Slides from H+E 2011

1. Food

2. What food is
A drastic oversimplification

4. Plant growth
light + water + air
+ other nutrients (soil)
Animal growth
water + nutrients
(plants or animals)

5. Figure 38.9

6. Food

7. Food?
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Twinkies

8. Food?
• Enriched Wheat Flour
enriched with ferrous sulphate (iron), B vitamins (niacin,
thiamine mononitrate [B1], riboflavin [B12] and folic acid).
• Sugar
• Corn syrup
• Water
• High fructose corn syrup containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean,
• Vegetable and/or animal shortening cottonseed or canola oil, and beef fat.
• Dextrose
• Whole eggs • Calcium caseinate
• Modified corn starch • Sodium stearol lactylate
• Cellulose gum • Wheat gluten
• Whey (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking • Calcium sulphate
• Leavenings soda, monocalcium phosphate)
• Natural and artificial flavours
• Salt • Caramel colour
• Cornstarch • Sorbic acid (to retain freshness)
• Corn flour • Colour added (yellow 5, red 40)
• Corn syrup solids
• Mono and diglycerides
• Soy lecithin http://www.bbc.co.uk/
• Polysorbate 60 dna/h2g2/alabaster/
• Dextrin A516836

10. The Historical
Importance of
Agriculture

11. Connections
BBC, 1978

12. Food Access

13. Urban Food Deserts

14. “...a neighborhood in which
residents typically must travel
twice as far to reach the closest
supermarket or local grocer as
people in better-appointed
neighborhoods...”

15. Food Waste

16. 96,000,000,000
pounds of food disposed
of every year in the US
Food
Politics

17. “The US wastes
40% of all food
produced per year.”
GOOD.is
http://www.good.is/post/the-u-s-wastes-40-percent-of-all-
food-produced-per-year-how-about-we-stop-doing-that/

18. Environmental
Impact

19. “We must recognize that
our food production system
was conceived in different times;
what worked then is
inadequate, even
dangerous, now.”

20. “...our food production system remains
structurally blind to ecological and
social imperatives. Designed to
create wealth and
distribute cheap food, the
system has been slow to factor in
its responsibilities for the health of
the land and the people.”

21. “...on a global basis
Agriculture is the
largest threat to
biodiversity and
ecosystem function
of any single human activity.”
United Nations Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment

22. Why does
biodiversity
matter?

23. Ecosystem
Services

24. Pollination
Predation of pests
Decomposition
Stabilization of soil
Nitrogen fixation
Sustaining
Life

25. Resilience

26. Reduction of
Genetic Diversity

27. 90% livestock production based on
15 mammal and bird species
75% food supply based on
12 plant species

30. Stem
Rust
http://
www.wired.com/
magazine/
2010/02/
ff_ug99_fungus/

31. Gene flow
from cultivars
to wild species

32. Pollution

33. Eutrophication

34. http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/algal_bloom

35. Habitat
Destruction

36. Land Degradation

37. wind and water erosion
due to removal of vegetative cover
and pulverization of soil by tillage,
livestock and machinery
soil salinization
due to flood irrigation
soil habitat disturbance

38. Eat local,
save your
foodshed

39. “Foodsheds are the
farmbelts around our
cities that once provided
most urban food.”

40. Saving local foodsheds
- preserves an area’s
• agriculture land
• traditions
• varietal crops
- increases an area’s
• resilience
• quality of life

41. Further
Reading