Food

What Food covers

Food is examined in Paper 2, Challenges in the human environment. It covers food security and insecurity: patterns, causes and impacts, strategies to increase food supply and towards a sustainable food supply.

The 3 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Food security and insecurity: patterns, causes and impactsFood security, insecurity, surplus and deficit, the global pattern of calorie intake, why consumption rises, how climate, technology, pests, water stress, conflict and poverty affect supply, and famine, undernutrition, soil erosion, rising prices and unrest.Open →
• Strategies to increase food supplyIrrigation, hydroponics and aeroponics, the new green revolution, biotechnology and genetically modified crops, appropriate technology, and Thanet Earth in Kent as a large-scale agricultural development with advantages and disadvantages.Open →
• Towards a sustainable food supplyOrganic farming, permaculture, urban farming, sustainable fish and meat, seasonal food, cutting waste and losses, and why small local schemes succeed, with the Makueni Food and Water Security Programme in Kenya.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Food further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Food security vs Food insecurity

  Food security: reliable access at all times to enough safe and nutritious meals. Food insecurity: being unable to obtain enough safe and nutritious meals to meet needs.

• Hydroponics vs Aeroponics

  Hydroponics: growing plants without soil, with their roots held in nutrient-rich water. Aeroponics: growing plants without soil, with their roots suspended in air and sprayed with mist.

• Organic farming vs Permaculture

  Organic farming: growing crops without manufactured fertilisers and pesticides, using manure, compost and rotation. Permaculture: designing a plot to work the way a natural ecosystem does.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is food security?

   Model answer

   When people have reliable access at all times to enough safe and nutritious food to stay healthy and active.

2. 2

   What is food insecurity?

   Model answer

   When people cannot obtain enough safe and nutritious food to meet their needs, either all of the time or at certain times of the year.

3. 3

   What is an area of food surplus, and what is an area of food deficit?

   Model answer

   A surplus area grows more food than its population needs and has some left to store or export, while a deficit area grows less than it needs and must import food or go short.

4. 4

   What does calorie intake per person measure, and why is it useful?

   Model answer

   The average amount of food energy available to each person each day, which allows countries to be compared for whether their food supply meets people's needs.

5. 5

   Describe the global pattern of calorie intake per person.

   Model answer

   Intake is highest in the wealthier developed regions such as North America, Europe and Australasia, and lowest in poorer regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and parts of southern Asia.

6. 6

   How does economic development raise the amount of food a country consumes?

   Model answer

   Rising incomes let people afford more food and change their diet towards meat and dairy, which need far more land, grain and water to produce.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Food revision questions

What does Food cover in AQA GCSE Geography?

3 subtopics: food security and insecurity: patterns, causes and impacts, strategies to increase food supply and towards a sustainable food supply. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Food organised?

By the AQA 8035 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.