Guiding Question: How can we produce enough food for a rapidly

LESSON

Food Production
growing population while sustaining our ability to produce it?

Explain why the world needs to grow more food

and to grow it sustainably.
Discuss genetically modified food.
Describe the advantages and disadvantages of
industrial food production.
Discuss sustainable agriculture.

Reading Strategy Before reading, create a three-column

KWL chart. In the first column, write what you know about
global food production. In the second column, write what
you want to know. After you read the lesson, write what you
learned in the third column.
Vocabulary arable land, food security, malnutrition,
genetic engineering, genetically modified (GM) organism,
biotechnology, feedlot, aquaculture, seed bank,
sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture

Each year, Earth gains about 75 million people and loses 5 million

to 7 million hectares (12 million to 17 million acres) of productive cropland. We can expect a world population of 9 billion by 2050. In order to
feed the growing human population, we will likely need to increase agricultural production. We cannot keep expanding agriculture into new areas,
because arable land, or land suitable for farming, is running out. Especially
in drier regions, degraded soil has made raising crops and livestock more
difficult. We must find ways to increase food production in areas that are
already being used for agriculture and to do so in ways that maintain the
health of our soils and ecosystems. This could involve approaches as diverse
as the use of genetically modified crops and organic farming.

Food Security
Because hunger continues and the population is growing, we
need to find a way to increase food production sustainably.
Despite increases in global food production, there are still hundreds of
millions of hungry people. Feeding them will require that we continue
improvements in food production and distribution while protecting our
soil and ecosystems.

Food Production Since 1961, despite the loss of arable land, our

ability to produce food has grown faster than the human population. We
have increased food production by devoting more fossil fuel energy to
agriculture; by planting and harvesting more frequently; by increasing
the use of irrigation, fertilizers, and pesticides; by increasing the amount
of cultivated land; and by developing more productive crop and livestock
varieties. But the worlds soils are in decline, and nearly all the planets
arable land is already being farmed. Just because agricultural production
has outpaced population growth so far, there is no guarantee that it will
continue to do so.

12.4 LESSON PLAN PREVIEW

Differentiated Instruction
Struggling students use a graph
to better understand trends in
global food production.
Inquiry Students investigate
traditional and industrial agriculture.
Real World Students research
locally supported agriculture in
their own communities.

12.4 RESOURCES
Bellringer Video, Fish Farms of the
Future Graph It, Animal Food Products and Feed Input Lesson 12.4
Worksheets Lesson 12.4 Assessment
Chapter 12 Overview Presentation
FOCUS Watch the ABC
News video Fish Farms of
the Future. Use the video to
launch a discussion on the
importance of balancing food
production and sustaining the
ecosystems in which the food
is produced.

Soil and Agriculture 373

BIG QUESTION
Growth relative to 1961 levels
(population by number of people;
food production by weight)

How can we balance our growing

demand for food with our need to
protect the environment?
Interpretation Ask students to think
about the following question: How
are the food production methods
used by one generation related to
the nutrition of future generations?
To develop their responses, students
will need to apply what they learned
about soil degradation, pollution,
and desertification in Lesson 2 to the
information in Lesson 4.

Global Agricultural Food Production

4.5
World population
Vegetables
Fruits
Grains
Roots and tubers
Other food crops

4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
1960

1970

1980
Year

1990

2000

Data from U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Figure 20 Rising Food Production Global food production rose by more than
two and a half times in the last 50 years, even faster than the world population.
Production of all types of foods, particularly vegetables, has increased since 1961.

And despite the rise in food production (Figure 20), 1 billion people
are still hungry. So agricultural scientists and policymakers are aggressively pursuing the goal of food security, the guarantee of an adequate
and reliable food supply for all people at all times. Making the food supply secure depends on maintaining healthy soil and water, protecting the
biodiversity of food sources, and ensuring the safe distribution of food.

