Sustaining the Earth 11th Edition Miller

Solutions Manual
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 Chapter 7
Food, Soil, and Pest Management

Summary and Objectives

7-1 What is food security and why is it difficult to attain?
Wide-spread poverty makes it impossible for people worldwide to obtain (raise/buy) enough food to meet their
nutritional/energy needs. CONCEPT 7-1 The greatest obstacles to providing enough food everyone are poverty,
corruption, war, bad weather, and the harmful environmental effects of industrialized food production.
1. Explain why poverty is regarded as the root cause of hunger.
2. Define food security and food insecurity. How do they differ from nation to nation?
3. Distinguish among malnutrition, undernutrition, and overnutrition. Indicate how many people on the
earth suffer from these problems and where these problems are most likely to occur.
4. Describe the harmful effects of diet deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine.

7-2 How is food produced?

Food on earth is produced by pastures, rangelands, and ocean fisheries. The amount of agricultural products has
been consistently increasing, but efforts to increase food production and nutrition, and environmental efforts are now
lagging. Crossbreeding, genetic engineering, and polycultures of perennial crops have been advocated for increased
crop yields. CONCEPT 7-2 We have used high-input industrialized agriculture and lower-input traditional methods
to greatly increase food supplies.
5. Compare traditional and industrialized agriculture. Distinguish among industrialized (high-input)
agriculture, plantation agriculture, traditional subsistence agriculture, traditional intensive agriculture,
polyculture, and slash-and-burn agriculture.
6. Define soil and the major layers in mature soils. How does soil contribute to each of the four
components of biodiversity?
7. Describe and evaluate the green revolution.
8. Distinguish between artificial selection and genetic engineering (gene splicing).
9. What are genetically modified organisms (GMOs or transgenic organisms)? Explain the advantages
and disadvantages of genetically engineered foods.
10. Compare industrial fishing and aquaculture.
11. Describe the trends in total world fish catch since 1950 and explain what can be ascertained from the
data.

7-3 What environmental problems arise from food production?

Modern food production is perhaps the most harmful environmental impact caused by humans. CONCEPT 7-3
Future food production may be limited by soil erosion and degradation, desertification, water and air pollution,
climate change, and loss of biodiversity.
12. Describe the problems of salinization and waterlogging of soils and how they can be controlled.
13. Describe the problem of soil erosion. Describe both world and U.S. soil erosion situations. Give an
explanation for the ignorance about this problem.
14. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using genetically modified crops and foods. Which two
advantages and which two disadvantages do you think are the most important? Why?

7-4 How can we protect crops from pests more sustainably?

Although there are problems with pesticides, they are used to improve crop production and yield. A more effective
method to control pests would be copying nature’s methods of pest control and a limited use of pesticides—
integrated pest management. CONCEPT 7-4 We can sharply cut pesticide use without decreasing crop yields by
using a mix of cultivation techniques, biological pest controls, and small amounts of selected chemical pesticides as
a last resort (integrated pest management).
15. List the five major classes of pesticides and what they are used to treat.
16. Give five benefits for using pesticides.
17. Describe five consequences of relying too heavily on pesticide use.
18. List five ways you could reduce your exposure to pesticides.

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 19. List and briefly describe seven alternative pest management strategies. Describe and evaluate
integrated pest management.

7-5 How can we improve food security and produce food more sustainably?
The three major ways to develop sustainable agriculture are to slow population growth, to reduce poverty, and to
implement sustainable agriculture. CONCEPT 7-5A We can improve food security by creating programs to reduce
poverty and chronic malnutrition, relying more on locally grown food, and cutting food waste. CONCEPT 7-5B
More sustainable food production will require using resources more efficiently, sharply decreasing the harmful
effects of industrialized food production, and eliminating government subsidies that promote such harmful impacts.
20 Compare conventional-tillage and conservation-tillage farming. List and briefly describe six strategies
to prevent soil erosion.
21. List six ways to maintain soil fertility. Describe at least one advantage of using organic instead of
inorganic fertilizer.
22. List the advantages and disadvantages of aquaculture and describe six ways that the process can
become more sustainable.
23. Explain why a shift to consuming more grain-efficient forms of animal protein is a more sustainable
form of meat production.
24. Describe sustainable agriculture. List at least three steps that could be taken to move the United States
toward more sustainable agriculture.

