VIEW: Population Growth and Agriculture (BrainPop)
Population Growth and Agriculture
Farming has increasingly depended on machines to feed the growing human population. Photo courtesy of CK-12.
Every major advance in agriculture has allowed global population to increase. Irrigation, the ability to clear large tracts of land for farming and the development of farm machines powered by fossil fuels allowed people to grow more food and transport it where it was needed.
About 10,000 years ago, humans developed the ability to grow our own food. Farming increased the yield of food plants and allowed people to have food available all year. Animals were domesticated to provide meat.
The Green Revolution, which was an advancement in agricultural technology that occurred between the 1940s to late 1960s, further improved agricultural productivity by:
1. Improving crops by selecting for traits that promote productivity. Examples include genetically engineered crops.
2. Increasing the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
3. Developing machinery to help plowing, tilling, fertilizing, picking and transporting crops.
4. Increasing access to water. Many farming regions depend on groundwater, which is not a renewable resource. Some regions will eventually run out of groundwater; currently, about 70% of the world's freshwater is used for agriculture.
The Green Revolution has increased productivity immensely. Today, a farmer can feed more than 130 people. The Green Revolution is credited for feeding 1 billion people that would not otherwise have been able to live.
Watch the following video:
Source: Agriculture and Human Population Growth. Retrieved from http://www.ck12.org/book/CK-12-Earth-Science-Concepts-For-High-School/r16/section/13.2/ on December 27, 2013.