HLSC 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Soil Organic Matter, Soil Fertility, Food Security
23 Apr 2018
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Document Summary
Industrial agriculture emphasizes intensive monoculture food production over biodiversity; thus pits biodiversity against food security. Biodiversity: refers to diversity at the levels of: genes, species and subspecies and their functional traits; populations or communities of species; habitats; large landscape zones: includes all living matter (animal, plant, insect, soil, water, etc) Monoculture: agricultural practice of producing a single crop (cultivar) or livestock species in a farming system: each cultivar has same standardized planting, maintenance and harvesting requirements resulting in greater yields and lower costs. Soil organic matter is necessary for healthy plant growth: holds nutrients and trace elements plants need for growth, prevents nutrient leaching, supports organic acids that make minerals available to plants. Soil organic matter requires diverse ground cover and sunshine. Diverse ground cover contributes to soil organic matter, and: reduces soil erosion, reduces run-off that can pollute ground waters, enriches soil fertility (to enhance food production) 40% of earth"s land is farmed (>98% industrial)