Undernourishment and Malnutrition Most people who are

Figure 21 Malnutrition
Millions of people suffer from
hunger and the diseases it can lead
to. This woman has kwashiorkor.
ANSWERS

Reading Checkpoint Maintaining

healthy soil and water, protecting
the biodiversity of food sources, and
ensuring safe food distribution
374 Lesson 4

undernourished, receiving less than 90 percent of their daily caloric

needs, live in the developing world. For most people who are undernourished, the reasons are economic. Hunger is a problem even in the United
States. In 2007, the Department of Agriculture classified 36 million
Americans as food insecure, or lacking the income required to obtain
sufficient food at all times.
Just as the quantity of food a person eats is important for health, so is
the quality of food. Malnutrition, a shortage of nutrients the body needs,
occurs when a person fails to obtain a healthy variety or quantity of nutrients. Malnutrition can lead to disease. When people eat too little protein, a
disease called kwashiorkor results. Kwashiorkor causes bloating of the abdomen, poor hair quality, skin problems, mental disability, lowered immunity,
developmental delays in children, and anemia (Figure 21). Protein deficiency and a lack of calories can lead to marasmus, which causes wasting
of the muscles and many other physical and mental problems. It is most
prevalent among children in developing nations.
Reading
Checkpoint

What are three essential steps to global food security?

Genetically Modified Organisms

Genetically modified food is a promising way to increase food
production, but there needs to be more research into potential risks.
Industrial agriculture has enabled us to feed more people, but our continuing population growth demands still more innovation. Some potential solutions arose in the 1980s. For the first time, advances in genetics
enabled scientists to directly alter the genes of organisms, including crop
plants and livestock. This gene revolution could improve world nutrition
and the efficiency of agriculture while lessening impacts on ecosystems.
But because it is new, it may also pose unexpected risks.

Genetic Modification Any process in which scientists directly

manipulate an organisms DNA is called genetic engineering. Organisms

that have undergone genetic engineering are often called genetically
modified (GM) organisms. GM organisms are engineered using a technique called recombinant DNA technology. Recombinant DNA is DNA
taken from multiple organisms and pieced together, or recombined. In
this process, scientists place genes that code for desired traits into the
genomes of organisms lacking those traits. Rapid growth, pest resistance, and frost tolerance are commonly engineered traits in crop plants.
Animals can also be genetically modified. For example, the goats in
Figure 22 have been engineered to give milk that can be processed into a
drug that treats people whose blood clots abnormally.
The creation of genetically modified organisms is one aspect of
biotechnology, the use of genetic engineering to introduce new genes
into organisms to produce more valuable products. Biotechnology has
helped us develop medicines, clean up pollution, understand the causes
of diseases, dissolve life-threatening blood clots, and improve crops and
livestock.
Reading
Checkpoint

In your own words, define genetically modified organism.

ANSWERS

Reading Checkpoint Sample

answer: A genetically modified
organism is one whose DNA has
undergone genetic engineering
using recombinant DNA technology.

Figure 22 Genetically
Modified Organisms
These goats look perfectly
normal. But their milk can
produce a drug that treats
people with abnormal
blood clotting. (Because the
substances are produced
only in the goats mammary
glands, the goats are not
harmed.)
Soil and Agriculture 375

Figure 23 GM Crops Are

Everywhere The United States
devotes the most land area to GM
crops.

GM Crops by Nation
Argentina
(16.8%)

Brazil (12.6%)

Canada (6.1%)
United States
(50.0%)

India (6.1%)
China (3.0%)
19 other nations (5.4%)

Data is for 2008, from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). 2009.

GM Crops Are Everywhere Many GM crops today are engineered

to resist herbicides, so that farmers can kill weeds without worrying about
killing their crops. Other crops are engineered to resist insect attack
(often with the bacterium Bt, which you learned about in Lesson 3). Some
are modified to resist both. Plants that are resistant to both herbicides
and pests make it more efficient, and in some cases more economical, for
large-scale commercial farmers to do their jobs. As a result, sales of GM
seeds to these farmers in the United States and other developed nations
have risen quickly.
The United States alone grows about half of the global total of GM
crops, as Figure 23 shows. Today 85 percent of the U.S. corn harvest
and more than 90 percent of U.S. soybeans, cotton, and canola crops are
genetically modified strains. In the United States, 41 percent of corn and
cotton crops are engineered for more than one trait. Worldwide, 70 percent of soybean crops are genetically modified, as are 25 percent of corn
crops, 20 percent of canola crops, and nearly 50 percent of cotton crops.

