Food security and modern farming
Food security is the ability of a population to access enough safe, nutritious food. The challenge: feeding ~8 billion people while protecting biodiversity and the climate.
Why is food security threatened?
The AQA spec lists six main factors:
- Increasing birth rate in some countries — more mouths to feed.
- Changing diets — increasing demand for meat and dairy in developing countries (less efficient than plant-based diets — see B7.8).
- New pests and pathogens affecting farming, often spread by climate change.
- Environmental change — droughts, floods, soil degradation.
- Cost of agricultural inputs — fertiliser, fuel, machinery.
- Conflict — wars and political instability disrupt farming and supply chains.
Sustainable food production
Sustainable food production aims to provide food in a way that doesn't degrade ecosystems for future generations.
Sustainable fisheries
Wild fish stocks are limited. To prevent collapse:
- Quotas — legal limits on how much can be caught.
- Net-mesh size — large enough to let young fish escape and breed.
- Closed seasons during breeding times.
A famous example: cod stocks off Newfoundland collapsed in the 1990s due to overfishing; quotas reversed the trend, but recovery has been slow.
Sustainable agriculture
- Crop rotation — different crops in different years, maintains soil fertility.
- Mixed farming — animal manure fertilises crops.
- Reduced fertiliser use — only when needed, in appropriate amounts.
- Cover crops — reduce erosion and suppress weeds.
Biotechnology in food production
Biotech offers new ways to produce more food in less space:
Mycoprotein (Quorn)
Fusarium fungus is grown in fermenters on glucose syrup. The fungus is harvested and processed into a high-protein meat substitute. Fermentation conditions:
- Sterile.
- Constant temperature, pH, and oxygen.
- Glucose and ammonia provided.
Advantages: high yield per land area; can use industrial waste as feedstock; lower water and CO₂ footprint than meat.
GM crops (B6.7)
- Disease/pest resistance — higher yields.
- Drought tolerance — important for changing climate.
- Vitamin enrichment (golden rice).
Intensive vs traditional farming — trade-offs
| Feature | Intensive | Sustainable / traditional |
|---|---|---|
| Yield | High | Lower |
| Inputs (fertiliser, water) | High | Low |
| Biodiversity | Low (often monoculture) | Higher |
| Greenhouse gases | High (per area) | Lower |
| Animal welfare | Often poor | Often better |
A common exam question: weigh up costs and benefits of one approach over the other.
Required practical context — investigate plant growth
Common school experiment: grow plants in different concentrations of fertiliser and measure growth. Used to discuss optimal fertiliser use (and avoid excess that pollutes water → eutrophication, B7.5).
⚠Common mistakes
- Saying "biotech = bad / good". It has both benefits (yield, nutrition) and concerns (long-term effects, ownership of seeds).
- Treating food security as just "amount of food". Access (price, distribution) matters as much as production.
- Forgetting fishery quotas can have economic costs for fishing communities.
- Saying mycoprotein comes from a plant. It comes from a fungus (Fusarium).
Links
Connects all of B7 — biodiversity, climate, biomass transfer all impact food security. Built on B6.7 (GM crops) and B6.8 (cloning) for biotech approaches.
AI-generated · claude-opus-4-7 · v3-deep-biology