Future of Food

What Future of Food covers

Future of Food is examined in Component 03, Geographical debates. It covers food security and how hunger is measured; shifting patterns of food security between and within countries; the physical controls on where food can be grown; the journey of food from farm to plate and the waste it leaves; types of farming; globalisation, rising demand and the globalised food industry; land ownership and land grabbing; and the population–resource debate between Malthus and Boserup. It also covers the causes of food insecurity, from conflict in Yemen and pinchpoints in distribution to desertification in the Sahel, extreme weather, water scarcity and tectonic shocks, and Inuit food security in the Arctic; the environmental effects of farming, including the Aral Sea; the health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemicals; contrasting experiences in Malawi and the United States; and responses through trade policy, aid, agribusiness, fair trade and capacity building.

The 22 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Food security and its three pillarsRecall questions on what food security means, the availability, access and use pillars and stability as a fourth, hunger amid plenty, chronic and acute food insecurity, undernourishment and hidden hunger, sanitation, food sovereignty, Amartya Sen's entitlement theory of famine, and household coping strategies.Open →
• Measuring hunger: undernourishment data and food security indicesRecall questions on FAO undernourishment estimates and Zero Hunger, the Global Food Security Index and its strengths and limits, the Global Hunger Index, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and famine thresholds, child stunting and wasting, the fall and renewed rise of global hunger, and why calorie data understate malnutrition.Open →
• Shifting patterns of food security between and within countriesRecall questions on the dynamic pattern of food security, Sub-Saharan Africa and improvement in East and South East Asia, hunger hidden by national averages, remote rural districts, food deserts and hunger in wealthy countries, urban price spikes, the lean season, inequality within households, conflict, hungry food exporters, and displaced people.Open →
• Climate, soil, water and relief as controls on where food can be grownRecall questions on the growing season, altitude and aspect, rainfall reliability, soil texture and loam, humus, nutrients and pH, geology and granite soils, soil air, wind, carbon dioxide and crop growth, water availability, latitude and world farming, and how physical geography makes food security unequal.Open →
• The journey of food from farm to plate, and the waste it leavesRecall questions on the stages and supply chain from farm to consumer, value added by processing, the cold chain, the share of food lost or wasted, food loss versus food waste in richer and poorer countries, household waste, embedded water and energy, methane from landfill, supermarket waste, circular approaches, and waste reduction.Open →
• Types of farming: intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercialRecall questions on intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial farming, cattle ranching, why intensive and subsistence are not opposites, rice cultivation in monsoon Asia, shifting cultivation and its breakdown, pastoral nomadism, monoculture, intensive livestock units and their criticisms, and agroforestry.Open →
• Globalisation, rising demand and global tastesRecall questions on how population growth and rising incomes raise food demand, the nutrition transition, the global spread of tastes and supermarkets, year-round produce, container shipping and air freight, trade liberalisation, animal feed and land use, global commodity chains, food advertising, convenience food, and migrant cuisines.Open →
• The issues and opportunities of a globalised food industryRecall questions on food miles and air freight, farmers' small share of retail prices, buyer-driven chains and cosmetic standards, obesity and the double burden of malnutrition, the 2007 to 2008 food price crisis and urban unrest, war and bread prices, technology transfer, disaster relief and food aid, and the costs of consumer choice.Open →
• Land ownership, competition and land grabbingRecall questions on land tenure and insecure tenure, sharecropping, customary and communal land, land fragmentation, women's land rights, land grabbing and its growth after 2008, the motives and local impacts of farmland acquisition, the failed Daewoo deal, competition from other land uses, and why ownership patterns vary.Open →
• Malthus, Boserup and the population–resource debateRecall questions on Malthus and his 1798 essay, positive and preventive checks and the Malthusian ceiling, Boserup's 1965 argument and her sequence of intensification, why her view is optimistic, evidence for each side, neo-Malthusians and cornucopians, and why neither explains modern famine.Open →
• Yemen: conflict, aridity and the collapse of food accessRecall questions on Yemen's location and arid climate, why it grows little of its food and imports most cereals through Hodeidah, the civil war since 2014 and its damage to food access and production, qat and water use, groundwater depletion under Sana'a, currency collapse, the use pillar, and how physical and human causes combine.Open →
• Vulnerable people and the pinchpoints in global food distributionRecall questions on the groups most at risk of food insecurity, young children and landless labourers, the most affected countries, small island states and oil-rich desert states, hunger in high-income countries, chokepoints such as the Suez Canal, Hormuz, Malacca and the Turkish Straits, drought on inland canals, post-harvest losses, and hermetic storage.Open →
• Desertification and the drylands of the SahelRecall questions on desertification and why it is not an advancing desert, its human and climatic causes, overgrazing and albedo feedback, effects on dryland ecosystems, the Sahel's location, rainfall, ITCZ, vegetation, millet and sorghum, hydrology and shrinking Lake Chad, population growth, land acquisition, climate change, and farmer managed natural regeneration.Open →
• Extreme weather, water scarcity and tectonic shocks to food productionRecall questions on how climate change intensifies extreme weather, drought, floods and wildfire, El Niño and the Peruvian fishery, its regional effects and influence on food prices, La Niña in East Africa, physical and economic water scarcity, agricultural water use, groundwater depletion, virtual water, and the effects of volcanic ash, tsunamis and earthquakes on farming.Open →
• Inuit hunting and food security in the ArcticRecall questions on the Arctic climate and tundra where the Inuit live, low productivity and the impossibility of arable farming, country food and the animals hunted, sea ice as a hunting platform, food preservation and nutrition without plants, sharing, thinning ice, thawing ice cellars, contaminants, store-bought food, and the effect of bans on seal products.Open →
• Salinisation, deforestation and agrochemical pollution from farmingRecall questions on salinisation and waterlogging under irrigation, their effect on yields and extent, reclamation and salt-tolerant crops, cattle ranching, soy and oil palm as causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss and reduced rainfall, eutrophication and dead zones, nitrate in groundwater, pesticide bioaccumulation, pollinator decline, and changing farm landscapes.Open →
• The Aral Sea: a landscape remade by irrigationRecall questions on the Aral Sea in Central Asia, the diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for cotton, the Karakum Canal and water losses, the shrinking sea, the collapse of fishing and death of fish, salt dust storms and health, climate change around the sea, damage to farmland, and the partial restoration of the northern basin.Open →
• Health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemical exposureRecall questions on malnutrition, marasmus and kwashiorkor, lifelong effects of stunting, undernutrition and infection, vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiencies, obesity and body mass index, related chronic diseases, cheap energy-dense food, obesity alongside food insecurity, obesogenic environments, pesticide poisoning of farm workers, persistent residues, and the Bhopal disaster.Open →
• Malawi and the United States: contrasting experiences of food insecurityRecall questions on Malawi's maize staple, single rainy season and lean season, tiny landholdings, drought's effect on households, Cyclone Idai and declining soil fertility, and on food insecurity in the United States, how it is measured, food deserts and SNAP, access rather than availability, and contrasting health consequences in the two countries.Open →
• Trade policy, the World Trade Organization and appropriate aidRecall questions on tariffs and agricultural subsidies, how rich-country subsidies harm poorer farmers, food export bans, the World Trade Organization, its agreement on agriculture and the stalled Doha Round, tariff escalation, regional trade blocs, appropriate aid, cash transfers versus food shipments, tied aid, and long-term development aid.Open →
• Agribusiness, food TNCs, supermarkets and fair tradeRecall questions on agribusiness and vertical integration, its advantages and criticisms, concentration in seeds and agrochemicals, food transnationals such as Unilever and their supply chains, standards and diets, Tesco and supermarket buying power, how supermarkets change the food chain and help consumers, fair trade, the Fairtrade Premium and minimum price, its criticisms, and cooperatives.Open →
• From emergency relief to capacity building and system redesignRecall questions on relief, capacity building and system redesign, the limits of emergency relief, appropriate technology, bottom-up schemes, the Green Revolution and its criticisms and absence from Sub-Saharan Africa, genetically modified crops, Brazil's Zero Hunger strategy, Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, and what the two strategies show.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Future of Food further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Food loss vs Food waste