Potential Risks As GM crops were adopted, as research proceeded,

and as biotechnology expanded, many citizens, scientists, and policymakers became concerned. Some feared the new foods might be dangerous for people to eat. Others worried that pests would evolve resistance
to the pest-resistant crops and become superpests. Still others were
concerned that GM genes might escape, pollinating non-GM plants and
harming those organisms or others.
That last concern is supported by evidence. A GM grass plant not yet
approved by the USDA pollinated wild grass 21 kilometers (13 miles)
away from its test growing site in Oregon. Because of this and similar
events, such as the discovery of transgenes in Oaxaca, most scientists
think GM genes will inevitably make their way from GM crops into wild
plants. The consequences (or lack thereof) of this potential event are still
being hotly debated, however. Because GM technology is new and changing, scientists are still learning about it. Millions of people eat GM foods
every day without obvious signs of harm, and evidence for negative environmental effects is limited so far. Nevertheless, more research is needed
before we can dismiss all concerns about GM foods.

376 Lesson 4

Potential Benefits Supporters of GM crops maintain that no ill

health effects on people have been demonstrated and that GM crops are,
in fact, beneficial for people and the environment. For example, growing
insect-resistant Bt crops reduces the use of chemical insecticides, because
farmers use fewer chemicals if their crops do not need them.
Researchers and biotechnology industry supporters also claim other
environmental benefits from GM crops. They say these crops reduce carbon emissions for two reasons: (1) if crops need fewer pesticide applications, then the equipment used to apply pesticides uses less fuel; and (2)
if herbicide-resistant crops encourage the adoption of no-till farming,
then more carbon (in remnants of plants) remains in the soil and is not
released to the atmosphere. One GM crop research agency estimated that
in 2007, GM crops prevented carbon emissions equivalent to those of
6.3 million cars.

What Do
you think?
Some people think GM products
in the United States should be
labeled. Given that 70 percent
of processed food now contains
GM ingredients, labeling would
be more expensive for the food
companies, a cost that might be
passed on to the consumer. Do you
want GM food to be labeled in the
United States? Explain your answer.

The Promise of GM Foods But so far, GM crops have not lived up

to their promise of feeding the worlds hungry. Nearly all commercially

available GM crops have either pesticidal properties (for example, Bt) or
herbicide tolerance (Figure 24). These traits help primarily large-scale,
commercial farmers in developed nations. Crops with GM traits that
might benefit poor small-scale farmers in developing nationsincreased
nutrients, drought tolerance, and salinity tolerancehave not been
widely developed. This may be because corporations have little economic
incentive to develop such cropsfarmers in developing nations cannot
afford to buy expensive GM seed every year. Whereas the green revolution was a largely public venture, the gene revolution seems to be largely
driven by financial concerns of private corporations.
But environmental activists, policymakers, scientists, and big corporations all agree that lack of food security is a problem and that agriculture
should be made more environmentally friendly. They only disagree on
appropriate responses to those challenges and the risks that each response
would present. Clearly, the future of GM foods will depend on a great
diversity of human concerns.
Reading
Checkpoint

ANSWERS

What Do You Think? Opinions will

vary but should be supported with
facts.
Reading Checkpoint Todays GM
crops have traits designed to help
commercial farmers in developed
nations, not to provide the increased
nutrients, drought tolerance, or
salinity tolerance that would aid food
production in developing nations.

 hy are todays GM crops unlikely to help feed poor people in

W
developing nations?

