Chapter 12 Vocabulary with Definitions

1. Organic Agriculture: growing crops with limited or no use of synthetic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers; genetically modified crops, raising livestock without use of synthetic growth regulators and feed additives and using organic fertilizers

2. Food Security: having daily access to enough nutritious food to live active and healthy lives

3. Food Insecurity: living with chronic hunger and poor nutrition which threatens their ability to lead healthy and productive lives

4. Chronic Undernutrition: people who cannot grow or buy enough food to meet basic energy needs

5. Chronic Malnutrition: deficiencies of protein and other key nutrients; this weakens them, makes them more vulnerable to disease, and hinders the normal physical and mental development of the children

6. Famine: severe shortage of food in an area which can result in mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption

7. Overnutrition: occurs when food energy intake exceeds energy use and causes excess body fat

8. Irrigation: supplying water to crops by artificial means

9. Industrialized Agriculture: uses heavy equipment and large amounts of financial capital, fossil fuels, water, commercial inorganic fertilizers, and pesticides to produce single crops

10. Plantation Agriculture: a from of industrialized ag used primarily in tropical, less developed countries; it involves growing cash crops

11. Hydroponics: growing plants by exposing their roots to a nutrient rich water solution instead of soil, usually inside of a greenhouse

12. Traditional Subsistence Agriculture: supplements energy from the sun with a labor of humans and draft animals to produce enough crops for a farm family’s survival, with little left over to sell or store as a reserve for hard times

13. Traditional Intensive Agriculture: farmers increase their inputs in human and draft animal labor, animal manure for fertilizer, and water to obtain higher crop yields

14. Slash-and-Burn Agriculture: burning and clearing small plots in tropical forests, growing a variety of crops for a few years until the soil is depleted of nutrients, and shifting to other plots to begin the process again

15. Green Revolution: involves three steps: first, develop and plant monocultures of selectively bred varieties of key crops such as rice, wheat, and corn. Second, produce high yields by using large inputs of water and inorganic fertilizer and pesticides. Third, increase the number of crops grown per year on a plot of land through multiple cropping

16. Fishery: a concentration of a particular aquatic suitable for commercial harvesting in a given ocean area or inland body of water

17. Aquaculture: the practice of raising marine and fresh water fish in freshwater ponds or underwater cages in coastal or open ocean waters

18. Soil Erosion: the movement of soil components from one place to another by actions of wind and water

19.Desertificaion: when productive potential of topsoil falls by 10% or more because of prolong drought and human activities.

20. Salinization: stunts crop growth, lowers crop yields and eventually kills crops and ruins lands.

21. Waterlogging: water accumulates underground and gradually raises the water table.

22. Pest:any species that interferes with human welfare by competing with us for food

23. Pesticides: chemicals used to kill or control populations of organisms that we consider undesirable

24. integrated pest management: more sustainable approach, each crop and its pests, are evaluated as parts of an ecological system

25. soil conservation: involves using a variety of methods to reduce top soil erosion, to restore soil fertility, mostly by keeping the land covered with vegetation

26. Organic fertilizer: unused plant and animals materials

27. manufactured inorganic fertilizer: unproduced from various minerals which are mined from the earth’s crust

28. animal manure: the dung and urine of animals

29. green manure: consists of freshly cut or growing vegetation that is plowed into top soil

30. compost: produced when microorganisms break down organic matter