GEOG 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Ecological Footprint, Sustainable Development Goals, Status Quo
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Agriculture, Food and the Environment
The great acceleration
Enormous changes in population, agriculture, consumption most of the world’s agricultural land is
pastures (grazing livestock)
Grazing symptoms
Very heterogeneous
Different vegetation, management, stocking rates, density
Intensification
Produce more food with the same amount of land
Use techiques such as central pivoting, increase the use of fertilizers
Changes in agriculture depends on socioeconomic factors
Population is 80% likely to increase to 9.6 billion by 2050
Food demand
Depends not only on population size
Growing middle class (4 million +)
- Diets change with affluence
Green revolution
High yielding varieties of crops, increase worldwide production
Includes HYOs, mechanization, new technologies, etc
Land use change
Most land clearance for agriculture in tropical regions
Leads to tropical deforestation
Due to production of staples (eg. Soy and palm oil)
Also an issue with green house gas emission (carbon sequestration)
Emissions from grazing animals (eg. Cows burping)
Crop yield gaps
Measure pourcentage attainable yield achieved
Some crops are not produced to their full potential
We need to dose crop yield gaps
Ehtrophication
Eg. Algal bloom on western Lake Erie basin
Due to phosphorous/nitrogen use in agriculture
Some areas require more fertilizer → requires spatial distribution
Spatial redistribution could boost global cereal production by 30%
Nutrition paradox
Many people are calorie deficient or micronutrient malnutrition
Others are obese or intaking too much of the wrong thing
Issues
Wasting meat? Reducing meat consumption? Eating localy? Eating what we already produce?
Food waste
Lots o food loss due to waste
We need fewer crops if we waste less
Also has to do with food storage and transport (not consumer side)
Change the way we process food
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Global demand
Global demand for non-domestic products, increase ecological footprint
Eg. Demand for soybean → tropical deforestation in Brazil
Food security
Availability access use cultural relevance: food security not just about food production
Urbanization
Urban expansion leads to cropland loss
Urban regions → need to import foods, increase food waste
Food system
Composes of production, distribution, consumption also includes all food – related interactions
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Chapter 6 – Human Population
All guest speakers’ lectures are quizzable
Think of how the Laikipia story and the aral sea story link to the themse of food, water, climate change
and public health
These are all linked by Population Dynamics
How do we adapte the level of population level and with earth capacity
Human population at over 7 billion
- Population continue to rise in most countries
- Particularly in developing nations
- Although the rate of growth is slowing, we are still increasing in absolute numbers
- How much is 7.3 billion?
- It would take 30 years, counting once each second, to reach 1 billion
- 7300km counted in mm
Population is still growing, but more slowly,
- It took all of human history- after 1880 – to reach 1 billion
- In 1960 we reached 3 billion, and added the next billion in 14 years (1974)
- The most recent billion took only 12 years
The “logistic equation” (population growth curve)
r-selected reproductive strategies are determined the reproductive capacity (r) of the species, and
lead to exponential growth (the steeply rising left part of graph below. K-selected strategies are
determined by the carrying
capacity (K) of the environment, and contribute to replacement within relatively stable populations
(the horizontal right part of the graph)
- vary in countries → dependency of children over family vary according to culture, but the more
complex the society, the later the dependency last
Perspectives on human population have changed over time
- 1700s – more children meant better support in old age and more labour for factory work
- 1766: Thomas Malthus – growing population is eventually checked by limits on births or
increases in deaths
- 1968: Paul Ehrlich – population is growing too fast and must be controlled
- Disastrous effects on the environment and human welfare
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Enormous changes in population, agriculture, consumption most of the world"s agricultural land is pastures (grazing livestock) Produce more food with the same amount of land. Use techiques such as central pivoting, increase the use of fertilizers. Population is 80% likely to increase to 9. 6 billion by 2050. High yielding varieties of crops, increase worldwide production. Most land clearance for agriculture in tropical regions. Due to production of staples (eg. soy and palm oil) Also an issue with green house gas emission (carbon sequestration) Some crops are not produced to their full potential. Some areas require more fertilizer requires spatial distribution. Spatial redistribution could boost global cereal production by 30% Many people are calorie deficient or micronutrient malnutrition. Others are obese or intaking too much of the wrong thing. We need fewer crops if we waste less. Also has to do with food storage and transport (not consumer side) Global demand for non-domestic products, increase ecological footprint.