Figure 24 Herbicide-Resistant
Crops This field of herbicideresistant soybeans is being sprayed
with an herbicide to kill weeds.
Soil and Agriculture 377

Industrial Food Production

Feedlots, aquaculture, and other methods of industrial food production are efficient, but they have disadvantages.
Plant foods make up a large portion of the human diet, but most of us also eat
animal products such as meat, fish, milk, and eggs. Raising plants and animals
for food affects the environment no matter how it is done. And the larger the
scale of the food production, the larger the impact. Feedlots, aquaculture, and
crop monocultures are typical methods of industrial food productionthe
large-scale food production by large corporations. All of these methods have
positive and negative environmental impacts.
Figure 25 Global Meat and Seafood Consumption Per

capita consumption of meat has risen steadily worldwide.

Feedlots (background), which are very efficient, and aquaculture
may be required in order to meet the demand.

World meat and seafood

production (kg per
person per year)

Global Meat and Seafood Consumption

40

Meat

30

20

Seafood

10
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Year

Data from U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Feedlots Worldwide, the number of animals

raised for food rose from 7.2 billion to 24.3 billion

between 1961 and 2007. Since 1950, global meat
production has increased by a factor of five, and
global meat and seafood consumption per person
has nearly doubled since 1960, as you can see in
the graph in Figure 25.
This growth is both a cause and an effect of
industrial agriculture. In traditional agriculture,
livestock were kept by farming families near
their homes or were grazed on open grasslands
by ranchers or herders. These traditions have
survived, but industrial agriculture offers a new
method. Feedlots, also known as concentrated
animal feeding operations or factory farms, are
basically huge warehouses or pens designed to
deliver energy-rich food to livestock or poultry.
Today, more than half of the worlds pork and
poultry comes from feedlots, as does much of its
beef, including most U.S. beef.
Feedlot operations allow for a
greater, more efficient production of food and are
necessary for a nation with a high level of meat
consumption like the United States. Feedlots also
have a clear benefit for the environmentcattle
and other grazers in feedlots do not degrade soil
through overgrazing. Imagine the environmental effects of grazing 10 million cattle across the
United States!
Feedlots also reduce the need for chemical
fertilizers. One dairy cow can produce 20,400
kilograms (9250 pounds) of waste in a year.
Some feedlots hold 100,000 cattle. Where does
all that manure go? Feedlot manure is often
applied to farm fields as fertilizer.

Advantages

378 Lesson 4

Improper management of feedlot manure, however,

can lead to illnesses in feedlot animals and in humans and other animals,
often through contamination of bodies of water. Also, because feedlot
animals often live in crowded, dirty conditions, the animals need to be
given heavy doses of antibiotics to control disease. These antibiotics may
make their way into the people who eat animal products. The antibiotics
may also leach into groundwater or run off into surface water, affecting
ecosystems. In addition, heavy use of antibiotics makes it more likely that
bacteria will evolve resistance to them, making the antibiotics less effective. Cattle are also often given steroids to promote growth, and these can
also pass into surface water or groundwater through manure.
Some people also question the treatment of animals in feedlots,
where they are often packed so densely that they cannot move around or
interact normally with other animals. Some animals show signs of stress,
such as chickens that peck themselves or others and pigs that chew their
neighbors tails.
Although feedlots have many disadvantages, they are probably a necessary evil. And negative impacts can be lessened if a feedlot is properly
managed. To help ensure proper management, the Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies regulate U.S. feedlots.

Disadvantages

Aquaculture Not all of our food is grown or raised on land, of course.

People also eat aquatic organisms. Fish populations are decreasing

throughout the worlds oceans as increased demand and new technologies
have allowed us to overharvest many species. Aquaculture, or fish farming, is the raising of aquatic organisms for food in a controlled environment. It may be the only way to meet the increasing demand. Aquaculture
is now the fastest-growing type of food production. We raise five times
more food from it than we did 20 years ago. Aquaculture provides one
third of the aquatic animals that are eaten by humans, and more than
220 species are farmed. Aquaculture has great benefits, and it can be
practiced sustainably, but it also has risks (Figure 26).

