and genetically modified seeds, and better cultivation of more land have helped expand food supplies globally. However, many have noted that food production has started to slow and level off. Without new technology breakthroughs in food production, food supply will not keep up with population growth.

MALNUTRITION
Malnourishment is a term used to describe nutritional imbalances caused by a lack of particular nutrients. It makes sense that global hunger is also creating global malnourishment concerns. A lack of protein can cause bloating in the belly or a condition where children waste away called Marasmus. Vitamin deficiencies in Vitamin A, folic acid, and iodine can cause illnesses like goiter, which is the swelling of the thyroid gland. Many have argued that genetically modified food fortified in these vitamins could dramatically reduce global food malnutrition and end many food-related illnesses caused by food insecurity and malnutrition. An example would be rice fortified with Vitamin A. This is why some argue that there is a place for genetically modified food in order to cure various global food situations. The map above is a global map of malnutrition between 2010 and 2012. Areas in red have a higher malnutrition rates than in yellow or green. Countries in gray have no available data.

FOOD SECURITY ISSUES
Another way food concerns can be monitored and addressed is by analyzing the food price index, which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states "is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities. It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices, weighted with the average export shares of each of the groups. There is great concern that globally, food prices are rising making it harder for families to purchase quality food, along with raising concerns for global food insecurity issues.

At the World Food Summit in 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO), defined food security as "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life." The WHO go on by saying, "food security is a complex sustainable development issue, linked to health through malnutrition, but also to sustainable economic development, environment, and trade."

OBESITY IN MDCs
On the flip side, the world is dealing with a malnutrition problem on the other spectrum of overeating and obesity. In fact, more of the world is overweight and obese than living in hunger. Heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes is occurring in rich and poor countries as food high in sugar and fat become more common. So it is becoming more apparent that the world isn't facing a shortage of food production, rather it is an uneven distribution problem. Current statistics show that 65 percent of the U.S. population is considered overweight and that Americans throw away over 40 percent of prepared food into the landfills. Below are a series of videos that look directly and the obesity issue in the United States with attention to our public schools, daily lives, and even national security.

The United Nations states that over 1.2 billion people lack access to fresh drinking water and 2.5 billion do not have access to water for sanitation. In the United States, the average American uses over 100 gallons of water a day. Now have you ever thought about how much water is required for the food you eat? Below is how much water is used to produce our food based on the book When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce:

250-650 gallons of water for a pound of rice

130 gallons for a pound of wheat

65 gallons for a pound of potatoes

500-1000 gallons for a quart of milk

800 gallons for a hamburger

1300 gallons for a small steak

87 million gallons for making snow at Deer Valley Ski Resort in 2006-2007

Recall that food insecurity is defined as an individual or society's ability or inability to obtain sufficient quantities of healthy food for survival. Over the past several decades, food has been unevenly distributed around the world creating food insecurity issues. In 1960, the world population was around 3 billion and about 1.8 billion had food insecurity issues. Today, the world population is 7 billion and nearly 1 billion have food security concerns. The reason is because world population growth has increased 1.7 percent since 1960, whereas food production has increased 2.2 percent per year. Today, food insecurity issues are based on a combined problem of economic, environmental, and social situations.

It is believed that 6 million children die every year from hunger or malnutrition. Hunger issues occur when political instability, war, conflict, or environmental degradation displace populations, removing people from their farms. Often times, droughts, desertification, and famines are confused with each other. A drought is a natural phenomenon where a particular region experiences a short-term deficit of water based on average conditions. A desert can have a drought if precipitation occurs less than average conditions. Desertification is the long-term deterioration of productive soil into unusable "dirt" that is unusable for growing food. Famines are considered mostly "man-made" events because of large-scale food shortages with widespread starvation, social disruption, and economic collapse. Lack of adequate infrastructure, social nets, and government resources tend to cause famines.

