Food and Agriculture
Point Source Pollution
• Comes from a specific source
• Can be monitored and controlled by a
permit system
Nonpoint Source Pollution
• Pollution associated with stormwater or
runoff
• Cannot be traced to a direct discharge
point such as a wastewater treatment
facility
Impervious Surface
• Roads, rooftops, parking lots, and other
hard surfaces that do not allow stormwater
to soak into the ground
• Provides a surface for accumulation of
pollutants
• Inhibits recharge of groundwater
Problems with Desalination
•
•
•
•
High cost
Death of marine organisms
Brine wastes discharges
Future economics
Privatizing Water
• Neoliberalism
• World Bank and IMF
Can profit-seeking firms deliver?
Food Waste
• Half of all food in the United States wasted ($100
billion+ annually).
• US per capita food waste has increased by 50
percent since 1974, to more than 1,400 kcal per
person per day.
• United Kingdom: Roughly 7 million tons—one-third
purchased by consumers—discarded annually.
– CO2 equivalent of 18 million tons—an amount equal
to one-fifth of total British car fleet emissions.
• The total amount of food wasted in the United
Kingdom from industrial, commercial, and
agricultural sources: 94.6 million tons.
South Korea
• Illegal to send food to the landfill.
• Must separate all food waste and place it in a
special 100 percent compostable bag.
• Country removed over 98 percent of food waste
from its MSW stream.
• That’s the opposite of the United States, where
just 2.6 percent of food waste is composed.
Memory Banking
• Biocultural diversity
• Indigenous knowledge
• in situ vs ex situ
Agrobiodiversity
•
•
•
•
Commercial variety
Landraces
Crop wild relatives
Terminator technology
What are the driving forces
underlying the specialization
trends in Table 8.1?
Negative Impact of Industrialized Farms
•
•
•
•
•
Socioeconomic well-being
Social fabric
Social disruption
Goldschmidt thesis
Environment
Green Revolution
• Micronutrient malnutrition
– Biofortification
• Monocultures
• Bananas
– Monovarietal
Treadmills of agriculture
Pesticide, fertilizer, and seed
Agroecology
•
•
•
•
•
Polycultures
Organic systems
La Via Campesina
Landless workers movement
Food sovereignty