Global Aquaculture Production

by Group
Other aquatic
animals
2.6%

Fish
48%

Crustaceans
7.4%

Aquatic
plants
22.3%

Mollusks
19.7%

Data from U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. 2008.

The state of world fisheries and aquaculture.

Aquaculture
Costs

Diseases spread easily through

dense populations, reducing
production and profit

Produces enormous amounts of

waste that may pollute water
outside of farm

Escaped organisms may spread

disease to wild animals

Escaped organisms (such as large

GM salmon) may outcompete wild
animals and threaten wild
populations

Benefits

On small scale, ensures local

people a reliable protein source

Can be sustainable for example,

fish scraps make excellent fertilizer

Reduces harvesting of declining

wild aquatic animals

Reduces by-catch, the unintended

death of nontarget animals

Uses less fossil fuel than fishing

vessels do

Provides a safer work environment

than commercial fishing does

Figure 26 Aquaculture Costs and

Benefits Many different species of
aquatic animals are raised for food
(graph above). Like all methods of
raising food, aquaculture has costs and
benefits (left). For example, GM salmon
can be 5 to 50 times larger than wild
salmon of the same species (above)
and may outcompete them if they
were to meet in the wild.
Soil and Agriculture 379

Effects on Plant Diversity As you recall, the efficiency of industrial

agriculture relies on monocultures. That means that a disease or pest that
specializes in a specific plant could wipe out an entire crop. One concern
many people have about GM crops is that GM genes might move by pollination into wild relatives of crop plants, outcompete them, and force
them into extinction. If that were to happen, we could eventually be left
with a monoculture in the wild as well as on the farms. Then an especially
dangerous pest could destroy all our cornGM, conventional, and wild.
This would be devastating to the global food supply. But if we still had
wild varieties that the pest had not evolved with, those varieties might be
less susceptible to the pest. We could save our cornand many lives.
Figure 27 Animal Food Products
and Resource Use When we choose
what to eat, we are also choosing how
to use resources. The illustrations in
this figure are sized according to the
amount of land or water required
to produce protein from the given
animal source. Beef requires by far the
most land and water.

Beef (245.0 m2)

We have already lost a great deal of genetic diversity in our

crop plants. Since 1930, the number of Mexicos native maize varieties,
from which all of todays corn varieties descend, has decreased by
70 percent. In the United States, we have lost most of our fruit and
vegetable varieties90 percent in less than a century.
A major cause of this loss of diversity is that market
forces have discouraged diversity. For example, large
food processing and distributing companies prefer
items that are of similar size and shape and that are less
likely to be damaged during long-distance shipping. For
example, many large farms grow the same tomato varieties, often smaller ones with thicker skins, because it is
easier to ship them. So next time you are disappointed in
the taste of a tomato, check where it was grown. If it was
grown more than a couple hundred kilometers away, it
might have been grown for thick skinnot flavor!

Losses

Protecting areas with high plant

diversity is one way to preserve the genetic diversity
of our crops. Another is to collect and store seeds
from diverse crop varieties. This is what seed banks
do. Seed banks are organizations that preserve seeds
of diverse plants as a kind of insurance policy against
a global crop collapse. Seed banks periodically grow
plants from their seeds to harvest fresh seeds. The
Royal Botanic Gardens Millennium Seed Bank in
England holds more than 1 billion seeds, including
seeds from 10 percent of the worlds plantsmore
than 24,000 species. They aim to collect seeds from
25 percent of the worlds plants by 2020.

Preservation

Pork
(90.0 m2)

Eggs
Chicken
(22.0 m2) (14.0 m2)

Milk
(23.5 m2)

(a) Land required to produce 1 kg of protein

Beef (750 kg)

Energy Efficiency Our food choices are also

Pork
(175 kg)

Eggs
(15 kg)

Chicken
(50 kg)

Milk
(250 kg)

(b) Water required to produce 1 kg of protein

Data from Smil, V. 2001. Feeding the world: A challenge for the twenty-first century.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

380 Lesson 4

energy choices. We have discussed the use of fossil

fuels in industrial agriculture. But what we choose to
eat also affects how efficiently we use the suns energy.
Recall that every time energy moves from one trophic
level to the next, as much as 90 percent of the energy
is lost, mainly as heat.