Key Terms
food security polyculture pesticides
food insecurity green revolution integrated pest management
chronic undernutrition artificial selection (IPM)
hunger genetic engineering soil conservation
chronic malnutrition genetically modified organisms organic fertilizer
overnutrition (GMOs) synthetic inorganic fertilizer
industrialized agriculture fishery animal manure
high-input agriculture aquaculture green manure
plantation agriculture soil erosion compost
traditional subsistence desertification organic agriculture
agriculture soil salinization
traditional intensive agriculture waterlogging pest

Outline
7-1 Food Security and Nutrition
A. Food security is when every person in an area has daily access to enough nutritious food to have an active
and healthy life. Today we produce more than enough food to meet the basic nutritional needs of every
person on earth.
B. Widespread poverty causes food insecurity and makes it impossible for some people to grow or buy enough
food.
1. Both macronutrients such as protein, carbohydrates, and fats and micronutrients such as vitamins and
minerals are necessary for good health and to resist disease.
2. With too little food, people suffer from chronic undernutrition (hunger).
a. In children, this leads to mental retardation and stunted growth.
b. Weakened children are more susceptible to infectious diseases.
3. Deficiencies of protein and other nutrients lead to malnutrition.
4. Each day 16,400 people die of undernutrition or malnutrition, a direct result of poverty. In less-
developed countries, one out of every six people is chronically undernourished or malnourished.
C. Vitamin deficiencies are common and worldwide, especially for vitamin A, iron, and iodine.
1. Many people worldwide suffers from a deficiency in vitamins or minerals.
2. One of five people worldwide suffers from anemia, which is an iron deficiency.
D. Overnutrition occurs when food eaten exceeds the energy used, resulting in excess body fat.

Food, Soil, and Pest Management

 1. Overweight and underweight people have similar health problems: lower life expectancy,
susceptibility to disease/illness, lower productivity and quality of life.
2. In the U.S., about two out of every three American adults are overweight.

7-2 How Is Food Produced?

Food on the planet is produced by croplands (77%), rangelands (16%), and ocean fisheries (7%).
A. Our systems of food production depend on a small number of plant and animal species, making us
vulnerable to disease, environmental degradation and climate change which could impact those species.
B. All three systems have increased their food yields since 1960.
1. Technological advances have increased food production, or harvesting.
2. More sophisticated farming techniques have been developed.
a. Expanded use of inorganic chemical fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides, and high-yield crops has
developed.
b. Intense farming methods, such as densely populated feedlots and enclosed breeding/growing pens,
and aquaculture ponds or ocean cages have been implemented.
C. Industrialized/high-input agriculture produces large quantities of a single crop (monoculture) or livestock
animals
1. This uses much energy, water, fertilizers, and pesticides.
2. It is practiced on 25% of cropland, mostly in developed countries.
3. Plantation agriculture is industrialized agriculture, primarily in tropical developing countries.
D. Traditional agriculture/low input provides about 20% of the food supply and is practiced by 39% of the
world’s people.
1. Traditional subsistence agriculture typically supports a single farm family’s survival.
2. Traditional intensive agriculture strives to feed not only the farmer’s family but to produce additional
food to sell as income. By using fertilizer, irrigating, etc., a higher yield is sought.
a. Many practice polyculture, which involves planting a diversity of crops together that mature at
various times.
1) Polyculture requires less fertilizer and water because of the root systems at different levels.
2) The soil is protected from wind and water erosion because crops are growing year-round.
3) Multiple habitats support natural predators of crop-eating insects so that fewer insecticides are
needed.
4) There are less weeds and less need for herbicides.
5) With several crops, bad weather will not destroy every one of them.
6) Low-input polyculture produces higher crop yields than high-input monoculture.
b. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of polyculture that involves burning and clearing small plots
of tropical forest to grow as many as 20 different crops for a few years until soil is depleted.
Polyculture plants many different crops.
3. The green revolution has increased yields in food production per unit of existing cropland. The
following steps describe this revolution:
a. Key grain crops of plant monocultures are bred or enhanced to produce high-yield varieties.
b. High-yields are sustained by using large amounts of fertilizer, water, and pesticides.
c. The number of crops grown per year is increased through multiple cropping.
4. There have been two green revolutions.
a. The first revolution occurred in developing countries between 1950 and 1970.
b. The second revolution has occurred since 1967 in developing countries with enough rain and/or
irrigation capability.
1) Fast-growing dwarf varieties of rice and wheat, especially for tropical and subtropical
climates, have been introduced.
2) Use of pesticides, water, and fertilizers, has enabled food yields to increase.
3) Several crops can be planted during one year, increasing food yields further.
c. Such revolutions use machinery and fossil fuel to plant and harvest; green revolution agriculture
uses 8% of the world’s oil output.
5. The U.S. agricultural system produces 17% of the world’s grain but affects the environment more than
any other industry. (See Case Study: Industrialized Food Production in the United States)
a. Agriculture has doubled crop yield, using no more land, since 1950.

