GEOG 216 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Food Security, Precision Agriculture, Hectare
7 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Historical prices for agricultural commodities - since 2008, major increase. De(cid:373)a(cid:374)d a(cid:374)d suppl(cid:455) for food is relati(cid:448)el(cid:455) (cid:858)i(cid:374)elasti(cid:272)(cid:859) - people need food, so they"ll purchase it at a variety of prices; supply kind of hard. Small changes in supply cause huge implications in price. Cause of spike: oil prices (cost of agriculture; biofuels) transportation involves fossil fuels. Agricultural commodity prices 1900-2010 overall, go up faster than down. Food prices can drive social unrest go hand in hand correlation between price and unrest. Population increase - world needs more food beyond the numbers of people increase. Growth in world agricultural production - faster increase than rate of pop growth; 2. 4% per year since 1970s. Sources of growth: new land - tear shit down and make space (extensification) Input intensification - increased use of inputs to raise yields. Increased total factor productivity (ratio of total commodity output to total inputs used in production) - increased efficiency; precision agriculture; green revolution.
