Factors Affecting Food Supply Flashcards

All 6 cards in this deck

How do pests and diseases reduce food supply?

They eat or destroy crops and reduce yields, e.g. locusts devouring a field in hours or wheat rust destroying crops.

How does climate affect food supply?

It controls which crops can grow and how well, e.g. irregular rains in the Sahel limit crop production.

True or false? Conflict can cause food insecurity even when the climate is good for farming.

True. War destroys crops and stores, displaces farmers and blocks food distribution.

How does poverty reduce food supply?

Poor people may have no land to farm and cannot buy inputs such as fertiliser or pesticides; poor countries cannot afford to import food to make up a shortfall.

How does water stress reduce food supply?

Under water stress, demand for water is greater than the supply, so there is not enough to irrigate crops or water livestock; harvests fail or shrink and animals die.

Give one way technology can increase food supply.

Any one: machinery lets farmers plant and harvest larger areas faster; fertilisers and pesticides raise yields; improved or genetically modified seeds resist pests, disease and drought.