Food!

Humans and Nutrition

• Approximately 10,000 years ago humans stopped relying on hunting/gathering techniques and started to grow their own food (farming).

• Today the most common method of gathering food is going to the store or market and purchasing what you need and want.– But the food in the stores came from somewhere.

• Agriculture is one of the most abundant industries in the world. ~38% of all arable land is used in agriculture (meat and crops).

• World wide, we have an overproduction of food….

• Then why are so many people starving?– There are about 1billion people worldwide who do not get enough

food to eat.

Humans and Nutrition• Food Security/Insecurity:

– Having/not having access to foods that are nutritious and dietetically sound and safe.• Either economically, socially, and physically

• All farmers grow enough grain to feed 8 billion people. Grain is the most abundant dietary food available worldwide, but it is only a little more than ½ of the food we produce.

• Most of the worlds food is produced in the US, Europe/Asia and parts of S. America.

• Some of the reasons why people are still starving:– Poverty – many countries/or groups of people that do not have arable land are poor

and can not afford to purchase enough food to sustain them. (unequal food distribution)

– Political and economic factors – Refugees, people displaced by natural disasters (ie Japan) do not have access to food. Poor people often resort to violence or crime because they are hungry and want to provide for themselves or family members.

– Rise in food prices – only countries and people in developed countries are able to afford the costs of transporting food items.

• There are two types of starvation: malnourished and undernourished

Food and Nutrition

Malnourished Undernourished

Lacking a sufficient amount of protein and other nutrients (vitamins/minerals)

Not eating enough calories that can be converted into cellular energy

~1/2 world is malnourished regardless of calories consumed (usually grains)

Continual undernourishment is when a person is deprived of energy for daily living and activities.

Leads to: Kwashiorkor-lack of sufficient types of proteins especially during infancy causing underdevelopment of muscles and brain tissue

Leads to: stunted growth, brain damage, social development disorders and Marasmus (emaciation due to lack of protein).

Food and Nutrition

Feeding a growing population:Nutritional requirements

2500 calories/day/male2000 calories/day/femaleProtien 30% of caloric dietCarbs 60% of caloric dietFats <10% of caloric diet

100 spp of plants are commercially grown to meet human nutritional needs out of 350,000.3 main types: wheat, rice and corn

Wheat and rice – ½ of human caloric intake worldwide Corn – main nutritional supplement for feed industry

Food & Nutrition

Cont.8 spp of animal protein supply 90% of the world’s

meat.Takes 16lbs of grain to produce 1lb of meat.20% of the world’s richest countries consume 80% of

the world’s meat production.90% of U.S.’s grain is used for animal feed.

Agriculture

Main Types: (we will be discussing each in detail) Industrial Organic Plantation Subsistence Monoculture Polyculture

Industrialized agriculture

Shifting cultivation

Plantation agriculture

Nomadic herding

Intensive traditional .

No agriculture

Agriculture

• Industrial Agriculture:– High yield/ High In-put agriculture. Usually from large scale

monocultures.• Use of heavy equipment, fossil fuels, water, commercial fertilizers

and pesticides.• Large financial capital is involved.• Produces ~80% of the world’s food.

• Plantation Agriculture:– Industrialized Tropical agriculture

• Mainly in LEDCs• Cash crops such as bananas, soybeans, sugarcane, coffee, palm oil,

and vegetables.

Agriculture

• Traditional Agriculture: (Polyculture)– Two types

• Subsistence farming – growing and harvesting enough food for your family to survive. With little extra for sale or storage.

• Intensive Farming – subsistence with the intent of increasing yield for capital gain. Using fertilizer, water and pest control, labor (human and animal).

• Slash-and-burn - type of subsistence used to increase land area of trees and brush in tropical forests for crops and animals. – Within a few years – depletion of nutrients in soil will cause the

people to abandon the land and leave it fallow if not shown how to grow sustainably.

Aquaculture

• Raising large numbers of fish and shellfish in ponds and cages is the world’s fastest growing type of food production.

• Fish farming:– involves cultivating fish in a controlled environment and

harvesting them in captivity.• Fish ranching:– involves holding anadromous species that live part of their

lives in freshwater and part in saltwater.– Fish are held for the first few years, released, and then

harvested when they return to spawn.– Ex: Alaskan Salmon, Pacific Salmon

Fisheries and sustainability

Aquaculture Pros Cons

High efficiency

High yield in small volume of water

Can reduce overharvesting of conventional fisheries

Low fuel use

High profits

Profits not tied to price of oil

Needs large inputs of land, feed, and water

Large waste output

Destroys mangrove forests and estuaries

Uses grain to feed some species

Dense populations vulnerable to disease

Tanks too contaminated to use after about 5 years

Issues with Fisheries

• No nation lays claim to open ocean– Resource susceptible to

overuse and degradation• Overharvesting– Many species are at point of

severe depletion– Cod (right)– 62% of world’s fish stock are

in need of management action

Issues with Fisheries

• Overharvesting (continued)– Sophisticated

fishing equipment– Bycatch killed off– Magnuson

Fisheries Conservation Act

Issues with Fisheries

• Ocean Pollution - dumping ground– Oil– Heavy metals– Deliberate litter dumping– Stormwater runoff from cities and agricultural

areas• Aquaculture– Growing of aquatic organisms for human

consumption– Great potential to supply food

AgricultureSeed Security:

Green Revolution – - in the 50’s scientists came up with a way to make a genetically modified seed (GMO). In this they were able to make a higher yield on crops in a smaller amount of land.- seeds were better resistant to pests, weather and other ailments. - this led to the industrial agriculture we know today.- Large corporations then patented the seeds and bought farmers to grow them. In a monocultural farm community.- In the 60’s and 70’s many farmers and environmentalists started to rebel against the process of GMOs and Industrial farming with lots of corporate backlash. Which led to organic farming methods being used once again in smaller areas and a way of life for many (tree huggers) naturalists.- Today the process of the Green Revolution is still in affect. Corporations are still controlling the seed industry and most of the farming practices in the US. Which can cause the soil to be depleted of nutrients and higher cases of contamination in crops as pests and diseases become immune to pesticides and fertilizers.

Green Revolution

High Yielding Rice Varieties

GMO Engineering• Specifically manipulating the genes of one species and incorporating

them into another species.

The Issues of GMO’s

• Determined to be safe for human consumption

• Concerns about GMO seed or pollen spreading in wild

• Backlash against GMOs in general (messing with nature)

• GMOs are not currently labeled in the US– FDA finds it would be counterproductive and

expensive to label

Issues of GMO’s• 64 Countries that label GMOs:

– Australia Austria Belarus Belgium Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Cameroon China Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Ecuador El Salvador Estonia Ethiopia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Italy Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Poland Portugal Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Senegal Slovakia Slovenia South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Tunisia Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Vietnam

• 2 MED countries that don’t label for GMOs:– United States and Canada

- See more at: http://justlabelit.org/right-to-know/labeling-around-the-world/#sthash.a4AzNLNz.dpuf