Food Productions Systems

During class, we made out a little investigation about food productions systems and we followed some questions.

1. Define food security and food insecurity.

Food security is that every person in a given area has daily access to food, while food insecurity is when people have no daily access to enough nutritious food to have an active and healthy life.

2. Distinguish between undernutrition, malnutrition, and overnutrition. Describe their harmful effects.

People that suffer from undernutrition can't grow or buy enough food to meet basic needs. Suffering from undernutrition may cause mental retardation and stunted growth. Furthermore, it may cause diseases such as measles and diahrrea.

People who suffer from malnutrition live in a low-protein, high-carbohydrates, and a vegetarian diet. This may cause deficiencies of protein, calories, and other key nutrients.

People suffer from overnutrition when food energy intake exceeds energy use and causes excess body fat.

3. Describe the effects of diet deficiencies in Vitamin A, iron, and iodine.

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The lack of iodine causes stunted growth, mental retardation, and goiter, which is a swollen thyroid gland that can lead to deafness.

4. What is famine? How may it affect societies, the environment.

Famine is the shortage of food in an area accompanied by mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption.

It may affect societies by having disputes about food distribution. __

5. What three systems provide most of the world's food?

The first system is croplands, which are the grains. 77% of world's food comes from croplands using 11% of world land area. The second system are the rangelands and pastures, which produce meat, mostly from grazing livestock. This system supplies 16% of world's food and uses 29% of the world's land area. The third system are the oceanic fisheries that supply 7% of world's food.

6. Distinguish among industrialized agriculture, plantation agriculture, traditional subsistence agriculture, traditional intensiveagriculture, polyculture, and slash-and-burn agriculture.

• _
• Polyculture: this means that many plants are planed together.
• Slash-and-burn agriculture: this means to clear plots of forest in order to plant crops in the ashes.

7. What is a green revolution? What limits could these have.

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"SLASH AND BURN AGRICULTURE." College of Natural Resources and Environment. VirginaTech, 5/2/2001. Web. 13 Oct 2010. <http://www.cnr.vt.edu/lsg/intro/S&B.pdf>.