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 b. Large agri-businesses (huge corporate/family-owned farms) control three-quarters of U.S. food
production. Labor and resource costs have decreased since 1950.
E. Crossbreeding is known as the first gene revolution, and genetic engineering is the second gene revolution.
1. Crossbreeding through artificial selection, mixes the genes of similar types of organisms to develop
genetically improved varieties of crops and livestock animals. It is a slow process and often takes 15-
plus years. The varieties are useful only for 5–10 years; then, pests and diseases reduce the
effectiveness of the new varieties.
2. Genetic engineering mixes genes of different organisms, creating improved strains of crops and
livestock animals.
a. This process takes half as much time as traditional methods to develop a new crop.
b. It cuts costs and allows for all kinds of potential product development.
c. Most of the world is entering the age of genetic engineering.
F. Production and consumption of meat is steadily growing.
1. 50% of the world’s meat comes from unfenced grazing livestock, and the other 50% from feedlots.
2. Between 1950 and 2010 world meat production increased six-fold.
3. Meat production uses much water, more than one-third of the world’s grain, and produces large
amounts of animal waste, and pollutes.
G. Catching and raising more fish and shellfish
1. Fisheries focus on a particular aquatic species, in a given ocean area or inland body of water, to harvest
for commercial markets. Many species are almost extinct from commercial “vacuuming” of the seas.
2. Aquaculture is the process of raising fish and shellfish in ponds and underwater cages for food, such as
crops, rather than harvesting them in the seas and inland waters.
a. Aquacultural production has increased over 40-fold since 1950.
b. Aquaculture is the world’s fastest-growing type of food production.
H. Industrialized food production relies on large amounts of energy; about 19% of all commercial energy in
the U.S. Annually. Much of this energy comes from energy needed to grow, store, process, package,
transport, refrigerate, and cook our food (plant or animal).

7-3 What Environmental Problems Arise from Food Production?

According to many analysts, agriculture has greater harmful environmental impacts than any other human
activity – possibility limiting future food production.
A. Preserving the world’s topsoil is of great importance for feeding the world’s masses.
1. Land degradation occurs when the future ability of the land to support crops, livestock, or wild species
is decreased.
2. Water, wind, and people cause soil erosion; soil components are moved from one place to another.
a. Depletion of plant nutrients in topsoil through farming, logging, construction, overgrazing, and
burning vegetation leads to loss of soil fertility.
b. Eroded soil becomes sediment in surface waters where it pollutes water, kills fish, and clogs
irrigation ditches, channels, reservoirs, and lakes.
B. A UN and World Resources Institute report estimated that topsoil is eroding faster than it is replenished on
38% of the world’s cropland.
1. Desertification usually occurs on arid or semiarid land when the productive potential of the soil drops
by 10% or more as a result of human activities and/or prolonged drought.
2. Loss of crop productivity can also result from repeated irrigation, which produces salt buildup and
water logging of plant crops.
a. Salts left behind when irrigation water is not absorbed into the soil can be left in the topsoil. This
is called salinization.
b. Waterlogging occurs when saline water (from irrigation) envelops the deep roots of plants. This
saline water accumulates underground and raises the water table.
C. Our food production systems have caused major losses of biodiversity, which is also related to
agrobiodiversity—the world’s genetic variety of animals and plants used to make food.
D. GM food (genetically modified food) has generated much controversy.
1. Supporters believe that GM foods may potentially solve the world’s food problems.
2. Advantages and disadvantages of GMF: See Figure 7-8.
3. Many unknowns remain – impact on ecosystems, spread among nonengineerd species, and others.
E. The Green Revolution may not be expandable indefinitely.