So how has the world been able to produce enough food to keep up and actually surpass global population growth? There are a few ideas why that are outlined here. The Green Revolution allowed for the creation of a series of crops that are considered high responders, meaning crops that grow and yield well with increased use of fertilizer, irrigation, and pesticides. The benefits of the Green Revolution include:

dramatically increased yield outputs of food

made food production very efficiently for large-scale production: lowered labor costs where one farmer can work large farms

the development of pesticides improved crop yields by eliminating competition with other plants or predatory insects

The problems with the Green Revolution is that it:

created an agricultural system dependent on pesticides and fertilizers to maintain such high crop yields

agricultural chemicals have unintended ecological consequences, loss of biodiversity, loss of pollinating insects

contamination of drinking water

Organic production involves mixing a variety of farming strategies: crop rotation retains soil fertility; mixed cropping reduces pest risk, and organic fertilizers and pesticides reduce costs of commercial inputs. Organic methods are more sustainable, but don't lend themselves to the industrial scale production of conventional agriculture, which involves vast expanses of a single crop. Like with the Green Revolution, the organic movement has positive and negative aspects. The benefits of the organic movement include:

minimal use of fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel

helps preserve or improve soil, water quality, and biodiversity

crop variations are usually more mixed, which contributes to healthier diets and more sustainable farm ecosystems

organic methods are traditional in most areas, and low costs make this approach appropriate for poor farmers in developing regions

integrated pest management where only small amounts of pesticides are used with other insect control strategies

The problems with the organic production of food include:

cost to the farmer and cost to the consumer

organic isn't always more environmentally friendly, local is sometimes more important than organic

non-organic farms can contaminate organic farms through water sources or pollination

Finally, genetically modified crops (GM) have borrowed genes inserted into their DNA, allowing them to produce or tolerate new kinds of organic substitutes. Genetically modified seeds have increased the efficiency and nutrients of various farm types. The positive benefits of GM food includes:

yields increase with GM crops

many GM crops are developed and designed so that the crops create their own natural insecticide

allows for the expansion of agriculture into lands formerly unable to produce food

increased nutrient values and protein consumption to help with malnutrition

The adverse effects of GM foods are becoming more known and understood by scientists and the general public. Some nations like the European Union are starting to ban GM crops because there are still concerns about their long term effects on humans and the environment. Some of those problems include:

new varieties are expensive, forcing new farmers into debt and creating economic disadvantages

growth hormones have been suspect of causing premature puberty and other anomalies

herbicides in drinking water have unknown health effects

long-term studies on public health have not been confirmed yet

concerns with long-term impacts on natural ecosystems

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The goals and objectives of this chapter are to: Compare and contrast the differences between subsistence and commercial agriculture. Analyze if current and future food production will support a human population of 9 billion by 2050. Determine the similarities and differences between nutritional needs, hunger, and obesity.

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Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE)

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CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change

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Feeding Nine Billion Video 6: Climate Change and Food Security

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Brought to you by http://www.feedingninebillion.com By 2050 there will be 9 billion people on the planet - but will there be enough food for everyone? Food security expert Dr Evan Fraser guides you through a whiteboard presentation of his solution to the Global Food Crisis focusing in this video on the role of the local food system.

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Climate Change and Food Security Explained

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Climate Change and Food Security Explained

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Climate Change & Food Security | Explained

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This is my first video- Hope you enjoy SubTitles/Text: Food Security Issues - Climate Change Animation Speech If your living in the United States, Australia or developed countries such as England, you rarely have to worry about where you will get your next meal from- in countries like these the vast majority of the population is food secure.

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Local food (market) for sale at a shop in Cley Next the Sea, Norfolk, UK. Buying local produce helps to cut down massively on food miles. © Global Warming Images / WWF

Shop sustainably

Keywords

farming

food production

sustainable living

sustainable seafood

Australian's have a huge appetite for shopping. Our consumption, per person, out-strips that of people in most other countries. We're an ecological Big Foot, and that's nothing to be proud of.

The good news is that as consumers we hold considerable power. We can change the way we live and influence others, even inspire fundamental shifts in manufacturing. The choices we make at the checkout can have a significant impact on future sustainability.

