global is at ion of food production
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Food crisis
Food prices are skyrocketing
More people are going below the
breadline The very fabric of modern society is
being threatened
What is going on?
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Industrial revolution and use of
hydrocarbons
Pre-industrialisation: Slave labour
provided energy for production.
Industrialisation: Coal and then Oil. Our industrial revolution was based on
the supply of abundant, cheap, high-
content energy from fossil fuels.
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Globalisation of food production
Specialisation has led to monoculture
farming.
Food from different parts of the world areshipped / flown around.
If food shipments are to stop tomorrow,
we would no longer be able to feed
ourselves.
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Dependence on fossil fuels
The abundance of food production were
brought about by the availability of
cheap, abundant fossil fuels. Fertilizers
Pesticides
Seeding, maintaining, harvesting,processing and transporting.
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What are hydrocarbons?
Millions of years ago, algal mats in the
ocean were formed.
Single celled plant life that dedicateditself to self-replication receiving energy
from the sun converting solar energy to
carbohydrates.
This dead algae rained down on the
ocean floor and was covered by organic
material.
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Hydrocarbons
This organic ooze was compacted and
heated over long periods of time, until
carbohydrates were eventually transformedinto what we call fossil fuels.
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Crude oil and natural gas
Where the ooze became compressedover millions of years the heat energywas transformed into crude oil.
Where it mixed with natural vegetationfrom coastal areas, it became naturalgas.
Man has managed to put them to gooduse and base all development on thesupply of this material. Fossil fuels didmake life easier for humans.
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The reasons for increasing food
prices
Large increase in population
Agriculture dependent on fossil fuel Running out of fossil fuel
Top soil loss
Water shortage Loss of soil fertility
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The green revolution
Began in the 1960s
Transformed food production into an
industry- from subsistence farming toagrobiz corporations, increased 250%.
Achieved through dependence on fossil
fuels
In response population grew far in
excess of carrying capacity.
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What happened to soil?
Intense monoculture agriculture strip soil
of nutrients.
Depleted water supplies Hydrocarbon based inputs dependent
Without this input most land is
unproductive.
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Land degradation
Soil depletion
Desertification
Destruction of tropical forests
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Land some numbers
Each year 10 million hectares are lost
5 million hectares must be added to feed
the extra 84 million born every year. In all 15 million hectares are needed
yearly to make up for losses and
increased population.
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Landsome numbers
It takes 500 years for nature to replace 1
inch of topsoil.
3000 years are required for naturalreformation of enough topsoil for
agriculture.
Globally 75 billion tons of soil is lost per
year through wind and water erosion.
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Food production without fossil fuels
Top soil loss, water table depletion,
monoculture etc has drastically reduced
capacity of land to produce food
naturally.
It is totally dependent on external inputs
from fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel is running out. We will starve
to death if we do not change.
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What about water
Modern agriculture is dependent onsecure water supply. Therefore, weirrigate.
Competition between cities andagricultural needs.
Industrial agriculture is water thirsty.
I7 % of the worlds cropland is irrigated,they produce 40 % of the harvest; two orthree crops can be produced per year.
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Watersome numbers
70 % of the Earths surface is covered in
water.
97.5% of this is salt water and only 2.5%is fresh.
Of the 2.5%, 70 % is frozen in the artics.
Only 0.007% is available for human use. 85% of all available fresh water is used
for agriculture.
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Irrigation the problem
Damage to irrigated land from:
Salinization
Waterlogging Rising cost of power to move water;
dependent on fossil fuel.
Not possible to increase land underirrigation.
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Water and urbanisation
Urbanisation competes with agriculture
for water.
Urban usage predicted to double in thenext 10 years.
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Water salinization
Artificial fertilizers in water lead toincreased algae in lakes, rivers, seasand estuaries.
Oxygen depletion takes place leading todead zones where fish, shrimp and othercreatures cannot survive.
Pesticide run off, including DDT, intoground water poses a serious threat toall life forms.
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Fossil fuel in agriculture
Agriculture needs fossil fuels for
fetilizers, irrigation, pesticides,
machinery, drying, transportation,
electricity, construction of maintenance
of farm buildings.
After production energy is needed for
packaging, delivery, refrigeration andcooking.
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Use of fossil fuels in agriculture
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Total Energy Directly and Indirectly Consumed on
U.S. Farms in 2002 was 1,7 Quadrillion Btu
Series1 8.3 2.9 3 4.6 27.3 8.6 20.7
pestici Fertiliz natural LP diesel gasoli electri
In the United States, the equivalent
of 400 gallons of oil is expended
annually to feed each US citizen.
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Fossil fuels in agriculture.
1000 litres of oil required to produce food
from one hectare of land.
6 billion pounds of pesticide(manufactured from crude) is used in the
USA every year
Fertilizer (derived from natural gas) is the
main input necessary for agriculture.
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Fossil fuels for transport
Food miles is the distance food travels from
farms to tables.
As a result of globalisation and specialisation,
food has had to travel far distances aslocalised agriculture became specialised.
In 1996, trucks in the USA alone used 6658
billion gallons of fuel.
More is used as more food is transported
across the world by air and sea transport.
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Are we eating fossil fuels?
In the last two decades, use ofhydrocarbon based pesticides andfertilizers have increased thirty-fold.
Tests showed residues of 13 pesticidesin the human body.
Our entire agricultural system is based
on the availability of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel availability is declining. Will
we survive?
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Declining supply of fossil fuels
Prediction that oil production will reach
peak by 2010.
Impact of this will be felt not only in gaspumps,
It will affect the basic component of
human life- food.
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Population and food production
The Green revolution brought about a250% increase in food production.
This led to a world population increaseto 6 billion.
We can hope that there will be a gradualdecline in population with more equitable
distribution of wealth. The earth can only sustain 2 billion
people.
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If not???
Nature can and have at intervals taken
care of reducing population. Eg. The
black plague of the 14 century that
claimed 1/3 of the European population
and nearly half of Asia.
If not, the end of the decade could see
massive starvation such as neverexperienced before.
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Food production per capita
.
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people going hungry
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