Food, Soil, and Pest Management

 1. The green revolution crop varieties require huge amounts of fertilizer and water.
2. The costs of these crops are too high for subsistence farmers in developing countries.
3. There is a limit to the yield that increasing fertilizers, water, and pesticides will produce. Finally, there
will be no additional increase in crop yield.
4. As environmental effects take place, crop yields in some areas may well begin decreasing.
5. Seeds used throughout the world are fairly uniform, and this increases the vulnerability of the crop to
pests, diseases, and harsh weather.
F. Producing more meat has harmful environmental consequences.
1. Meat production uses large amounts of water, energy; produces large amounts of animal wastes.
2. Livestock production generates about 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases and 16% of methane.
G. Aquaculture can harm aquatic ecosystems (Figure 7-10)
1. Needs large inputs of land, feed, and water.
2. Large waste output.
3. Can destroy mangrove forests and estuaries.
4. Uses grain to feed some species.
5. Fish raised on fish meal or fish oil can be contaminated with toxins such as PCBs.

7-4 How Can We Protect Crops from Pests More Sustainably?

A. Natural enemies (predators, parasites, and disease organisms) found in nature control the populations of
most pest species.
1. Pests compete with man for food, invade lawns/gardens, destroy wood in homes, spread disease, etc.
2. Man’s monoculture agricultural activities and pesticides upset natural population checks and balances.
B. Chemicals kill or repel organisms we consider undesirable.
1. Pesticides or biocides include four types: insecticides that kill insects, herbicides that kill weeds,
fungicides that kill fungi, and rodenticides that kill rats and mice.
2. Plants have developed chemicals such as these for millennia to ward off, deceive, or poison herbivores
that eat them.
3. Pesticides are used widely in developed countries, but use in developing countries is quickly growing.
a. Broad-spectrum agents are toxic to a wide range of species.
b. Narrow-spectrum agents work against a well-defined, limited group of organisms.
c. The persistence of pesticides varies; some remain deadly for long periods; some have a short life
span.
4. Rachel Carson fought to provide information to the American public about the harms of pesticides.
(See Individuals Matter: Rachel Carson)
C. Pesticides provide several benefits.
1. Pesticides save lives and increase food supplies.
a. Pesticides have saved millions of people from contracting malaria, bubonic plague, and typhus.
b. Pests destroy 55% of the world's food supplies.
2. Pesticides increase profits for farmers.
3. Pesticides work quickly and affordably, have a long shelf life, and are easily shipped and applied.
4. When used properly, pesticides are safe; health risks are low compared to the benefits of the pesticides.
5. Newer pesticides are safer and more effective than the older ones.
D. Pesticides do have problems of their own.
1. The pesticide can promote genetic resistance, destroy natural enemies of pest species, create new pest
species, and remain active in the environment; and some harm wildlife and people.
2. Synthetic pesticides have not been too effective in reducing crop losses. (See Science Focus: Pesticides
Do Not Always Reduce Crop Losses)
a. Synthetic pesticide use has increased 33-fold since 1942, but more U.S. food is lost to pests today
than was lost in the 1940s.
b. Environmental, health, and social costs of pesticide use is five to ten dollars for every dollar spent
on the pesticides themselves.
c. Alternative pest control practices could cut the use of chemical pesticides in half for 40 major U.S.
crops. Crop yields would not be reduced.
3. Pesticides do not stay where used; only 2% of insecticides sprayed on crops reach the pests.
4. Thousands of farm workers become ill and some die because they are poisoned by pesticides.

