6.2.3

Food Supply & Food Insecurity

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Factors Affecting Food Supply

A country has food security if they consume more food than they need (effectively has a food surplus). This can be caused by:

Climate

Climate

  • Parts of the DRC and Chad are vulnerable to droughts, as well as floods. This makes it hard to grow enough food to feed people at home. The DRC has bad infrastructure and bad trading relationships, so it is difficult for the DRC to import food.
  • If a country is prone to drought, floods, has steep relief or bad soil erosion, then it may struggle to produce enough food to feed its population.
  • This could move it into food deficit and food insecurity.
Poverty

Poverty

  • When people live in poverty and are malnourished, people have low energy, have a less effective immune system, can do less manual labour, and can do less thinking.
  • Poverty can stop people from being able to work on a farm because of lack of energy.
  • Furthermore, people who are subsistence farmers (farm their own land), living in poverty, may not be able to afford pesticides and fertilisers, which would help increase the amount that they have to eat.
Water stress

Water stress

  • Environments without enough water because of water pollution, bacterial contamination or drought will not be able to find enough water to feed livestock, water crops and help humans survive.
  • Humans can only survive 3-4 days without water.
Pests and diseases

Pests and diseases

  • Pests eat or damage crops, reducing crop yields and the amount that can be eaten by a population.
  • Livestock can also be affected by diseases. Cattle can get Mad Cow Disease and in 2001, thousands of livestock were killed because of an outbreak of 'Foot and Mouth disease'.
Technology

Technology

  • Pesticides, fertilisers, and vertical farming can help to increase crop yields, even if conditions are not perfect for farming.
  • Automation and mechanisation mean that farming is more efficient, and produces more food. However, there are fewer jobs working on farms available.
  • Genetic modification can create more nutritious foods, like the White Russet potato, or it can create 'strains' of crops that are more resistant to pests and diseases.
Conflict

Conflict

  • People can starve to death during wars because armies block supply chains and destroy infrastructure.
  • In the civil war in the Congo between 1997 and 1999, thousands of people died from starvation or famine as the fighting went on.
Jump to other topics
1

The Challenge of Natural Hazards

1.1

Natural Hazards

1.2

Tectonic Hazards

1.3

Weather Hazards

1.4

Climate Change

2

The Living World

2.1

Ecosystems

2.2

Tropical Rainforests

2.3

Hot Deserts

2.4

Tundra & Polar Environments

3

Physical Landscapes in the UK

3.1

The UK Physical Landscape

3.2

Coastal Landscapes in the UK

3.3

River Landscapes in the UK

3.4

Glacial Landscapes in the UK

4

Urban Issues & Challenges

5

The Changing Economic World

5.1

The Changing Economic World

5.2

Economic Development in the UK

6

The Challenge of Resource Management

6.1

Resource Management

6.2

Food

6.3

Water

6.4

Energy

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