5.2 Framing and Agriculture. Part 1.


Producing enough food for a rapidly growing global population is a major tension between the environment and society.

Between 1960 and 2000 there was a rapid rise in the number of hectares of land used for agriculture, however after 2000, that use dropped and is now around 4 billion Hectares.

However global population has continued to rise.

What might have changed after 2000?

Cereal Yields have also continued to grow steadily since 1960.

But the amount of land being used for all crops, including cereal has actually increased since 2000

Around 70% of all available (ice free) land is used for either agriculture or forestry.

Land is a finite resource. To feed more people requires to either use more land or to produce more from the same amount of land. Whilst the graphs above show yields have grown since the 1960s this has come at a cost of habitat and biodiversity loss as well as increased pollution from intensive farming systems. For agriculture to be sustainable it needs to balance the needs of the environment and ecosystems with those of feeding society: A TENSION

The other constraint is that not all land is suitable for agriculture.

Intensive wheat production in France on highly fertile lowland soils in the valley of the Seine.
Vineyards in the Languedoc region of France are found in valley bottoms but the steep sided valleys are often unsuitable for growing vines and are either forestry production of left as semi wild areas.
Where less steep or flatter areas exist, grazing by cattle, goats or sheep may be the only form of agriculture possible.
Sheep grazing on nutrient poor upland grassland in Wales. Heavy rainfall leaches mineral nutrients from the soil
Land characteristics associated with different agricultural systems in Great Britain
Rice harvest, Bantan province, Indonesia.
Clearance of seasonal Rainforest for Palm oil at Port Dickson in Malaysia. Clearance not only leads to biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation but also impacts biogeochemical cycling and the release of CO2 to the atmosphere.