  Food loss: edible produce that never reaches the market, spoiled or damaged during growing, storage, processing and transport. Food waste: Edible produce thrown away at retail or in the home once it has already reached the consumer end of the chain.

• Stunting vs Wasting

  Stunting: low height for age in a child, indicating chronic undernourishment sustained over a long period. Wasting: Low weight for height in a child, indicating acute undernourishment in the recent past.

• Physical water scarcity vs Economic water scarcity

  Physical water scarcity: there is simply not enough of the resource present in the environment to meet the demand placed on it. Economic water scarcity: The resource is present in the environment, but the infrastructure and finance needed to deliver it to people are not.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does it mean for a household to be food secure?

   Model answer

   It means every member has physical and economic access at all times to enough safe, nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences for an active, healthy life.

2. 2

   Name the three pillars on which food security rests.

   Model answer

   Food availability, food access and food use, which is also called utilisation.

3. 3

   What does the availability pillar of food security refer to?

   Model answer

   It refers to whether enough food is physically present in an area, whether from domestic harvests, imports, stored reserves or aid.

4. 4

   What does the access pillar of food security refer to?

   Model answer

   It refers to whether people can actually obtain the food that exists, which depends on income, prices, transport and distance from a market.

5. 5

   What does the use, or utilisation, pillar of food security refer to?

   Model answer

   It refers to whether the body can turn food into health, which depends on dietary quality, clean water, sanitation, cooking facilities and freedom from disease.

6. 6

   Explain how a country can have plenty of food available and still have hungry citizens.

   Model answer

   Availability only puts food inside the country, so if households lack the income to buy it or live far from any market the access pillar fails and they go hungry.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Future of Food revision questions

What does Future of Food cover in OCR A-Level Geography?

22 subtopics: food security and its three pillars, measuring hunger: undernourishment data and food security indices, shifting patterns of food security between and within countries, climate, soil, water and relief as controls on where food can be grown, the journey of food from farm to plate, and the waste it leaves, types of farming: intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial, globalisation, rising demand and global tastes, the issues and opportunities of a globalised food industry, land ownership, competition and land grabbing, malthus, boserup and the population–resource debate, yemen: conflict, aridity and the collapse of food access, vulnerable people and the pinchpoints in global food distribution, desertification and the drylands of the sahel, extreme weather, water scarcity and tectonic shocks to food production, inuit hunting and food security in the arctic, salinisation, deforestation and agrochemical pollution from farming, the aral sea: a landscape remade by irrigation, health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemical exposure, malawi and the united states: contrasting experiences of food insecurity, trade policy, the world trade organization and appropriate aid, agribusiness, food tncs, supermarkets and fair trade and from emergency relief to capacity building and system redesign. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Future of Food organised?

By the OCR H481 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.