Feed
input

Output
(edible weight)
Beef

20.0 kg

Figure 28 Animal Food Products

and Feed Input It requires much
more feed to produce a kilogram
of meat than it does to produce a
kilogram of eggs or milk.

1 kg
Animal Food Production
and Food Policy

Pork
7.3 kg

1 kg
Chicken

4.5 kg

1 kg

2.8 kg

1 kg

1.1 kg

1 kg

Eggs

Milk

Data from Smil, V. 2001. Feeding the world: A challenge for the twenty-first
century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

For example, if we feed grain to a cow and then eat beef from the cow,
we have lost 90 percent of the energy in the grain to the cows metabolism. For this reason, the production of meat for food is extremely inefficient, as you can see in Figures 27 and 28.

Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable alternatives to industrial agriculture include
organic agriculture and locally supported agriculture.
Industrial agriculture can have many adverse environmental impacts,
from the degradation of soils to reliance on fossil fuels to problems arising from pesticide use, genetic modification, and feedlot and aquaculture
operations. Although industrial agriculture helps relieve certain environmental pressures, it aggravates others. Industrial agriculture seems necessary to feed our planets almost 6.8 billion people, but we may be better
off in the long run by practicing other methods as well.
Farmers and researchers have made great advances toward sustainable agriculture in recent years. Sustainable agriculture is agriculture
that does not deplete soil faster than it forms. It also does not reduce the
amount or quality of soil, water, and genetic diversity essential to longterm crop and livestock production. Simply put, it is agriculture that can
be practiced in the same way far into the future.
Soil and Agriculture 381

USDA Organic Criteria

For crops to be considered organic

For livestock to be considered organic

The land where they are grown must be free of prohibited substances
for at least 3 years.
They must not be genetically engineered.
They must not be treated with radiation (to kill bacteria).
The use of sewage sludge is prohibited.
They must be produced without fertilizer containing synthetic
ingredients, except those approved by the National Organic Standards
Board.
Use of most conventional pesticides is prohibited.
Use of organic seeds and other planting stock is preferred.
Pests, weeds, and diseases should be controlled without synthetic
substances except those approved by the National Organic Standards
Board.

Mammals must be raised organically from the

last third of gestation; poultry, from the second
day of life.
Livestock must be fed 100% organic feed;
vitamin and mineral supplements are allowed.
Existing dairy herds must be fed 80% organic
feed for 9 months, followed by 3 months of
100% organic feed.
Use of hormones or antibiotics is prohibited,
although vaccines are permitted.
Animals must have access
to the outdoors.

Data from the National Organic Program. 2002. Organic production and handling standards. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Figure 29 USDA Organic

Certification In 2000, the USDA
compiled a list of criteria food must
meet to be certified organic. The USDA
Organic seal indicates the departments
certification.
ANSWERS

Lesson 4 Assessment
1. Hunger still exists and the world
population is growing. The methods
need to be sustainable, because we
need to continue growing food.
2. A GM organism is one whose
genetic material has been directly
manipulated by scientists; questions will vary, but should allude to
possible environmental and health
impacts.
3. Advantages: it produces a lot of
food efficiently, and feedlots keep
millions of cattle from overgrazing our grasslands; disadvantages:
feedlots produce a lot of waste
containing bacteria, steroids, and
other drugs given to cattle, which
can pass into water supplies; treatment of animals in feedlots may be
questionable.
4. Opinions will vary but should be
well reasoned and based on facts.
5. Reasons will vary but should allude
to the fossil fuels used to ship food
long distances and the economic
benefits of supporting ones own
region.

