Geography - Food production strategies

Green revolution -Occured 1950's and 60's

Global strategy to increase food production globally and encourage self sufficency in LEDC's. Brought the intro off

• High yielding seeds
• Increase use of tech
• increase use of fertilizers and irrigation

IndiaAlthough increased food production globally - India biggest success - brink of famine 1961. Government adoped stategy. IR8 introduced -

IR8 - 9.5-10.5 tons per hectar much more than before- 300% increase in rice production - jobs created- biggest agri producer. However IR8 very expensive- debt for farmers - machinery replaced jobs - unemployment - inequalitys - poverty- mirgration - although did secure food for many

• Global population by 2050 will be 9.1 billion
• FAO estimate that food production needs to increase by 70%
• Global regional and local strategies in place
• 10.2billion undernourished - will rise if unsuccessful strategies
• Food strategies exists on a range of scales -- Local - Kenya - TC   Global - green revolution
• Divided in three sections

• Strategy - systematic plan of action
• Food security - Food security exists when all people, at all times have pyhsical and economic access to sufficent safe a nuritious food to meet dierty requirements and food preferences in order to obtian a healthy and active lifestyle
• GM crops - genetic makeup altered in a way that would not be naturally
• sustainability -able to be sustained without reducing or damaging resources
• tissue culture - the growth of tissue or cells seperate from the orginal organism

Contraversial initivative - GM crops, resist disease, drought, enhance Environmentalists argue damage environment and our health

• Greenpeace state 'inroduction of GM crops and food has been a diaster, they pose a serious threat to biodiversity and our health'
• Caused the loss of susistance farming - reliance on large agri chemical TNC's
• Problem highlighted in economic mag - All gm reseach done by TNC's
• Contiue to be used due to climate change
• Friend of earth and greenpeace protest - hold up ship in 25.1.00 with gm crops onboard

Argentina -

Since the introduction of GM crops to agrentina in 1996 the Argetine council of infromation and development for biotechnology have found that argentia has earnt 20 billion dollor from GM and created 1 million jobs. 2nd largest producer - 18 million hectares-

Introduced in the 1950 and 60's after agriculture was in decline and food supples where low after the the second world war. - people moving out of farms

Main aim was to increase food production in the EU achieved this by -

• Putting tax on imports from EU
• Setting subsidies
• gauranteeing high prices for produce
• Financial support

Costs -

58% of budget being spend on 7% of workforce in EU

Subsidies caused surplus of food- expensive to get ride off

Benifits - increase food production, set - aside land good for environment - rotation for farmers

The alliance for a green revolution africa  - Strategy to increase food production for Ghana - planning add 500$ to GDP

Strategy includes

-Increasing cultivated area in nothern region                   

-double average yields on existing land.

Breadbasket strategy in northern ghana - focusus efforts in one region as it has the potential to provide large share of ghanas food supply according to agra as it represents 41% of ghanas total land area and its high production of stable They developed recommendations on how to sustainably boast production -

• Creation of smallholder aggregation units
• Introduction of socially inclusive commerical farms
• Continued support for high value added crops
• Priortising government efforts

The breadbasket strategy will unleash the potential of ghanas smallholders farmers and boost argicultural productivity ' Said agra president Dr NGONG

Costs

up-front investment needed is estimated at approximately $110 million for aggregation units, infrastructure for commercial farms   a debt of already $5,427,000,000, if the strategy fails to succeed, it will have a devastating effect on Ghana’s economy.

• Large scale farmers may have implications on small scale farms in terms of land ownership
• Environmental - Over grazing may occur on small farms - desertification
• Deforestation may increase to make way for large scale farms

World bank said there is a link between deforestation and food insecurity as shown below

The diagram from the World Bank shows the links between climate change, deforestation and food insecurity and can be applied at a global scale as well as to specific locations such as the Colombian rainforests.

Kenya obtain most of their livelihood, foreign exhange and employment from the agricultural sector

increase in population of 3% putting strain on food production n natural resources 

• One of the biggest exports is bananas - banana production in the last two decades has declined (MOA 1994)
• Decline due to a increase by the infestation of panama disease

  To resolve the issue, local scientiests conducted reseach into tissue culture - . Tissue culture involves the growth of a cell from a plant separate from the organism. Contained in the correct conditions a single cell can produce a whole plant

Tissue culture technology in kenya has increased banana productivity from 20 to 45 tons per hectare In Chura, 150,000 tissue culture banana plants have been distributed to date. Although small scale projects are not going to solve the food security problems globally they can help solve food security issues locally, by providing produce and also exporting the crop for money.  

Disadvantage -  the diseases can be retained, causing loss of productivity in the new banana plant which would then reduce food production and thus cause food insecurity.

• there are 4 million people affected by food poverty in the UK.
• With this in mind, a community project in Leeds called Fareshare was set up in order to help tackle food poverty.
• 3.6 million tonnes of food is wasted each year in the UK, therefore Fareshares strategy is too reclaim surplus food from supermarkets (estimated 400,000) tonnes a year and make it into healthy and nutritious meals

A quote from the website states ‘

He works seven days a week in a bid to take quality food from supermarkets and suppliers that would otherwise end up being destroyed, and give it to the "food poor".  In just 12 months Fareshare West Yorkshire has provided 238,000 meals to those in need, and kept more than 100 tonnes of surplus food from landfill.

lovefoodhatewaste.com  a website providing tailored recipes as to what left over foods can be reinvented as, and also contains details on the scale of the problem and the implications of such a widespread problem of food waste.

 Supermarkets approach to waste –Sainsburys -  He informed me that the bakery had a food saving imitative. At the end of every working day, the left over bread rolls ect would be transported to the local soup kitchen in Luton, He also informed me that instead of removing stock that has gone past its best before date, they sell the stock at a decreased price.

 Morrisons have recently launched a high-profiled food saving initiative; The UK's fourth-largest grocer has unveiled a "Great Taste, Less Waste" campaign that it claims will help save families up to £600 a year. Chief executive Marc Bolland said: "The best thing that customers can do is to eat the food they buy - it's good for their wallet and good for the environment." When in the store tip cards where on show for consumers with information on how to best store their food, and advice on how to reduce food waste.

This report range and scale of strategies to increase food production to improve food security. Although many of the strategies have costs, for example the green revolution, The GM crop is heavily criticized for being harmful to the environment however it increased Indians exports of rice to 300% and reduced famines, increasing food security local, regionally and globally, and therefore the benefits out way the costs. However costs such as deforestation from strategies such as AGRA, although do not immediately affect food security, as you can see from the diagram from the world bank, deforestation eventually leads to food insecurity and therefore many will argue the strategy is not sustainable for the future and is only improving food security in the short term.

As global warming continues to have impacts on the globe, environmentalists such as Greenpeace suggest that we need to develop sustainable farming strategies for a sustainable food supply in the future. Strategies such as ‘Fareshare’ show that food production does not nesaralary have to increase. It is well documented that there is enough food to feed the world. Therefore if food is distributed equally and MEDC’s reduce their waste or use it effectively such as ‘Fareshare’ many more people across the globe could have food security.

 The answer is to use a range of strategies which are sustainable for the future, I believe more localised strategies need to be made as global strategies are very hard to achieve without local imput