2015 Fairchild Challenge Growing Food On The Past,...

2015 – 2016 Fairchild Challenge Challenge 7 – Growing Food in the Past, Present and Future C. Agriculture and Food Security HS Evaluation Sheet Introduction Today we can just drive with our cars to the supermarket within 3 minutes, we buy for example a prefabricated baguette with lettuce, tomatoes and chicken and we can eat it directly. But what is behind this? Our food production has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. Many people worry about our planet, the pollution and that all our resources could decay one day. One of the biggest problems are that we use 70% of the global water withdraws, we use nearly half of the global land area and 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions come from our agriculture. In the following I will engage myself in the past, present and future of our food growing. I will deal with the problems as well as with the potential solutions. The past of agriculture Agriculture began to develop 10,000 years ago. Employed in agriculture are nearly 50% of the world’s labor force. It got more and more important the more the human population grew and when they found out that foods due to a need for a longer shelf life. Eight thousand years ago: People raised wheat, barley, legumes, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle and many other species. Seven thousand years ago: People were actively farming. Four thousand years ago: The change came and from this time herald a diet, at least among the well-to-do, that included figs, dates, grapes, olives, pomegranate, and