Chapter 12: Food, Soil, and Pest Management

Crops are grown without using synthetic pesticides, synthetic inorganic fertilizers, or genetically engineered seeds

Use synthetic inorganic fertilizers and sewage sludge to supply plant nutrients.

All or most people in a country have daily access to enough nutritious food to lead active and healthy lives

Chronic hunger and poor nutrition is caused by poverty, political upheaval, war, corruption, and bad weather

Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats

Vitamins and minerals

Drought, flooding, war, and other catastrophes

Excess body fat from too many calories and not enough exercise

cash crops (bananas, soybeans, sugarcane, etc). Primarily in less-developed countries

growing plants in nutrient-rich water solutions rather than soil

Human labor and draft animals for family food

Higher yields through the use of manure and water

Benefits over monoculture

Subsistence agriculture in tropical forests. Clear and burn a small plot. Grow many crops and reduce soil erosion. Less need for fertilizer and water

leaf litter

topsoil

subsoil

parent material, often bedrock

increase crop yields

Fast-growing dwarf varieties

Gradual accumulation of salts in the soil from irrigation water

Irrigation water gradually raises the water table

Borrowed from plant

Lab-produced products such as DDT and others

Pesticide use has not reduced U.S. crop loss to pests

Chemical tools to reduce crop damage to an economically tolerable level. Reduces pollution and pesticide costs