Significant ideas:

• The sustainability of terrestrial food production systems is influenced by sociopolitical, economic and ecological factors

• Consumers [YOU!] have a role to play through their support of different terrestrial food production systems.

• The supply of food is inequitably available and land suitable for food production is unevenly distributed among societies, and this can lead to conflict and concerns.

Activity - blackout

Work in groups. What words do you think have been blacked out in the image below?

Once you've done: score each farming system, one point for each row it wins on sustainability.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World provides an excellent summary of these issues - find time to read the key messages and executive summary. 

Activity - Padlet

1. Engage with one resource on the Padlet below

2. Add a comment with your key take-away message from the source.

3. Get ready to share your findings with classmates! 

Activity - Data

Work individually or in pairs. 

1. Create a Google Doc in your ESS folder

2. Call it '[Your name] Food and Population'. Share it with me.

3. Answer the questions below in the doc.

What does this look like in the real world? Visit this OneTab link. These are all recent news stories about:

• Pressures on farming land

• Pressures on food supply and prices

• Rising human populations

Contribute a page to this Google Slides document, including in your page:

• A very short summary of the story.

• The background/causes of the situation.

• An explanation of how it reduces (or increases) the land available for growing food.

Activity - Evaluating

Activity - Debate

The Agriculture Debate

In two teams you will debate the following statement:

With the World population predicted to rise to 11 billion by 2100, intensive commercial farming is the only way we can ensure the wellbeing of our species.

The team allocated the house will defend the statement and the debate will follow the debate style of:

• Opening speaker

• Arguments 1-3

• Closing remarks

• Each speech will be 2 minutes with up to two points of information.

Create your team research in a google slides (make sure to open/save it within your ESS folder).  You will need to consider:

• Inputs

• Outputs

• Environmental Impact

• Socio-economic factors

• Cultural factors

• Political factors

• Economic factors

• System characteristics (i.e. how it interacts with other areas)

You may wish to account for examples of farming systems such as:

• North American cereal farming

• Subsistence farming in Southeast Asia

• Intensive beef production in South America

• The Maasai tribal use of livestock

Core resources:

• 246-247 of OUP book

• 5.2.1 and 5.2.2 of the Kognity book

We will spent 10 minutes reading and researching individually before breaking off into groups. 

Activity - Speech

What are you going to do about it?

Congratulations! You have just been appointed as agriculture minister for Placeovia, an central European MEDC of around 7 million people. There is a strong sheep-farming lobby in the country, an industry which provides the people with lamb for their beloved national dish and contributes 2% of Placeovia's GDP. Your party, The People's Party of Placeovia (PPP) manifesto promised the citizens of Placeovia a π500 million investment in improving the sustainability of agriculture. Everyone wants a piece of the π (who doesn't love a Greek pun?) but how are you going to spend it? Write a 2-minute speech for the PPP party conference describing your plans. In attendance will be:

• • The national press.

  • Members of the sheep-farming lobby.

  • Activists from an eco-centric local NGO.

  • Supportive members of the PPP

As is always the case when you join a national government, your key sources of information will be:

• OUP book page 259-260

• Kognity 5.2.4

• The list of options from above, taken from the ESS syllabus

And you will save the text of the speech in your ESS folder.