Study Guide for Chiras-chapter 10
Feeding the World's People
What 3 things do humans (and all animals) need to survive from day to day?
1.What is “intercropping”? 2. What is the definition of "Sustainable Agriculture"?
10.1 Hunger, Malnutrition, and Food Supplies.
2.What % of the world's population is undernourished or malnurourished?
3.Where do most of these people live?
4.What % of thepop. in these areas is chronically undernourished?
5.What are the 2 types of malnutrition? Write out the characteristics of each.
Why are babies with Kwashiorkor likely to become mentally retarded?
6. What % of the U.S. population is undernourished?
7. What are “infectious diseases”? 8. What occurs before age two?
9. The textbook says the world’s pop. grows each day by:
10. Draw a graph illustrating the world's per-capita grain production for
the years 1950 to now.
11. What three reasons does the author list as causes for the decline?
12. How have the grain imports by developing nations grown since 1950?
13. What happened in 1988? Why don’t you want to live in a country that imports food?
14. What are the 3 interrelated challenges the world faces today?
10.2 Understanding soi1 .
15. What is soil? 16. How is soil formed? How long does it take?
17. Define the term: Topography (hint: its not the “final soil-forming force”)
18. Soil Profile: Be able to describe the various layers of soil and rock.
19. What is humus?
10.3 Barriers to a Sustainable Agricultural System (or,It could be called:
Problems we face and must overcome in order to build a Sustainable food supply)
20. What did I tell you were the 4 reasons for declining grain/food production?
Soil erosion
21. What did Thomas Jefferson say? What did he mean by this?
22. What did Neil Sampson Say?
23. What is meant by soil erosion? How does it occur?
24. Contrast: Natural and Accelerated soil erosion.
25. Give 9 reasons why accelerated erosion is dangerous and is a pressing problem.
26. Since it was 1st founded, how much topsoil has been lost in the U.S.A.?
27. The average rate of soil erosion is:
28. What other countries, and rivers does the author mention as problem areas?
29. What % of its topsoil does the world lose every 10 years?
Desertification: turning cropland into desert.
30. What does “desertification” mean?
What kind of lands are most vulnerable?
31. What is one of nature's leading causes of desertification?
32. What 4 human causes of drought does the author mention?
33. How does global warming lead to drought?
34. He says that Overgrazing and Deforestation may cause droughts. How??
35. According to the UNEP, desertification occurs on what % and how much land area?
36. Is desertification a recent problem? Cite evidence for your answer.
37. What is the “Dust Bowl”? When did it occur? Where are there still dust bowls?
38. What part of Africa is experiencing severe desertification?
39. What is meant by: Farmland Conversion?
40. The amount of irrigated farmland per-capita is declining. What is the major
reason for this?
41. Not mentioned in the textbook is the fact that the absolute amount of
irrigated farmland is also declining. What reasons might there be for this?
42. What is meant by: Waterlogging? What is meant by: Salinization?
43. How has the varieties of rice planted in Sri Lanka and India changed?
44. What is the "Green Revolution"? When did it occur? Who was involved?
45. How did the Green Revolution affect Mexico?
46. One of our most important concerns about new crops is:
47. What happened in Ireland in 1840s? 48. Where did many modern crops originate?
49. What are “Subsidies”?
50. What are some of the “unforeseen consequences” of government subsidies?
51. What are some of the problems with “Monocultures”?
52. How has the government of Ethiopiacaused rapid soil depletion?
10.4 Solutions: Building a Sustainable Agricultural System.
53. One of the most important solutions for providing food to the growing pop. is:
54. What does "Multifaceted" mean? (look it up in the dictionary)
54a. Make a list of the 10 approaches he suggests are needed in order to obtain a sustainable agriculture. ( note: he only numbers 9in the paragraph but there are10 in the paragraph)
Protecting Existing Soil and Water Resources.
55. What are the 6 preventive measures he says we need to work on in order to build
a sustainable agriculture system?
56. For Soil Conservation, He discusses 6 strategies for accomplishing this. What are they? Be able to write a simple description of each, beginning with minimum tillage.
57. What measures might we do to prevent desertification?
58. What has China done?
59. What measures might we do to prevent loss of farmland to urbanization?
60. What does he propose to prevent further reduction of irrigated lands?
61. What does he suggest to save irrigated cropland from Waterlogging and Salinization?
62. Enrichment Programs, how can soil fertility be enhanced?
Why is operating a farm like mining the soil? What does Soil Depletion mean?
63. What are organic fertilizers?What are leguminous plants?
64. What 3 nutrients are commonly found in synthetic fertilizers?
65. What problems may arise from sole use of synthetic fertilizers? How does
66. Crop rotation help overcome this problem?
67. Which continents have the most potential for increasing farm acreage?
68. What are some of the problems associated with developing farms there?
Be sure to read the rest of this chapter. I can guarantee that there will be some question pertaining to it!
i.e. What are Hybrids? Selective breeding? Genetic Engineering? How do we protect wild plant species? What are Germ Plasm Repositories? What are alternative food sources? How much protein do fish provide us? What are some of the problems with ocean fisheries? Will you eat lower in the food chain? What reduction in beef consumption in the U.S. would feed how many people? Etc.