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 5. Children become sick and some die from pesticides stored in the home. Cancer also affects some
people exposed to pesticide residues in food.
6. Some scientists suspect pesticides of causing genetic mutations, birth defects, and negative effects on
the central nervous system of humans.
E. Pesticide use is poorly enforced and inadequate in the United States. Some pesticides may be banned in the
U.S. but still exported to other countries.
1. Some of these pesticides can return to the U.S. on imported food—creating a circle of poison.
2. Pesticides move in and out of countries, regulated or not.
F. To control pests, copy nature and use her methods.
1. Use cultivation practices to fool pests.
a. Rotate the types of crops so that pests will starve or get eaten by natural predators.
b. Grow crops where major pests do not exist.
c. Use plant diversity to reduce losses.
d. Implant genetic resistance by using genetically engineered resistant crop strains.
d. Let lawn grass grow at least three inches high to keep out weeds.
e. Use natural predators, parasites, disease-causing bacteria, and viruses to help control pests.
2. Sex attractants/pheromones attract only one species, work in trace amounts, usually do not cause
genetic resistance, and do not harm non-target species. They can usually be used to lure pests into traps
or to attract natural predators.
3. Hormones can be used to disrupt an insect’s normal life cycle so the insect does not mature and
reproduce. But they can takes weeks to kill the species, must be used at exactly the right time, and
often don’t work with large numbers of insects.
G. Integrated pest management—using ecological approaches, and as a last resort, small amounts of
pesticides—is the best way to control crop pests.
1. IPM (integrated pest management) is used to reduce crop damage to an economically acceptable level.
2. IPM has worked remarkably well in Indonesia, Sweden, and Denmark.
3. IPM is important to pollution prevention because health risks from using pesticides would drop 75%.
4. Government subsidies and political interests, as well as opposition by pesticide manufacturers,
undermine the shift to IPM.
7-5 How Can We Improve Food Security and Produce Food More Sustainably?
A. Governments apply various agricultural policies to affect food production.
1. Price controls keep prices artificially low.
2. Farming subsidies and tax breaks encourage food production.
3. Allow market demand to determine prices. In this situation, poor people would suffer from likely
rising food prices.
B. We can increase food security by decreasing our food waste.
C. Support local economies by buying as much locally produced food as possible.
D. Soil conservation seeks ways to reduce soil erosion and restore soil fertility.
1. To reduce soil erosion, farmers must stop plowing and tilling, and keep the soil covered with
vegetation.
2. Additional methods to reduce soil erosion include:
a. Terracing converts the land into a series of broad, nearly level terraces that run across the contour
of the land. This method holds water for crops and reduces runoff.
b. Contour farming plows and plants crops in rows across the slope of the land, not up and down.
c. Strip cropping plants alternating strips of a row crop with another crop that entirely covers the soil.
d. Alley cropping/agroforestry plants several crops together in strips/alleys between trees or shrubs,
which may provide fruit or fuelwood.
1) The shade of the trees/shrubs reduces evaporation and helps retain soil moisture.
2) Fruit, fuelwood, and trimming can be used as mulch.
e. Windbreaks or shelterbelts of trees reduce wind erosion, help retain soil moisture, provide
fuelwood, and support bird and insect habitats.
E. Soil fertility can be maintained and restored by applications of fertilizers.
1. Organic fertilizer can be used to restore lost plant nutrients.
a. Animal manure improves soil structure, adds nitrogen, and stimulates soil bacteria and fungi.
b. Green manure plows freshly cut or growing green vegetation into the soil to increase organic
matter and humus.

Food, Soil, and Pest Management

 c. Microorganisms in soil break down organic matter in leaves, food wastes, paper, and wood to
form compost.
2. Crop rotation plants different crops to replenish the soil, especially if a previous crop has depleted the
soil of certain nutrients.
3. Inorganic fertilizers, used with organic fertilizers, can restore soil fertility.
a. Commercial inorganic fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
b. These fertilizers can replace depleted inorganic nutrients, but not organic matter.
F. Sustainably producing meat
1. Cattle raised on rangelands and pastures cause less environmental harm and require little or no grain.
2. Shift consumption to more grain-efficient forms such as poultry and herbivorous farmed fish.
G. Practicing sustainable aquaculture
1. Restrict location of fish farms to reduce loss of mangrove forests and estuaries.
2. Improve management of aquaculture wastes.
3. Reduce escape of aquaculture species into the wild.
4. Use deeply submerged cages to protect some species from wave action and predators.
5. Certify sustainable aquaculture and label products accordingly.
6. Raise species that are lower on the food chain and feed on plants rather than other fish.
H. Solutions for sustainable agriculture
1. There are three main ways to reduce hunger and malnutrition and reduce agriculture’s harmful effects
on the environment.
a. Slow population growth.
b. Reduce poverty.
c. Phase-in systems of sustainable agriculture/low-input agriculture/organic farming.
1) This type of farming yields lower carbon dioxide emissions and soil erosion.
2) It improves soil fertility and is generally more profitable than high-input farming.
3) It uses more than 50% less energy per yield unit than conventional farming.
2. Helping farmers make the transition to sustainable farming is essential.
a. Undertake increased research.
b. Provide demonstration projects throughout countries.
c. Increase subsidies and foreign aid to promote sustainable agriculture.
d. Train people and develop college curricula.
3. The goal is to feed the people of the world while sustaining and restoring the earth’s natural capital and
living on the natural income the earth provides.

