EESA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Genetically Modified Food, Intensive Farming, Selective Breeding
14 Dec 2015
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Ees - lecture 8 - agriculture and environmental impacts. Solution get more out of each unit of land. Ability to grow more food on this limited space. More scientific means to grow food - but there are a lot of impacts with that. Green - the fact of growing plants - more green. Several key elements: selective breeding; monocultures, pest control, soil nutrient enhancement. 4: mechanized planting and harvesting - tractors and stuff, large energy (fossil fuel) and material inputs, use of produce for other than eating (fuel) Making new species or strains in lab by splicing genetic information from organism into another organism (in food) Involves splicing together pieces of dna (genes), representing desired traits (fast growth, pest resistance) from several different species into the genetic makeup of another species. Could solve a lot of problems, especially nutritional content and intensifying yields. Unknown consequences; a lot of bad things could, but have not yet happened.
