When you buy food in a supermarket, are you reminded of a farm? Not Likely. The meat is carved into pieces that no longer resemble an animal and is wrapped in paper or plastic film. Often the vegetables are canned or frozen. The milk and eggs are in cartons. Yet all foods we eat whether plant or animal must first be grown or raised on a farm or ranch, or harvested from the natural environment.
Key Issue 1: Why Do People Consume Different Foods?
Food, Agriculture, & Geography The consumption of food differs throughout the world in both total amount and source of nutrients. The differences result from a combination of three factors: level of development, physical conditions, and cultural preferences. The modern American or Canadian farm is mechanized and highly productive, especially when compared to subsistence farms found in much of the rest of the world. This difference represents one of the most basic contrasts between the more developed and less developed countries of the world.
Total Consumption of Food The amount of food an individual consumes is dietary energy consumption, measured in calories. Dietary energy consumption varies throughout the world with some areas of the world below 2,800 calories, the recommended minimum.
Global Scale: Supply & Demand Diets can be deficient in both developed and developing countries. In the United States and other parts of the world people consume more calories than the recommended minimum leading to obesity. In contrast, people in other parts of the world do not get enough to eat. In other places population growth challenges the ability of farmers to grow enough food to sustain a growing population. The threat of famine is especially severe in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.
Global Agriculture and Undernourishment The United Nations defines food security is as physical, social, and economic access at all times to safe and nutritious food sufficient to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an activity and healthy life. Ten percent of the world population is classified as not having food security.
Undernourishment Undernourishment is dietary energy consumption that is continuously below that needed for healthy life and carrying out light physical activity. As a percentage of a country’s population, undernourishment is an issue in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. According to the U.N., an estimated 803 million people in the world are undernourished, one-half of them in South Asia and East Asia (especially in India and China). India is home to one-quarter of the world’s undernourished population. Despite these statistics, progress has been made in reducing undernourishment—between 2000 and 2017, the number of undernourished people declined from 924 million to 803 million, and the global percentage decreased from 15 percent to 11 in the same period.
Food Prices The price of food, rather than food supply, has emerged as the greatest challenge to world food supply in the twenty-first century. For instance, food prices have more than doubled between 2006 and 2008, remained at record high levels through 2014, and declined sharply in 2015, and again increased in 2017. Competition among supermarkets helps to keep prices lower in developed countries.
The U.N. credits the high food prices to four factors:
Poor weather, in major crop-growing regions of the South Pacific and North America. Higher demand, especially in China and India.
Smaller growth in productivity, especially without major new “miracle” breakthroughs.
Use of crops as biofuels instead of food, especially in Latin America.
Record high food prices have resulted in record-high increases in the price of prime agricultural land. The price of an acre of farmland in Iowa increased 400 percent from $2,500 an acre in 2000 to $10,000 in 2018.
Source of Nutrients Most humans obtain most of their calories through consumption of a cereal grain, a grass that yields grain for food. Grain is the seed from a cereal grass. The three leading cereal grains are wheat, rice, and corn (maize). These three grains together account for 90 percent of all grain production and more than 40 percent of all dietary energy consumed worldwide.
Protein Protein is a nutrient needed for growth and maintenance of the human body. Many food sources provide protein of varying quantity and quality. One of the most fundamental differences between developed and developing regions is the primary source of protein. In developed countries, the leading source of protein is meat products, including beef, pork, and poultry. In most developing countries, cereal grains provide the largest share of protein.
9.1
Community supported agriculture (CSA)
A system in which a farm operation is supported by shareholders within the community who share both the benefits and risks of food production
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)
A farm where many animals are kept in tight quarters in a small area
Dietary energy consumption
The amount of food that an individual consumes, measured in kilocalories (Calories in the United States).
Extensive agriculture
Agriculture that uses small amounts of labor on a large area of land
Fertile Crescent
A crescent-shaped area in Southwest Asia where settled farming first began to emerge leading to the rise of cities
Food security
Physical, social, and economic access at all times to safe and nutritious food sufficient to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Grain
Seed of a cereal grass. Cereal grain A grass that yields grain for food.
Mediterranean climate
A climate with warm, dry summers and cool, mild winters mainly found around the Mediterranean Sea
Undernourishment
Dietary energy consumption that is continuously below the minimum requirement for maintaining a healthy life and carrying out light physical activity.