Geography - resource reliance

Natural resource

Anything in the environment that people use. Renewable resources regenerate naturally (solar, wind, timber, fish if managed), non-renewable resources are finite (coal, oil, gas, minerals).

Why demand for food is rising

World population grew from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 8 billion in 2022 and may reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Rising incomes in EDCs shift diets towards meat and dairy, which need far more grain, and crops are diverted to biofuels. The FAO estimates food production must rise by about 60% by 2050.

Why demand for energy is rising

Population growth, industrialisation in China and India, more cars, appliances, air conditioning and data centres, and economic growth. Global energy use has roughly doubled since 1980 and fossil fuels still supply about 80% of it.

Why demand for water is rising

Population growth and urbanisation, irrigation (farming uses about 70% of the world’s fresh water), industry and rising living standards (showers, washing machines, swimming pools). Water use has grown twice as fast as population. About 2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water.

Why supply cannot keep up

Resources are unevenly distributed (oil in the Middle East, plenty of water in Canada but shortages in the Sahel), climate change brings droughts, soils are exhausted, fish stocks are depleted (over a third are overfished), conflicts disrupt supply and poor countries cannot afford technology or imports.

Mechanisation of farming – impacts

Tractors, combine harvesters and irrigation raise yields and cut costs, but hedgerows are removed to make bigger fields (loss of habitat), heavy machinery compacts and erodes soil, fuel is burnt, and chemical fertilisers and pesticides pollute rivers (eutrophication) and harm bees. Fewer farm jobs lead to rural depopulation.

Commercial fishing – impacts

Factory trawlers and huge nets catch fish faster than they breed: the Grand Banks cod fishery off Canada collapsed in 1992 and has never recovered and bluefin tuna are endangered. Bottom trawling destroys sea beds, by-catch kills dolphins, turtles and seabirds, and fish farms pollute coasts with waste and chemicals.

Deforestation to provide energy – impacts

About 2.4 billion people still cook with wood and charcoal, and forest is cleared for biofuel crops (palm oil in Indonesia, sugar cane in Brazil) and for hydro-electric dams. Effects: loss of habitat and species, soil erosion, carbon released, a drier local climate and displaced indigenous people.

Mining to provide energy – impacts

Open-cast coal mines and the Canadian tar sands strip away land and forest, leave spoil heaps and acid drainage into rivers and release dust and methane. Oil drilling causes spills (Deepwater Horizon, 2010: 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico and 11 deaths). Fracking for shale gas uses huge volumes of water and chemicals and caused small earthquakes at Preston New Road in Lancashire (a moratorium in England since 2019). Uranium mining leaves radioactive waste.

Reservoirs to provide water – impacts

Dams flood valleys, farmland, villages and habitats (China’s Three Gorges Dam displaced 1.3 million people, Kielder Water in Northumberland flooded farms in 1982), trap silt so farmland and deltas downstream lose fertility, block fish migration and change river temperatures. They do provide reliable water, hydro-power and flood control.

Water transfer schemes – impacts

Moving water by pipe or canal from wet to dry areas: China’s South–North Water Transfer (over 1,400 km of canals costing more than US$60 billion) and the Kielder transfer to Teesside. Benefits for cities and farms, but high cost and energy, lower river flows and damaged wetlands in the donor area (the Aral Sea shrank by 90% after Soviet irrigation diversions) and political disputes between regions.

Food security (FAO definition)

When all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Food insecurity is the opposite – not knowing where the next meal will come from.

Physical factors affecting food security

Climate (rainfall and temperature decide what will grow), drought and floods, soil fertility and erosion, water for irrigation, pests and diseases (locust swarms in East Africa in 2020), natural hazards and climate change shifting growing zones.

Human factors affecting food security

Poverty (food exists but people cannot afford it), population growth, conflict (famine in Yemen, Sudan and Gaza), poor transport and storage (about a third of food is lost or wasted), land ownership and land grabbing, trade and food prices (price spikes in 2008 and 2022), changing diets, biofuels and government policy.

Global Hunger Index (GHI)

A score from 0 (no hunger) to 100 that combines undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. In 2024 Somalia, Yemen, Chad and Madagascar scored ‘alarming’ (over 35) while most of Europe and the Americas scored under 10. It shows hunger is worst in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Average daily calorie consumption

An adult needs about 2,000–2,500 kcal a day. The USA averages over 3,700, the UK about 3,400, Ethiopia about 2,500 and the Central African Republic and Haiti under 2,000. A map of calories per person shows the same rich–poor pattern as the GHI but hides inequality within countries.