Teaching Tips

1. Because a typical classroom is often filled with students of various learning preferences, a basic
understanding of learning styles can prove to be helpful. Teaching to different learning styles is easier when
each learning style can be recognized and accommodated.

2. There are many ways of classify different learning styles. One common classification is: active versus
reflective, sensing versus intuitive, visual versus verbal, and sequential versus global. Realize that the
strength of, or preference for, one learning style or another may vary, and may even fluctuate depending on
the subject matter being learned.

3. Consider having students take a learning style profile questionnaire, especially if they seem to be struggling
with the content of the class. A free and well-know learning style assessment can be found on the North
Carolina State University’s website, http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html. Here, students
can quickly take the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire, get instant results, and a detailed explanation
for each learning style category.

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 4. Be aware of your preferred learning style as well, as this will likely determine your predominant teaching
style. For example, if you are a verbal learner, then you will remember best with written and verbalized
explanations of new material, and so it is very likely that you will prefer to present information using
lecture and written material. Being alert to your dominant teaching style will assist you in intentionally
varying your instructional approach.

5. Using a balanced multifaceted approach to teaching will ensure that the learning needs of all students are
being sufficiently met. Furthermore, using multiple teaching modalities will benefit all students in learning
and storing the new information.

Term Paper and Discussion Topics

Conceptual Topics
1. Soil. The web of life in the soil; soil formation and pioneer ecological succession; soils of your locale.

2. Human impact on the soil. Overgrazing and desertification; acid deposition as a threat to soil quality;
sediment as a water pollutant; irrigation impacts.

3. Agricultural systems. Inorganic fertilizers; history of development of one crop or livestock species; green
revolution; crops with designer genes; politics of American agriculture; feedlot beef cattle production in the
Corn Belt; range livestock production in the American West; urban growth and the loss of prime cropland;
modern food storage and transportation; comparisons of environmental impacts of traditional and industrial
agricultural practices.

4. Hunger and food distribution. History of great famines; malnutrition and learning; the geography of
malnutrition.

5. Fishing. Overfishing; aquaculture; the Peruvian anchovy story.

6. Pesticides. Pesticides as hazardous waste; pesticide hazards to agricultural workers; chlorinated

hydrocarbons; organophosphates and carbamates; pyrethroids and rotenoids; biological amplification of
persistent pesticides; DDT and malaria control; Agent Orange; the Bhopal accident; pesticide residues in
foods; pesticide runoff as a threat to agriculture.

7. Pesticide alternatives. Integrated pest management; food irradiation; genetic control by sterilization: the
screwworm fly; pheromones.

Attitudes & Values

1. What soil type is most common in your area? What are the most common soil problems in your area?

2. What feelings do you have toward the soil? Do you feel humans have a right to use the soil in any way
they choose? If not, what are the limits?

3. Do you feel nature can take care of any harm humans bring the soil? Do you feel new technologies will
solve any problems humans create involving the soil?

4. Do you feel humans have a responsibility to protect the quality and fertility of the soil? If so, what steps
do you think should be taken to protect the soil?

5. Have you ever fasted? If so, how did it feel? Do you feel everyone has a right to a healthy diet? Is using
lifeboat ethics the best way to decide who gets to eat?

Food, Soil, and Pest Management

 6. Do you favor greatly increased foreign aid to poor countries to help them reduce poverty, to improve
environmental quality, and to develop sustainable use of their own resources? What is the best way to
manage food distribution for foreign aid?

7. Do you favor a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources and wealth to greatly reduce the
current wide gap between the rich and the poor, even if this means less for you?

8. Have you ever eaten food grown with fertilizers and pesticides? How did it taste?

9. Have you ever eaten organically grown food? How did it taste? Are you aware of places to obtain
organically grown food in your area?

10. Do you prefer perfect looking fruits and vegetables grown with pesticides to slightly blemished fruits and
vegetables grown without pesticides?

11. Do you favor regulation of pesticides exported from the United States? Should pesticides banned in the
United States be exported to other countries?

12. Do you have an attachment to any particular piece of land? Explore the roots of your attachment. Is the
land protected from erosion and other forms of land degradation?

13. Would you create a compost pile in your backyard? Provide three reasons as to why or why not.

14. Is the rapid deterioration of agricultural soils in the United States a sufficiently serious problem to warrant
strict federal laws with heavy fines for farmers or ranchers failing to employ wise soil conservation
methods? Arrange a class debate on this issue.

15. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Which is better: a broad-spectrum or a narrow-spectrum pesticide?

Action-Oriented Topics
1. Individuals. Soil testing methods and procedures; what individuals can do to prevent soil erosion and
nutrient depletion on their own property; agricultural practices that restore nutrients and prevent erosion;
composting; no-tillage farming; crop rotation; windbreaks; forestry practices that minimize erosion;
ranching management that minimizes erosion. Sustainable agriculture: organic home gardening; neglected
edible plants; composting; crop rotation; organic fertilizers; windbreaks. Safe disposal of household
pesticides; homeowner strategies and tactics to reduce pesticide use.

2. Cities. Land-use planning and zoning.

3. National. Soil Conservation Service; policies, such as farm bills, that affect soil quality; Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

4. Global. UN food conferences; 1982 UN Conference on the Law of the Sea; agricultural training and
research centers in the developing countries. International sales of U.S.-produced pesticides whose use is
banned in the United States; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its implications for U.S.
regulations regarding pesticide levels in American foods.

Activities and Projects

1. Invite a Soil Conservation Service representative to your class to discuss local soil conservation problems
and erosion-control methods.

2. Take a class field trip to several farms or ranches in your locale that offer you the opportunity to contrast
excellent soil management practices with poor ones.

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 3. As a class exercise, discuss the economic, political, social, and environmental consequences that might
ensue if the fertile soils of the Great Plains and the Corn Belt were ruined by human-accelerated soil
erosion.

4. With your class, visit several construction sites in your locale. Look for evidence of human-accelerated soil
erosion and methods or practices employed to minimize it.

5. Have your students find poems, songs, or paintings that express intense human feelings about the land and
soil of working farms or ranches. Discuss these feelings in the context of modern large-scale commercial
agriculture or agribusiness. Explore human expressions of concern about hunger and starvation.

6. Ask an experienced practitioner of organic farming or gardening to visit the class and describe methods
used to preserve the soil and maintain its fertility without using inorganic fertilizers and chemical poisons.
If possible, arrange a field trip to investigate organic farming practices.

7. Ask students to find and bring to class photographs, songs, paintings, and literature reflecting human
feelings for fishermen, whalers, and farmers.

8. Invite an agricultural economist to your class to discuss shifts in the United States from farming to
agribusiness and the historical role of subsidies in agriculture.

9. Invite a representative from the United States Department of Agriculture (or some other informed source)
to your class to discuss how U.S. political decisions, such as emergency foreign aid and global trade, affect
U.S. farmers.

10. Invite a county agricultural agent to your class to discuss local agricultural problems and opportunities.
What major changes in agricultural practices are likely to occur in the coming decades? With what
consequences? What types of farming activities are carried on in your locale? What is the balance between
large and small farms? What are the major products? How much of the produce is used in local areas? How
much is shipped out and where does it go? What is the status of pesticide use and abuse in your locale? Try
to determine what factors, including government programs, combine to keep farmers on the pesticide
treadmill.

11. Have your students find works of art, literature, and music that show the relationship between humans and
pests and share them with the class.

12. As a class exercise, have your students create a soil management plan (illustrated by sketches, drawings, or
photographs) for a hypothetical badly eroded farm.

13. Take a field trip around the community with your class. See if you can identify any sloped areas that are
eroding significantly. Try to discern if the land erosion is resulting in sediment pollution in surface waters.
Investigate if anything is being done about it. Draw up a plan that would prevent further erosion. Share it
with people who might be interested in implementing the plan.

14. As a class, locate the nearest land undergoing desertification. If possible, take a field trip and observe it
firsthand. Research the change of rate of desertification in the last 10 years. Identify any measures that have
been taken to slow the rate of desertification. Draw up a proposal that could slow the rate of desertification.

15. As a class, identify the nearest irrigation projects. If possible, take a field trip to observe irrigation in action.
Identify any problems that have resulted from irrigation and what approaches are being taken to alleviate
those problems. Identify any groups that are researching salinization and waterlogging in the area. If
appropriate, create a plan that would reduce the irrigation problems.

16. As a class, plan a daily menu for a family of four receiving minimum welfare payments (consult local
welfare agencies for current payment levels and use current food prices). Ask your students how they
would like subsisting solely on this diet.

