Feeding the Future

Feeding the Future 🌾

The world's population keeps growing — but the land, seas and resources to feed it do not. How do we produce **more** food, **sustainably**, and **fairly**? This final Biology module weighs up the ways we boost food production, and the costs that come with them. (All of 4.7.5 is **Biology-only**.)

Food security under pressure 📉

**Food security** means having enough food to feed a population. Many factors threaten it: • a rising **population** • **changing diets** in developed countries, so scarce food is transported worldwide • new **pests and pathogens** attacking crops and livestock • **environmental changes** (like drought) hitting food-growing regions • the **cost** of farming inputs, and **conflicts** that disrupt food and water.

Threats to food security

Pick the TWO factors that threaten food security.

• New pests and pathogens attacking crops
• Environmental changes such as drought
• A shrinking human population
• Farming inputs becoming much cheaper

Farming for efficiency 🐄

One way to get more food from the same resources is to make **animal farming more efficient**. Energy the animal spends is energy that doesn't end up as meat, so farmers can: • **limit the animals' movement**, and • **control the temperature** of their surroundings (keeping them warm). Less energy lost to movement and staying warm means **more biomass** is turned into growth. **Fish farming** boosts supply too, but needs careful **welfare** and **disease** control.

Why restrict movement?

Why does limiting a farm animal's movement make meat production more efficient?

• Less energy is used for movement, so more biomass goes into growth
• The animals eat far less food
• The animals need no water
• They breed much faster

Efficiency vs welfare ⚖️

There is a genuine **trade-off** here. Restricting movement and controlling temperature makes production more **efficient** and food **cheaper** — but many people consider keeping animals in small, crowded, restricted conditions to be **poor for animal welfare**, and intensive farming can harm the **environment** too. Exam answers on this must weigh **both** sides and reach a conclusion — never just one.

Weigh it up

An interactive activity.

Saving the fisheries 🎣

Fish stocks in the sea have fallen sharply from **overfishing**. If too many fish are taken, too few are left to breed and the population can collapse. To keep fishing **sustainable**, two main controls are used: • **Fishing quotas** — limits on how many of each species may be caught. • **Net (mesh) size** — larger holes let young fish escape to grow and breed.

Manage the fishery

An interactive activity.

Biotech on the menu 🧬

Modern **biotechnology** offers new ways to feed people: • **GM crops** — genes (often from **bacteria**) are transferred into crops to make them **resistant to insect pests or to herbicides**, increasing yields. • **Mycoprotein** — a protein-rich food for vegetarians, made from the fungus **Fusarium** grown in fermenters.

Make mycoprotein

An interactive activity.

What GM does

A crop is genetically modified using a bacterial gene. What benefit does this most commonly give?

• Resistance to insect pests or to herbicides, raising the yield
• The crop no longer needs any water
• The crop grows with no sunlight
• It turns the plant into an animal protein

In the exam 🎓

Course complete. Grade-9 habits for food production: • **Evaluate** the farming trade-off explicitly: efficiency gain (more biomass → meat) **vs** animal-welfare/environmental concern, **plus a conclusion**. • **Sustainable fishing** = **quotas** + **larger net mesh** so stocks recover. • Name the biotech: **GM crops** (bacterial genes → pest/herbicide resistance) and **mycoprotein** (*Fusarium* grown aseptically on glucose syrup, then harvested and purified).