Undernourishment today

About 730 million people (9% of the world) were undernourished in 2023 according to the FAO, concentrated in Africa (one person in five) and Asia. The number fell until 2015 but has risen since because of conflict, climate shocks and Covid.

Malthus (1798)

Thomas Malthus argued that population grows geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8) while food supply grows arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4), so population would outstrip food and be cut back by famine, disease and war (‘checks’). A pessimistic view. Neo-Malthusians such as the Club of Rome (1972) argue the same for all resources.

Boserup (1965)

Ester Boserup argued that population growth drives innovation – ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. As food runs short people invent new technology (irrigation, fertilisers, high-yield seeds, GM crops) to raise output, so supply keeps up. An optimistic view, supported by the Green Revolution.

Malthus and Boserup – evaluation

Malthus has been wrong so far: the world population has grown eightfold since 1800 yet famine has declined, which supports Boserup. But technology has environmental costs (water depletion, pollution, climate change) and hunger persists where people are too poor to buy the innovation, so neither theory fully explains food security.

Food security case study: Tanzania – background

In East Africa, with about 67 million people. An LIDC where around 65% of workers farm, mostly smallholders growing maize, rice, cassava and bananas by hand with rain-fed methods. Yields are about a quarter of those in ACs, and droughts and floods cause regular shortages, especially in the dry central regions (Dodoma, Singida).

Tanzania – statistics on food availability over time

Average calorie intake rose from about 2,000 kcal a day in the 1990s to around 2,500 today, undernourishment fell from about 35% in 2000 to about 23%, but roughly a third of children under 5 are stunted. Maize output has roughly doubled since 2000, mainly by farming more land rather than raising yields. Tanzania now exports some maize and rice in good years.

Tanzania – past national attempt: the Canadian Wheat Project (Hanang)

From 1970 to 1993 Canada funded large mechanised state wheat farms on about 40,000 hectares of the Hanang plains, using tractors, combines and fertiliser. Success: at its peak it grew around 60% of Tanzania’s wheat. Failure: the wheat mainly fed city dwellers rather than the rural poor, machinery needed imported spares, soils eroded, and the Barabaig cattle herders lost their grazing land. It collapsed when the aid ended – a top-down scheme that did not last.

Tanzania – present national attempt: SAGCOT

The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (2010) is a public–private partnership of the government, the World Bank and companies such as Unilever and Yara to develop 350,000 hectares of farmland along the railway and road from Dar es Salaam to Zambia with irrigation, roads, storage and processing, linking smallholders to commercial farms. Aims: triple output, create 420,000 jobs and lift 2 million people out of poverty by 2030.

SAGCOT – evaluation

Successes: new rice and sugar schemes, better roads and storage, higher incomes for farmers in the cluster areas (the Kilombero Valley, for example). Problems: slow to attract the planned US$3.4 billion of investment, fears of land grabbing from villagers, environmental damage to wetlands near the Kilombero Nature Reserve, and benefits flowing to large agribusiness rather than the poorest.

Other national strategies in Tanzania

Kilimo Kwanza (‘Agriculture First’, 2009) with subsidised fertiliser and seed vouchers for 2.5 million farmers, the Agricultural Sector Development Programme, state grain reserves and improved drought-resistant maize seed.

Tanzania – local attempt: Goat Aid (Farm Africa and Oxfam)

In Babati and other districts, charities give poor families (often headed by women) a pair of dairy goats, crossbred with Toggenburg goats for more milk, plus training and veterinary care. Families pass the first female kids to neighbours. Milk gives children protein, manure improves the crops and surplus goats are sold to pay school fees. Successful, cheap and sustainable, but small in scale – it helps thousands, not millions.

Other local-scale examples

Chololo Ecovillage in the Dodoma region (2011–14): rainwater harvesting, drought-tolerant sorghum and millet, tree planting and improved stoves doubled some crop yields. In the UK: food banks (the Trussell Trust gave out over 3 million parcels in 2023–24), allotments and community gardens, and Incredible Edible in Todmorden.

