Managing food production

Managing food production

The human population is increasing- very quickly, so there are more mouths to feed. In order to make enough food, we need to produce it mroe efficiently.

The efficiency of food production can be improved by...

1) Reducing the number of stages in the food chain

1) There's less energy and less biomass every time you move up a stage in the food chain.

2) So for a given area of land, you can produce a lot more food(for humans) by growing crops rather than by having grazing animals. This is because you are reducing the number of stages in the food chain. Only 10% of what beef cattle eat becomes useful meat for people to eat.

3) However, people do need to eat a varied diet to stay healthy, and there's still a lot of demand for meat products. Also remember that some land is unsuitable for growing crops, e.g. moorland and hillsides. In these places animals like sheep and deer might be the best way to get food from the land.

2) Restricting the energy lost by farm animals

1) In civilised…