Agriculture

Agriculture lesson 1

This blog post would just be about the link between population and agriculture. Full of 'cheem' stuff, are you ready? :)

We had a brief introduction on Agriculture, and it's basically about how population change can affect the demand for food and finally the production of food. But is there another way how population affects agriculture?

Hmm... indirectly, I guess so. I just thought of this: Population growth means more space is needed for residential purposes, and when there is not enough land, people burn down forests for the land, which means less space for agriculture (?)... Is that true?

I can't seem to find the answer on the Internet, but in the process of finding for the answer, I came across this website, http://dieoff.org/page57.htm (and all the information in this post would be from there). One of the statements says 'the growing imbalance between the world's population and the resources that support human lives'. In the article it is also mentioned 'As the world population continues to grow geometrically, great pressure is being placed on arable land, water, energy, and biological resources to provide an adequate supply of food while maintaining the integrity of our ecosystem'. I assume that the 'integrity of our ecosystem' means the minimum 'amount' of our natural supplies that must be preserved (ecosystem is the system formed by the interaction between a community of organisms and their environment). If you watch one of the videos on overpopulation in the last blog post (named population FACTS!), it explains this statement clearly. If the number of people living in the world increases, the demand for food, water and other necessecities also increase. But there is a maximum amount of supplies that the Earth can provide, and according to calculations that if this goes on the food problem would become increasingly severe, and the number of people that would be living in poverty would soar to 3 billion (in USA now, there are 1 to 2 million people that are malnourished, and 80 million in China. If the rate of population growth remains constant, the number of people would double from about 6 billion to 12 billion in 50 years time. 3 billion is 1/4 of the total population of 12 billion!)

The population growth affects the amount of food consumed and needed, and most of our food come from crops that farmers farm. So, now, here is the issue: There is a certain amount of resources that the Earth can offer, and even with the amount of land that we had years ago, there would not be enough to feed every mouth in this growing population. Did you know that for the past 40 years 1/3 of the Earth's cropland has been abandoned due to erosion (erosion makes land unproductive)? That is (believe it or not) 1.5 billion hectares being abandoned. And solving the problem takes a very long time too: 500 years to form 25 mm (2.5 cm) of soil under agricultural conditions. So where are the replacements? In the marginal and forest land (marginal land means the land that is poor-quality and is likely to yield poor crops. Examples are desert fringes in Africa and mountain areas in UK). However, the amount of such land is also declining. For example, only 0.8 hectares of cropland is left in China. The shortage of cropland plus the decreasing amount of land productivity is partly the reason why there are food shortages and human malnutrition. Other factors such as political unrest, unequal food distribution patterns and econoical insecurity also contribute.

Land is not the only issue. Shortage of water is also another major problem. Water is needed bot only for our daily lives but also for the growing of crops. Crops need lots and lots of water to grow. For example, 8 million litres of water is needed for 1 hectare of corn crop. Agriculture uses more frech water than any other human activities (87% of the world's fresh water is used on crops, and thus this amount of water cannot be replaced).

Competition for water resources is real in the world's current world population. 40% of the world's population directly compete for water resources. More than 300 cities in China are experiencing water shortage, and it is intensifying. Populus states, countries and cities withdraw more and more water from natural resources such as aquifiers, rivers and lakes every year. People who cannot get fresh water, especially so in developing countries, are robbed of health, nutrition and livelihood. 90% of diseases that happen in developing countries are caused by the lack of clean water. Every year, 4 billion cases of diseases are caused by water and 6 million people die from water-bourne diseases. Moreover, diseases and malnutrition problems for people living in urban and rural areas (3rd world countries) are very serious. The numer of people that live in such areas double every 10 to 20 years, which makes water and food pollution, food shortages and diseases increase.

PHEW! That was a whole chunk! After reading and researching about this issue, I realise how precious food and water is... and I don't even have to see heartbreaking pictures or videos (sigh... see what such cheem details can do to you....)! I have learnt that food and water is REALLY VERY precious and next time I get to eat (whcih is actually now, since it's dinner time), I shall finish every grain of rice and every drop of soup! Oh yes, and say a prayer for the world and the people suffering :) God bless!