382 Lesson 4

Organic Agriculture Sustainable agriculture that uses smaller

amounts of pesticides, fertilizers, growth hormones, water, and fossil

fuel energy than are currently used in industrial, high-input agriculture
is often called low-input agriculture. Food-growing practices that use no
synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, or herbicidesbut instead
rely on biological approaches such as composting and biological pest
controlare called organic agriculture.
Citizens, government officials, farmers, and the agricultural industry
debated the meaning of the word organic in this context for many years.
In 1990, Congress passed the Organic Food Production Act, establishing
standards for organic products and facilitating the sale of organic food. As
required by that law, the USDA in 2000 issued criteria by which it would
certify crops and livestock as organic (Figure 29). These standards went
into effect in 2001.
Organic foods once made up just a tiny proportion of food
sales, but the market is increasing sharply. Although organic foods
accounted for only about 3.5 percent of food purchases in the United
States in 2008, that represents an increase of 200 percent since 1999just
nine years! Many consumers favor organic products because they are concerned that consuming produce grown with pesticides may pose health
risks. Consumers also buy organic produce out of a desire to protect air,
water, and land, and to protect nontarget organisms from pesticides and
herbicides. And consumers likely have increased confidence that they are
buying a truly organic product since the use of the USDA Organic seal
began in 2001 (Figure 29).
Production is increasing along with demand. Although organic
agriculture is practiced on less than 1 percent of farmed land worldwide,
that area is increasing. In the United States and Canada, the land used for
organic agriculture has been increasing 1035 percent each year. Farmers
in all 50 U.S. states and more than 130 nations now practice organic farming commercially.

Growth

Financial obstacles unique

to organic farming include the start-up costs of shifting to
organic methods. But once it is established, organic farming can yield just as much income as conventional farming.
Organic farmers avoid the expense of buying chemical pesticides and herbicides, though some of their costs are higher
than those of conventional farmers. And organic foods can
sell for higher prices because of a smaller supply than demand.
While many shoppers will not buy organic produce if it
is more expensive than conventional produce, many will.
Because of the demand, most supermarket chains carry some
organic products. In some supermarket chains, organic foods
are the norm.

Financial Considerations

Locally Supported Agriculture In developed nations,

increasing numbers of consumers are supporting local,

small-scale agriculture. Farmers markets are multiplying as
consumers rediscover the pleasures of fresh, locally grown
produce (Figure 30). The average food product sold in a U.S.
supermarket travels at least 2400 kilometers (1500 miles)
between the farm and the shelf, and it is often chemically
treated to preserve it during the long trip. In addition, there
are few produce varieties in most supermarkets, and as you
recall, those varieties are not necessarily grown for their
flavor. In contrast, at farmers markets, consumers can buy
a wide variety of local produce grown for taste, texture, and
color rather than for durability. And buyers can boost their
local economy by supporting local businesses.
Some consumers are also partnering with local farms in an
arrangement called community-supported agriculture (CSA).
In CSA, consumers pay farmers in advance for a weekly share
of their produce yield during the growing season. Consumers
get local, fresh, in-season produce, while local farmers get a
guaranteed income to invest in their cropsan alternative to
taking out loans and being at the mercy of the weather. As of
2007, hundreds of thousands of consumers and 12,500 farms
were involved in CSA programs.

Figure 30 Locally Grown Food Farmers markets,

such as this one in Homestead, Florida, have become
more widespread as consumers have rediscovered the
benefits of buying fresh, locally grown produce.

4
1. Explain Why does the world need to grow more
food? Why do the methods need to be sustainable?
2. Pose Questions What is a genetically modified
organism? What questions would you ask about a
food made from genetically modified corn before
eating it?
3. Review What are two advantages and two disadvantages of industrial food production?

4. Form an Opinion Do you think organic foods are

worth the extra cost? Explain.
5. Explore the BIGQUESTION A locavore is a person
who eats mostly locally grown or raised food. Give
three reasons why a person might become a
locavore.

Soil and Agriculture 383