9.11: biological factors affecting food security

How does increasing the human population affect levels of food security?

More humans means that there needs to be more food grown to sustain the population. However, if there is not enough land for this, there will be an increase in food insecurity

How does increasing animal farming and the increased meat and fish consumption affect levels of food security?

If more animals are farmed, they need more space to grow, which may not be available. However, this increase in farming could be useful as more animals will be available for consumption. But some animals, such as cattle, aren’t good for the environment, and contribute to global warming through the release of methane, negatively impacting food security

How does the impact of new pests and pathogens affect levels of food security?

New pests will eat more crops and damage, though not destroy, crop yields, while pathogens may wipe out entire crops if there is no resistance to that pathogen - an issue made worse by artificial selection (as it reduces the gene pool, making species more susceptible to extinction by one disease). This reduces food security significantly

How does environmental change caused by human activity affect levels of food security?

If the environment is changed (such as through global warming, causing the earth to heat up), then different crops can be grown in different places, which can be good or bad

Good: there is an increase in the number of warmer places, so more tropical plants and crops can be grown, increasing food security

Bad: global warming causes more extreme weather, which can wipe out crop yields and mean that fewer plants overall survive. Hotter temperatures can also negatively impact plants since there may be an increased area where plants cannot grow, such as the desert, as well as impacting farmers as they have to change what they can grow in their fields - reducing food security

How does sustainability issues affect levels of food security?

If land cannot be used sustainably, it is likely that it will not be able to be used in the near future, reducing the space available for growing crops, and reducing food security through a decrease in crop yield

Examples of sustainability issues

Use of land for biofuel production, the cost of agricultural inputs