Food, Soil, and Pest Management

 17. As a class exercise, determine what percentage of your diet—as individuals and as a group–consists of
meat. What are some ecological implications of this amount of meat in the diet? What are the health
implications? What are the alternatives?

18. Arrange a class debate on the proposition that food-exporting nations should use population control and
resource development as criteria to determine which of the food-importing nations will receive top priority.
Conduct a mock trial and follow it with mock appeals hearings for denied nations.

19. With the help of a chemist or other appropriate consultant, have your students evaluate the ingredients,
uses, and warning labels of a representative sample of pesticides sold for home and garden applications.
Are the instructions for use, storage, and disposal adequate? How much additional information should be
supplied to further reduce the likelihood of harm to people and wildlife?

20. Are people generally aware of and concerned about the hazards of using pesticides on a large-scale, long-
term basis? As a class project, conduct a survey of students or consumers to address these and related
questions. What do the results imply for the role that education should play in dealing with pesticide-related
problems?

21. Have your students interview the college landscaping staff about which pesticides, if any, they use on
campus. What tradeoffs did they consider when deciding to use those pesticides?

22. Have your students contact wildlife and health officials to see if there have been any problems with
pesticides affecting wildlife and human health in your area.

BBC News Videos

The Brooks/Cole Environmental Science Video Library with Workbook, Featuring BBC Motion Gallery Video
Clips, 2011. DVD ISBN: 978-0-538-73355-7 (Prepared by David Perault)
What is the environmental cost for your food?

Suggested Answers for Critical Thinking Questions

1. Student answers will vary but should be based on counteracting the greatest obstacles to providing food to
everyone (Concept 7-1). Some suggestions for actions to reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition locally are:
i) Distribute food and vitamins to the poor.
ii) Help educate people on the proper ways to maintain a balanced diet.
iii) Rely more on locally grown food.
iv) Make healthy food more easily available both in terms of cost and proximity to where people live.

Actions to reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition in the world include:

i) Improving food storage and distribution
ii) Eating more grain-efficient forms of animal protein
iii) Supporting local farmers in planting diverse crops

2. Student answers will vary but they may discuss the following:

(a) An increase in genetically modified food would be favorable because it increases crop yield by engineering
crops to be resistant to harmful factors and by increasing the rate of growth while using less resources such as
water and fertilizer. Using genetically modified foods, more food can be produced and global food security can
be increased.

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 7

 An increase in genetically modified food would be unfavorable because there is not enough information about
the long-term potential harm these foods have on human health and ecosystems. There is also the potential for
these foods to produce harmful toxins from plant cell mutations, introduce new allergens, prove harmful to
beneficial insects, and can be generally lower in nutrition than non-genetically modified foods.

(b) An increase in polyculture practices would be favorable, when used sustainably, as it not only implements
the biodiversity principle of sustainability, it also reduces the chance of losing most or all of a year’s crop, as
several crops are grown on the same plot simultaneously.

An increase in polyculture practices would be unfavorable because when this approach is used extensively,
slash-and-burn agriculture leads to more clearing of tropical forests than is sustainable, leading to depletion and
degradation.

3. Answers to this question should consider the benefits of aquaculture (high yield, efficient, low fuel
consumption, high profits) and the disadvantages (large inputs of land and water, large amount of waste
produced, vulnerable to disease); and weigh those against the natural capital of coastal marshland. The student
will decide if they oppose or support the issue based on where they place the most value. Safeguards or
regulations for an aquaculture operation should involve requiring the farm location to cause minimal damage to
forests, mangroves, and estuaries; including sustainable waste management and disease-control practices;
preventing aquaculture species from entering the wild and certification labels for harvests produced using
sustainable forms of aquaculture.

4. Student answers will vary but may include the following:

(a) Widespread use of a pesticide can increase damage done by a particular pest by the pesticide destroying
natural predators. Without the predator to maintain the pest’s population, the population can increase drastically
and become a major problem.

(b) Widespread use of a pesticide can create new pest organisms by accelerating the development of genetic
resistance to pesticides by pest organisms. These pests, through natural selection, develop immunity to
pesticides and come back stronger than before.

5. Albert Einstein’s quote is in reference to the harmful environmental consequences of some meat production.
Industrialized meat production produces large amounts of pollutants and uses vast amounts of energy and water.
Shifting to a vegetarian diet will put less pressure on grain-supplies as well as marine-fish.

6. Student answers will vary.

7. Student answers will vary

Food, Soil, and Pest Management