(Worksheet) Food, Nutrition and Production.

Food Security is the situation in which people in a determinate area has daily access to enough nutritious food to have a healthy life. Food security also depends on reducing (at least slightly) the harmful environment effects of agriculture at local, national and global levels. 

In order to maintain good health, the human body needs macronutrients, micronutrients and minerals. People suffer from chronic undernutrition or hunger when they cannot grow or buy enough food to meet their basic needs, and children who suffer from this condition often live in developing countries. The consequences of undernutrition are mental retardation, stunted growth and death caused by infectious diseases, such as measles and diarrhea.

Malnutrition results from deficiencies of protein, calories and other key nutrients. This is because many of the world’s poor can afford only to live on a low-protein, high-carbohydrate, vegetarian diet. Overnutrition occurs when food energy intake exceeds energy use and causes excess body fat.

One of every three people has a deficiency of one or more vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin A, iron and iodine, the three of which are very important for keeping a good health.  Iron is a component of the hemoglobin that transports oxygen in the blood, so it's vital to be renewed in nutrition. If people don't consume iron in sufficient quantities, they might then suffer from anemia.  The lack of iron also may cause fatigue, make infection more likely and increase a woman’s chances of dying from hemorrhage in childbirth.

A famine  is a severe shortage of food in an area accompanied by mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption. Famines often lead to mass migration of starving people to other areas or to refugee camps in their need for food, water, and medical attention from sickness and diseases that may appear from the lack of nutrition. Famines are usually caused by crop failures from drought, flooding, war and other catastrophic events.

There are three main systems which provide almost all of the world’s food:

• Croplands: Provides 77% if the world’s food using 11% of the world’s land area. These mostly produce grains.
• Rangelands and pastures: Provide about 16% of the world’s food using about 29% the world’s land area. These areas produce meat, mostly from grazing livestock.
• Oceanic fisheries: Supply about 7% of the world’s food from fishing activities.

Traditional agriculture consists of two main types which together are practiced by the 42% of the world’s people and provides one-fifth of the world’s food supply:

• Traditional Subsistence Agriculture: Uses mostly human labor and draft animals to produce only enough crops or livestock for a farm’s family survival.
• Traditional Intensive Agriculture: Farmers increase their inputs of human and draft-animal labor, fertilizer and water to obtain a higher yield per area of cultivated land. They produce enough food to feed their families and to sell.