Geography 1500F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Agribusiness, Ecosystem Services, Soil Retrogression And Degradation
14 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Looking at amount of groceries different people in different countries purchase. Large differences in amounts and what people buy. What strikes you about the differences in the images: quantity of food, prices to think about, not totally representative in everyone in that country, different way people prepare food. Feed a growing global population equally. Provide livelihoods for almost half of humanity. Contribute to identity and culture: practices that make us human that centre around food, feasts, traditions, gardens, food aid and banks, sharing. Intensive agriculture: dominant in north america, high input, low labour. Traditional, low in-put agriculture: most farms in global south, low input, high labour. Upstream and downstream business: upstream: agri-inputs (seeds, fertilizers, downstream: processing, marketing. Economies of scale: more you producer the cheaper it gets to produce more units. Developing world: export based economies: colonial influence, current economic systems (loans, trade rules) changes that have increased yields for intensive agriculture. Synthetic fertilizer: expanded food supplies irrigation.