When shopping for food and groceries, electrical appliances or household furniture, we can make environmentally friendly choices. Demonstrating to retailers and manufacturers that we want sustainable options creates a demand for them.

So how do we make informed choices?

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Local food (market) for sale at a shop in Cley Next the Sea, Norfolk, UK. Buying local produce helps to cut down massively on food miles. © Global Warming Images / WWF Keywords farming food production sustainable living sustainable seafood Australian's have a huge appetite for shopping.

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Impact of climate change on farming practices 

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Impact of climate change on farming practices 

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Defining sustainability and exploring sustainable futures

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Defining sustainability and exploring sustainable futures

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Northern Australia is a very productive part of the country with substantial opportunities for further targeted development. Our research is guiding the continued sustainable development of the region.

Understanding the opportunities in the north

Northern Australia makes a substantial contribution to the Australian economy, particularly through agriculture, mining and tourism.

Agriculture in northern Australia is already a significant global player. Its 12 million cattle make northern Australia the world's fifth largest beef exporter. Its more than 3000 sugar farms make it the world's fifth largest sugar exporter. Combined income from these two businesses alone exceeds $3 billion each year.

There are opportunities to unlock significant new investment in the north. This will require confidence about the scale of the opportunities and understanding of the risks involved, which we have the experience and capability to deliver.

Our research has identified intensification of agricultural production as providing some of the best opportunities for further development, largely through identifying new opportunities for irrigation.

The keys to further unlocking the north

Water

Water is integral to the success of the development of the north.

We have recently completed the first and only account of water availability for northern Australia and found that every year, out of the 2 million GL of water arriving there, around 15,000 GL-enough to irrigate almost 1.5 million hectares-could be made available for irrigation.

Our detailed catchment assessments can accurately identify how much water can be sustainably used an ongoing basis for irrigation and other uses.

Read about water resource assessments in northern Australia

Soil

We recently constructed the first soils maps covering all of northern Australia, and the suitability of soil for over 70 different crops. Those maps show where there's at least 16 million hectares of soil that's suitable for intensive agriculture.
Read about soil mapping and land suitability in northern Australia
Transport logistics

Underdeveloped transport infrastructure and long distances have presented a consistent challenge to development.

Our transport logistics tool, TRANSIT, is helping industry to save transport costs and increase efficiencies. TRANSIT identifies least-cost pathways for producers using existing infrastructure and identifies cost-effective investment options for strategic infrastructure, such as relocated holding yards and truck rest stops as well as configuration of roads, processing facilities and ports.

Read about TRANSIT

Land tenure

Northern Australian tenure systems are complex and unique in the national context. There are multiple and often overlapping tenure types for the same piece of land.

We have identified pathways for improvement that reduce complexity, improve the efficiency of regulation, and improve the effectiveness of land and resource planning.

Read about improving land tenure in northern Australia

Economics

There are a range of competitive industries in northern Australia, including agriculture, mining and gas production. Each of these have their own set of economic factors that need to be considered to maximise the development potential of the north.

Our work, in collaboration with partners, provides policy makers with a clear indication of the location and scale of medium and longer term opportunities for agricultural production, and critical supply chain and infrastructure investment issues that may help to foster those opportunities.
Read about our food and fibre supply chain research
Guiding successful development

We have put all of this research and capacity together to develop a formula for identifying specific development opportunities in the north.

This formula, first demonstrated through the Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment, is used to rapidly and economically quantify current water availability, identify water storage options, construct soils maps of high precision and combine them to establish estimates of regional agricultural production potential. These approaches provide a blueprint across priority sites for future irrigation development.

Find out about the assessments currently underway for priority river basins in northern Australia

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Unlocking the potential of northern Australia

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Northern Australia is a very productive part of the country with substantial opportunities for further targeted development. Our research is guiding the continued sustainable development of the region. Northern Australia makes a substantial contribution to the Australian economy, particularly through agriculture, mining and tourism. Agriculture in northern Australia is already a significant global player.

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