Food and land resources

ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDY
FOOD AND LAND
RESOURCES

INTRODUCTION
• Food is one of the basic requirement of human being, it is the
most important material that our body needs for its proper
functioning and well being at all stages of our life.
• Human diet is not rusticated to any special category of food.
• Man eats a variety of foods, plant and animal origin; as no
single food provides us with all the nutrients that we need.

SOURCES OF FOOD
• Although the earth has perhaps 30,000 plant species with parts that
people can eat, only 15 plants and 8 animal species supply 90% of our
food.
• Our main food resources are
1. Agricultural crops (mainly rice,wheat,potato,soyabean,millet, etc.)
2. Domesticated animals (cattle, sheep, goat, etc.)
3. Aquaculture (fish and sea food)

GLOBAL/WORLD FOOD
PROBLEMS
• During last 50 years food production has increased by about 50%. But at
the same time the population growth rate in less development countries has
out stripped food production.
• The international commission on Irrigation and Drainage estimated that
current food production would have to double within the next 25 years.
• The FAO estimated that about 840 million people remain chronically
hungry , nearly 820 million of them in the developing countries. There are
two generally two kind of food problems across the world.

(1) Undernourishment
(2) Malnutrition

UNDERNOURISHMENT
• It is the lack of sufficient calories in available food, so
that one has little or no ability to move or work.
• The FAO estimates that the average minimum daily
caloric intake over the whole world is about 2500 calories per day.
• People who receive less than 90% of their minimum
dietary intake on a long term basis are considered
undernourishment.

MALNOURISHMENT
• Malnourishment is the lack of specific components of
food such as proteins, vitamins or essential chemical elements.
• It is due to nutritional imbalance caused by a lack of
specific dietary components or an inability to absorb or utilize
essential nutrients.

Major problems due to malnutrition
1. MARASMUS :
2. KWASHIORKAR :
3. ANEMIA :
4. GOITER AND HYPOTHYROIDISM :
5. PELLAGRA :
6. CHRONIC HUNGER :

STEP TO IMPROVE FOOD
PRODUCTION
1. Available land acreage should be properly and judiciously utilized.
2. Soil fertility should be increased through wise use of fertilizers and organic
manures.
3. Mixed cropping should be practiced wherever possible .
4. Crop rotation should be done.
5. Soil erosion and loss of nutrients should be prevented by maintaining
vegetation cover throughout the year.

6. High yield and disease resistant plant varieties should be introduce.
7. Integrated and balance use of available water sources should be made
8. Weeds and pest should be efficiently controlled, integrated pest
control practices should be preferred over the total reliance on chemical
pesticides.
9. Combining use of traditional methods/ equipment's with modern
methods of agriculture.

ENVIRONMENTAL
EFFECTS/IMPACTS
OF AGRICULTURE

IMPACTS OF TRADITIONAL
AGRICULTURE ON ENVIRONMENT
The main impacts of this type of agriculture are as follows:
1. DEFORESTATION :
2. SOIL EROSION :
3. DEPLETION OF NUTRIENT :

IMPACTS OF MODERN AGRICULTURE
ON ENVIRONMENT
1) Fertilizer related problems
(a) Micronutrient imbalance :
Most of the chemical fertilizers used in
modern agriculture have nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium(N,P,K)which are essential micronutrient.

(b) NITRATE POLLUTION :
Nitrogen fertilizers applied to the fields often
leach deep into the soil and ultimately contaminate the ground
water.
(c) EURORPHICATION :
Excessive use of N and P fertilizers causes
problems related to the water bodies like lakes.

2) Problems related to pesticides
(a) Biological magnification :
(b) Death of non target organisms :
(c) Creating resistance in pests and producing new pests:

3) Water Logging :
Over irrigation of croplands by the farmers for
good growth of their crop usually leads to the water logging.
Preventing excessive irrigation, sub-surface
drainage technology and bio-drainage with trees like eucalyptus
are some of the remedial measures to prevent water logging.

4) Salinity problems :
A major causes of Stalinization of soil is excessive irrigation.
About 20% of the world’s croplands receive irrigation with canal water or
ground water which unlike lake water often contains dissolved salts.
Under dry climate, the water evaporates leaving behind salts in
the upper layer of the soil.
Most of the crops cannot tolerate high salinity so the yield of
the crop decreases.

LAND RESOURCES
• LAND AS A RESOURCES
Land is finite and important resources for mankind and
other organisms. Most human or natural activities need space for their
development.
This space is provided by land .
Lithosphere plays an important role as it not only produces
food for human beings and animals, but also the decomposition of
organic matter is carried out by a host of microorganisms in the soil.

Various uses of land are-
1. Food Production ( agriculture )
2. Houses the living species, the water resources and raw materials resources
3. Industrial purpose
4. Residential purpose
5. Commercial purpose
6. Waste disposal
7. Energy purpose

LAND USE PATTERN
Though the pattern of land use varies from country to country; broadly
the pattern of land use on earth is :
Agriculture(arable)land…………………..11%
Pastures and meadows…………………...22%
Forest land………………………………30%
Urban and non-agriculture………………37%

• In INDIA more than two-fifth land is
agricultural land. The pattern of land
distribution in INDIA is as under
• Agricultural land……………………………43.6%
• Permanent pastures and meadows………….14.6%
• Culturable wastelands………………………12.2%
• Forests……………………………………...10.7%
• Barren and inculturable land………………..8.4%
• Urban land…………………………………5.3%
• No information available……………….......5.2%

Food and land resources

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