The Foresight group published a report today about food and farming. It may well be looking at bits of it (the executive summary is a sensible starting point). If there's some useful bits in there (maybe a simple quote to add to your exam answer?) it will look good to the examiner as it so current.
Foresight Report (published 24th Jan 2011)
Guardian article on the Foresight report
Telegraph article about the report and warning of food price rises/GM crops
Monday, 24 January 2011
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Unit 4 Life on the Margins (Year 13)
Hopefully you have all been busy working on unit 4, researching and preparing yourselves for the exam. This post is really just to give you some things to think about.
Possible questions they could ask in the exam?
Maybe something along these lines....
1) "Strategies to improve food security have benefits as well as costs". Discuss.
2) Explain why strategies used to increase food production have costs as well as benefits.
3) Evaluate the costs and benefits of strategies to increase food production in order to improve food security.
4) To what extent can food production be increased without any costs?
5) Explain why strategies to increased food production have varied success in improving food security
6) Evaluate the success of a range of strategies designed to increase food production.
7) Assess the impact of strategies to increase food production to improve food security at a range of scales.
Research
Here are some things you may wish to consider (and maybe research further)
Land-grabs article from Guardian (with lots of links to other relevant stories)
Does US Food security strategies go far enough?
When looking at different scales, you should be thinking about strategies to sort food supply/security that are for small areas/villages (small scale/local - maybe something from a NGO like FarmAfrica) to those which are designed to help entire countries (Green Revolution - impacts on places like Thailand, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Mexico or the Cuban Organic farmning example that is linked to later on in this post) and maybe some strategies that could be used on a larger scale/global (such as GM crops)
7 minute video on Cuban Organopnicos
Article on how Cuba have tried to become self sufficient using organic farming
The costs of increasing food supply/security?
Soil erosion/degredation
An article about how use of chemicals on the land in Punjab (India) in order to increase food security has led to soil degradation
You could also look at the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the environment in Europe. The CAP was set up after WWII in order to ensure Europe never experienced food shortages again (ie improve food security) but many felt that it had a negative impact (economically, socially and environmentally).
Possible questions they could ask in the exam?
Maybe something along these lines....
1) "Strategies to improve food security have benefits as well as costs". Discuss.
2) Explain why strategies used to increase food production have costs as well as benefits.
3) Evaluate the costs and benefits of strategies to increase food production in order to improve food security.
4) To what extent can food production be increased without any costs?
5) Explain why strategies to increased food production have varied success in improving food security
6) Evaluate the success of a range of strategies designed to increase food production.
7) Assess the impact of strategies to increase food production to improve food security at a range of scales.
Research
Here are some things you may wish to consider (and maybe research further)
Land-grabs article from Guardian (with lots of links to other relevant stories)
Does US Food security strategies go far enough?
When looking at different scales, you should be thinking about strategies to sort food supply/security that are for small areas/villages (small scale/local - maybe something from a NGO like FarmAfrica) to those which are designed to help entire countries (Green Revolution - impacts on places like Thailand, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Mexico or the Cuban Organic farmning example that is linked to later on in this post) and maybe some strategies that could be used on a larger scale/global (such as GM crops)
7 minute video on Cuban Organopnicos
Article on how Cuba have tried to become self sufficient using organic farming
The costs of increasing food supply/security?
Soil erosion/degredation
An article about how use of chemicals on the land in Punjab (India) in order to increase food security has led to soil degradation
You could also look at the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the environment in Europe. The CAP was set up after WWII in order to ensure Europe never experienced food shortages again (ie improve food security) but many felt that it had a negative impact (economically, socially and environmentally).
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