Chapter 12 Review Questions Food, soil and Pest Management
Answer questions & fill in
1.
Review the Key Questions and Concepts for this chapter
... [Show More] on p. 278. Define organic agriculture and compare its
main components with those of conventional industrialized agriculture.
Organic agriculture is a type of sustainable agriculture that differs from conventional industrial agriculture
insofar as crops are grown without synthetic pesticides, synthetic inorganic pesticides and genetically
modified seeds.
2.
Define food security and food insecurity. What is the root cause of food insecurity? Distinguish between
chronic undernutrition (hunger) and chronic malnutrition and describe their harmful effects. What is a famine?
Describe the effects of diet deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine. What is overnutrition, and what are its
harmful effects?
F
ood security
means having enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. Food insecurity not getting
enough to eat and—living with chronic hunger and poor nutrition.
Most agricultural experts agree that
the root cause of food insecurity is
1.
2.
3.
People who cannot grow or buy enough food to meet their basic energy needs suffer from
chronic
undernutrition
, or
hunger.
Many suffer from
1.
2.
Many of the world’s poor can afford only to live on a low-protein, high-carbohydrate, vegetarian diet
consisting mainly of grains such as wheat, rice, or corn causing
1.
2.
3.
A famine is a severe food shortage that can result in mass starvation, deaths, and social disruption.
Lack of vitamin A can cause children younger than age 6 to go _____________each year and double
chances of dying within a year. Having too ________________________causes
anemia which results in
fatigue, makes infection more likely, and increases a woman’s chances of dying from hemorrhage in
childbirth. Chronic lack of___________________________________________, which produces hormones
that control the body’s rate of metabolism, and can cause stunted growth, mental retardation, and goiter—a
swollen thyroid gland that can lead to deafness.
Overnutrition
occurs when food energy intake exceeds energy use and causes excess body fat. Too many
calories, too little exercise, or both can cause overnutrition. People who are underfed and underweight and
those who are overfed and overweight face similar health problems
1.
2.
3.
3.
What three systems supply most of the world’s food? Define irrigation. Distinguish among industrialized
agriculture (high-input agriculture), plantation agriculture, hydroponics, traditional subsistence agriculture,
traditional intensive agriculture, polyculture, and slash- and- burn agriculture. What are the major advantages and
disadvantages of raising food hydroponically in greenhouses? How does conventional agriculture violate the three
principles of sustainability? Define soil and describe its formation and the major layers in mature soils. What is a
green revolution? Describe industrialized food production in the United States.
Croplands
produce mostly grains,
rangelands
,
pastures
, and
feedlots
produce meat, and
fisheries
and
aquaculture
provide us with seafood.
Irrigation means supply water to crops __________________.
Industrialized agriculture
, or
high-input agriculture
a.
__________________
Plantation agriculture
is a form of industrialized agriculture used primarily in tropical developing countries.
It involves growing
cash crops
such as bananas, soybeans (mostly to feed livestock), sugarcane (to produce
sugar and ethanol fuel), coffee, palm oil (used as a cooking oil and to produce biodiesel fuel), and
vegetables. Crops are grown on large monoculture plantations, mostly for export to developed countries.
Producing such monoculture crops in the tropics increases yields but decreases ____________________
Hydroponics
involves growing plants by exposing their roots to a nutrient-rich water solution instead of
soil, usually inside of a greenhouse.
Traditional subsistence agriculture
supplements energy from the sun (for photosynthesis) with the labor of
humans and draft animals to produce enough crops for a farm family’s survival, with little left over to sell
or store as a reserve for hard times.
In
traditional intensive agriculture
, farmers increase their inputs of human and draft-animal labor, animal
manure for fertilizer, and water to obtain higher crop yields. If the weather cooperates, they produce enough
food to feed their families and have some left to sell for income. S
Many traditional farmers grow several crops on the same plot simultaneously, a practice known as
_____________________________
______________________________ agriculture is a type of polyculture. This type of subsistence
agriculture involves burning and clearing small plots in tropical forests, growing a variety of crops for a
few years until the soil is depleted of nutrients, and then shifting to other plots.
The advantages of ___________________________________ are that crops can be grown indoors under
controlled conditions almost anywhere, yields and availability are increased because crops are grown year
round, crops can be grown on rooftops, with artificial lighting, and on floating barges, thus requiring much
less land, fertilizer and water use are reduced, and the need for pesticides is diminished. The disadvantages
are the amount of capital required to start an operation, the fear of technical knowledge required, and the
opposition of well-established corporations that produce farm supplies and chemicals.
Modern industrialized agriculture violates the principles of sustainability because it relies heavily on
nonrenewable fossil fuels, does not rely on a diversity of crops as a form of ecological insurance, and
neglects the conservation and recycling of nutrients in topsoil.
Soil is a complex mixture of
. Soil formation begins when bedrock is slowly broken down into fragments and particles by physical,
chemical, and biological processes, called
___________________________
.
Most soils that have developed over a long period of time, called
______________
contain distinct
horizontal layers, or
horizons
. Most mature soils have at least _______________ of the possible horizons.
The roots of most plants and the majority of a soil’s organic matter are concentrated in a soil’s two upper
layers, the
___________horizon
of leaf litter and the
___________ horizon
of topsoil. Bacteria and other
decomposer microorganisms break down some of the soil’s complex organic compounds. The result is a
porous mixture of the partially decomposed bodies of dead plants and animals, called ______________
)
,
and inorganic materials such as clay, silt, and sand. The
____________________horizon
(
subsoil
) and the
_______________ horizon
(
parent material
) contain most of a soil’s inorganic matter, mostly broken-down
rock consisting of varying mixtures of sand, silt, clay, and gravel.
Since 1950, about ___________________ of the increase in global food production has come from using
high-input industrialized agriculture to increase yields in a process called __________________________.
See
Case Study: Industrialized Food Production in the United States.
3.
Distinguish between crossbreeding through artificial selection and genetic engineering. Describe the second
gene revolution based on genetic engineering. Describe the growth of industrialized meat production. What is
a fishery? What is aquaculture? Summarize the use of energy in industrialized food production. Why does it
result in an energy loss? [Show Less]