§4.2: The world of food - part 1

• Aardrijkskunde
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 3

§4.2: The world of food

Today

• Recap §4.1


• Explanation §4.2
• Assingments

Today

• Recap §4.1


• Explanation §4.2
• Assingments

Learning goals

• You know why the food footprint increases, and why this leads to large-scale farming and intensification 
• You can demonstrate with maps that tropical rainforest is disappearing for agricultural land

Vocabulary 

Food footprint	Voedselafdruk
Large-scale farming	Schaalvergroting
Intensification	Intensivering
Agriculture	Landbouw
Livestock	Veeteelt
Cattle	Vee
Yields of crops	Opbrengsten van gewassen

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Explain why the meat industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world

How does the production of meat lead to deforestation of the tropical rainforest?

Open the link on the next slide and read the newsarticle

nltimes.nl

Why is the Netherlands a huge contributor to global deforestation?

• The Netherlands is one of the largest European importers of soybeans
  
• Farmers use soybeans to feed their cattle
  
• Soybeans plantations are usually created in rainforest areas
  

glad.earthengine.app

In The Netherlands we have:

• More than 12 million pigs

• More than 3,8 million cows
• More than 100 000 000 million chickens

 

How does the production of meat lead to deforestation of the tropical rainforest?

 

• Production of 1 kilo of meat:  50 tot 250 m² is needed
  
• More space is needed for the animals and for fields of animal feed 
• Deforestation tropisch regenwoud 

Tropical rainforest and agriculture: Amazon 

Food footprint increases

Food footprint = the space needed to produce the food for a single person

• World population increases
• World population is getting richer

What do you see in this graph?

1. The poorer, the bigger the meat consumption
2. The richer, the bigger the meat consumption
3. The bigger the population, the bigger the meat consumption
4. The smaller the population, the bigger the meat consumption

What is changing in the food industry?

Quite a lot: organic framing, large-scale framing and intensification.

Organic farming

Organic farming uses fewer pesticides and gives animals more space

Large-scale farming

Companies make a lot of the same food. This is the most efficient. 

Intensification

Companies that use knowledge and money for higher yields (opbrengsten). They use a lot of modern technology.

Large-scale farming

Agricultural businesses that are

expanding and maximizing 

their production

Large-scale farming

• Larger farms, fewer types of crops (or 1 species = monoculture)
• Advantage:  knowledge of 1 product and only 1 type of machine is needed
• Disadvantage: decrease of biodiversity
  

Large-scale farming

This is easy for the farmers. 

They can harvest a lot at one time.

Without large-scale farming

Here grow many types of plants. This is good for the biodiversity, but the work for the farmer is more difficult and expensive.

Intensification

An increased yield of crops per hectare or per animal by means of knowledge or capital

Intensification

• Farmers try to get as much as possible out of a piece of land or an animal.
• Use of science and expensive machines.

Intensification

This farmer uses a drone

to determine exactly how much manure (mest) is needed

  

Intensification

All these cows are milked at once by one machine.

This saves the farmer a lot of work. 

Learning goals

• You know why the food footprint increases, and why this leads to large-scale farming and intensification 
• You can demonstrate with maps that tropical rainforest is disappearing for agricultural land

Today

• Recap §4.1


• Explanation §4.2
• Assingments

Assignments

• Read §4.2
• Make assignment 1, 2, 3 and 4

Finished? Have the assignments checked by the teacher