ESS revision course: FOOD PRODUCTION
-​
-​
Populations growing rapidly and people become wealthier → eat mor wand able to
eat foods that require more energy and land
Increase of ecological footprint
Sustainability of food production
-​ Using resources in such a way that they can be naturally replenished and the
ecosystem has time to recover
-​ In the case of food production the ecosystem can be a natural ecosystem (taking
food from the wild) or man made ecosystem (agricultural fields and grasslands for
livestock)
-​ For all → there are patterns in sustainability
-​ If there is a lot of space for pop then high sustainability, as land decreases,
sustainability becomes lower → fewer resources and less space for waste to
be taken care of
-​ As pop increases, sustainability decreases because that same pop has the
same amount of land
-​ If we use a land if ressource for a bit and give it time to recover then its more
un-sustainable → intensive use makes sustainability lower
-​ If we consume only a small amount that is more sustainable than consuming
a lot → less waste production when eating less
-​
Trophic levels
-​ Important when talking about sustainability → as you go up the food chain, kor
energy is used for respiration growth and lost as heat + not all the parts of an
organism being eating is used by another organism
-​ Less energy lost from corn to humans than from corn to chickens to humans → we
don't eat all of the chicken (we lose biomass and energy in terms of the food that
goes from corn to chickens) → eating for lower trophic levels = more sustainable
-​ Seaweed to humans VS phytoplankton to zooplankton =to jellyfish to herring to cod
to humans → more energy lost along the long food chain
-​ Apples have low carbon emissions
-​ Tomatoes: it depends where there are grown (if greenhouses then more c-emissions,
if outside than better)
-​
-​
-​
-​
-​
-​
Rice: higher in terms of emissions than milk and eggs → a lot of rice is grown in wet
production (patty fields) so there is a layer of water creates anaerobic conditions in
the mud, leading to the production of methane (methane = strong GHG → methane
stronger than CO2)
Milk and eggs: products of animals/organisms → produced in the whole lifetime of
the chickens and the cows → their footprint is lower than waiting from a chicken or
cow
Chickens: a lot of that food is converted into meet
cows : less efficient than cows
To improve sustainability of diet → eating more chicken instead of beef → govt can
impose higher taxes on products that higher carbon missions (which would make
beefs higher taxed)
Chocolate: carbon emissions measurement include that forests are being cut down
to plant the chocolate trees (you can include chocolate tress among other trees but
majorly is needs land use changes → big part of carbon missions)
Maximum sustainable yield
-​ How much food can be harvested from an ecosystem in such a way that this can be
done indefinitely
-​
-​
-​
Replenishment and recovery
Harvesting from a natural ecosystem
Food is eaten by animals and taken by humans at the same time
aquatic:
-​ The way that we fish may disturb the ecosystem + takes away from a particular area
→ some animals may have to move or not survive
-​ Recovery from pollution (pollution from shops used to deposit the nets and pick up
the animals)
-​
-​
-​
-​
Taking too much out of the ecosystem so harming it too much so there won't be
replenishment recovery so yield will decrease
Yield of food production system as a whole
Natural capital = the crab pop
Natural income = the catch you harvest from them
Agricultural
-​ More complicated
-​ You start with the crop
-​ When harvesting , you harvest everything
-​ Agricultural land = man made system → needs to replenish and recover
-​ The nature that helps → water, air and land
-​ You cultivate ands then have to prepare the land again (plowing, tilling etc + add
fertiliser etc) → the tractor destroys part of the soil ecosystem because everything is
turned over again and the structure with the pores between the soil is moved around
and disturbed through plowing
-​ Through fertiliser too many nutrients tend to be added who can arrive in water
systems
-​ We also add pesticides to increase the yield BUT some pesticides may end up in the
organisms that eat the corn and end up in the larger ecosystem and hurt the
consumers that have the pesticides in them
-​ Through harvesting the ecosystem only gets bad things
-​ How much can we harvest for this to be sustainable
-​ Replenishment = planting seeds aging so not a big part of the sustainable
yield for thai agricultural system
-​ Recovery = no tillage, no plowing, lighter machinery which compacts the soil
(change the way we produce food) → can increase long term productivity,
less compaction so less need for tillage
-​ Dosage of pesticides (if we perfect the amount we put on the crop, much less
of it will end up in the natural ecosystem)
-​ Biodegradable pesticides work for a short lifespan and then biodegrade
-​ Biocontrol (EG ladybugs eat the aphids and the lice)
-​ GMO (genetically modified organisms) = to be tougher for insects to bite
through
-​ nutrients : dosage, buffer zones (biffer plants can used up the excess
nutrients from runoff), manure (natural fertiliser), maxed farming, mixed crops,
crop rotation (diseases can stay in the soil when you don't rotate, so you can
grown for two three years on one piece of land then change → the fungi and
bacteria that attack the crops can't live off of another crip so they die)
-​ Need to implement all these methods
Suggest why aquatic food production is under pressure to increase yield.
-​ Solid degradation is decreasing yields of agricultural lands
-​ Pop is increasing
-​ No new productive land → a lot of suitable land for food production already in use
-​ Soil degradation
-​ Urbanisation
-​ Increase in health
-​ We need aquatic food production to make up for that terrestrial has issues in feeding
the extra people that we expect to see
Outline why the continental shelf has the highest productivity in the ocean.
-​ The goldilocks conditions → not deep so sunlight can reach producers
-​ Producers get sunlight so energy enters food chains
-​ Not deep so warmed up by the syn and air
-​ Warmer temperatures allow for higher productivity
-​ Nutrient upwelling provide nutrients to the food chain
-​ Continental shelves are at the highest productivity in the ocean
-​ EG answer: The maximum depth of the continental shelf is only 150 meters, so
sunlight can reach the producers. Nutrient-rich waters rise from the deep ocean onto
the continental shelf, providing nutrients for food chains.
Outline means tell us the answer and a little bit of a description of why
Technology in food production systems
-​ More sustainable
-​ Use GPS and sonar to asses pop size and protect
-​ Soil sample testing to determine and apply the perfect amount of nutrients
-​ Less sustainable
-​ Use gps and sonar to locate the schools of fish to catch the → was a game
changer and enabled fishing to become more efficient but more damaging
-​
-​
Using fossil fuels to power machinery
-​
Now we have a minimum mesh size so that the juvenile fish can escape and other
unwanted fish can escape
Tragedy of the commons = the yields closed to villages where all ppl put their ghost
and cows to graze → they didn't care about taking care of them so fields became not
productive anymore
Regulation is increasing
-​
Wild fisheries tend to be commercial and intensive
-​