Past global attempt: the Green Revolution

From the 1960s scientists led by Norman Borlaug bred high-yielding dwarf wheat and rice (IR8 ‘miracle rice’), which with irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides and tractors doubled or tripled yields in Mexico, India, Pakistan and the Philippines and averted the famines that had been predicted. India became self-sufficient in grain by the 1970s.

Green Revolution – problems

The seeds, fertiliser and machinery were expensive, so richer farmers gained while poorer ones lost land and jobs. Groundwater was pumped dry (water tables in the Punjab fall by about a metre a year), chemicals polluted water and soils, monocultures reduced biodiversity, and Africa largely missed out.

Present attempt: genetically modified (GM) crops

Genes are inserted to make crops resist pests (Bt cotton, Bt maize), tolerate herbicides (Roundup Ready soya) or drought, or add vitamins (Golden Rice). Grown on about 190 million hectares, mostly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, India and Canada. Benefits: higher yields, fewer sprays, less waste. Concerns: cost and dependence on companies such as Bayer-Monsanto, resistant superweeds, effects on wildlife and consumer resistance (strict EU rules).

Present attempt: global food trade

Countries import what they cannot grow: the UK imports about 40% of its food and the Gulf states most of theirs. Benefits: year-round variety and earnings for exporters (Kenyan green beans, Ghanaian cocoa). Problems: food miles and emissions, vulnerability to price shocks (the 2022 war in Ukraine cut wheat exports and raised prices), land used for export crops instead of local food and unfair terms for small farmers.

Present attempt: intensive food production

Factory farming of chickens and pigs, cattle feedlots, glasshouses with heat and artificial light (Thanet Earth in Kent) and fish farms. High output from small areas, but animal welfare concerns, antibiotic resistance, high energy use and pollution.

Ethical consumerism: fair trade

Fairtrade certification guarantees farmers a minimum price plus a premium for community projects such as schools and wells – about 1.9 million farmers in around 70 countries sell cocoa, coffee, bananas and tea this way. Socially sustainable (stable income) and economically fairer, but it covers only a small share of the market and prices for shoppers are higher.

Ethical consumerism: reducing food waste

About a third of all food (1.3 billion tonnes) is wasted each year, around 10 million tonnes in the UK (worth about £14 billion). Campaigns such as Love Food Hate Waste, ‘wonky veg’ ranges, apps such as Too Good To Go, redistribution by FareShare and clearer date labels save money, cut methane from landfill and feed more people without growing more.

Food production: organic farming

No synthetic fertilisers or pesticides, crop rotation and high animal welfare. Environmentally sustainable (healthier soils, more wildlife) but yields are 20–25% lower so more land is needed and the food costs more, so it cannot feed 9 billion on its own (only about 3% of UK farmland is organic).

Food production: intensive farming

Maximises yield with chemicals, machinery and housed animals. Economically efficient and keeps food cheap, which helps availability, but environmentally unsustainable (pollution, soil loss, greenhouse gases, loss of biodiversity) and raises animal welfare and health concerns.

Technology: hydroponics and vertical farming

Growing plants without soil in nutrient-rich water under LED lights, often in stacked indoor farms (Thanet Earth, urban farms in Japan and Singapore). Uses about 90% less water, needs no pesticides and gives year-round harvests near cities, but high energy and set-up costs mean it mainly suits salads and herbs rather than grain.

Technology: other developments

Drought-resistant and GM crops, precision farming with drones and GPS, insect protein, lab-grown meat (first approved for sale in Singapore in 2020), aquaponics, desalination for irrigation and mobile-phone weather and price information for farmers.

Bottom-up approach: urban gardens and allotments

Community gardens, allotments and rooftop farms in cities (Rosario’s garden parks, Incredible Edible, Cuba’s organopónicos) grow fresh food locally, improve diets, reuse derelict land, build community and cut food miles. Socially and environmentally sustainable, but small in scale and labour-intensive.

Bottom-up approach: permaculture

Designing farms to copy natural ecosystems: mixing trees, crops and animals (agroforestry), composting, rainwater harvesting, no chemicals and perennial plants. Very sustainable environmentally and cheap for small farmers, but it needs knowledge and time and yields are modest.

Can we feed nine billion by 2050?

Probably yes in total calories – the world already produces enough food for 10 billion – but only if waste is cut, diets include less meat, technology reaches LIDC farmers and poverty falls so that people can afford food. The challenge is distribution and sustainability rather than production alone.