Food Production and Sustainable Agriculture

Module 8 (10/20–10/26) · Food Production and Sustainable Agriculture · Blueprint Pillar 3 · PGCC Outcome 3 · Download .docx

Objectives

Describe the Green Revolution's benefits and costs.
Explain how monoculture and soil degradation threaten long-term food security.
Explain eutrophication and dead zones.
Compare conventional, organic, and IPM farming strategies.

Key terms

Green Revolution: Mid-20th century agricultural transformation that increased yields through high-yield varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation.
Monoculture: Agricultural practice of planting a single crop species over a large area.
Soil degradation: Decline in soil quality due to erosion, compaction, nutrient depletion, or salinization.
Eutrophication: Nutrient enrichment of a water body (usually nitrogen and phosphorus) leading to algae blooms and oxygen depletion.
Dead zone (hypoxic zone): Area of water so depleted in dissolved oxygen that most marine life cannot survive.
Pesticide resistance: Genetic change in a pest population that makes it less susceptible to a previously effective pesticide.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM): Strategy combining biological, cultural, mechanical, and chemical methods to minimize pesticide use while controlling pests.
Organic farming: Agricultural system that avoids synthetic chemicals and builds soil health through natural methods.
Food security: Consistent access by all people to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food.
Cover crop: Plant grown between cash crop seasons to protect soil from erosion and add organic matter.
Crop rotation: Practice of alternating different crops on the same land to maintain soil health and disrupt pest cycles.
GMO (genetically modified organism): Organism whose genome has been altered using genetic engineering to express desired traits.

The concept

The Green Revolution of the 1940s–1970s dramatically increased food production in developing countries through high-yield crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation. It averted widespread famine but created new dependencies on fossil fuel inputs and introduced large-scale monoculture agriculture.

Monoculture — planting a single crop species over large areas — maximizes short-term efficiency but reduces genetic diversity, making crops vulnerable to pests, disease, and drought. Soil degradation (erosion, compaction, salinization, nutrient depletion) reduces long-term productivity. Fertilizer runoff causes eutrophication: excess nitrogen and phosphorus feed algae blooms that die, decompose, and deplete oxygen, creating dead zones like the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) combines biological controls, crop rotation, and targeted pesticide use to minimize chemical application. Organic farming builds soil health through compost, cover crops, and rotation without synthetic chemicals. Food security requires that all people have consistent physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food.

Self-check

Try each one before you look. A miss here costs nothing and tells you exactly what to reread.

1. Eutrophication in a water body is most directly caused by:

2. Monoculture farming increases crop vulnerability because:

3. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) differs from conventional pesticide-intensive farming in that IPM:

4. Pesticide resistance develops in pest populations because:

5. Soil salinization, a form of soil degradation, is primarily caused by:

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