SPSS 2500E Midterm Exam with
Complete Solutions
Practices of Industrial Agriculture - ANS-• Industrial Agriculture is built around two goals:
• Maximization of production
• Maximization of profit
• Monoculture - ANS-• Extensive growth of one crop, growing in one field.
• Allows more efficient use of farm machinery for cultivation, sowing, weed control, and
harvest.
• Can create economies of scale regarding the purchase of seeds, fertilizer, and
pesticides.
Cross-resistance - ANS-• Evolved resistance to one type of pesticide can confer
resistance to others, though not necessarily related pesticides
Consequences of industrial agriculture - ANS-• Current industrial agriculture techniques
put future productivity at risk in many ways.
Specifically, agricultural resources are overdrawn and degraded.
• Resources such as soil, water, and genetic diversity are affected by industrial
agricultural techniques.
• As a result, the social, political, and economic conditions conducive to resource
conservation are weakened and dismantled.
• Externalized costs - ANS-• In economic terms, a negative consequence that is put
outside (made external to) the system being considered.
• Conventional agriculture has many
• Conventional agriculture has many externalized costs, including:
• Degradation of ecological resources, hazards to human health, and disintegration of
social systems.
• Every externalized cost involves privatizing a gain and socializing its associated costs.
• Externalized costs of industrial agriculture have an effect on both the future and the
present
• Genetic erosion - ANS-
• Genetic erosion - ANS-• Loss of genetic diversity in domesticated organisms that have
resulted in human reliance on a few genetically uniform food crop plants and animals.
• Increasing genetic uniformity leads to increasing vulnerability to pathogens and insect
damage
,• The role of agroecology can help to bring about change in the food system: - ANS-1.
Knowledge of the ecological relationships between domesticated agricultural species,
the physical environment, and natural systems.
2. Effective and innovative agricultural practices that lay the groundwork for sustainable
practices.
3. Changes in the social and economic systems that determine the distribution of food
around the world.
Biodynamic agriculture - ANS-• Biodynamic agriculture is regarded as the first organic
agricultural approach.
• Derived from the works of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner from a lecture in
1924.
• It is currently used on more than 600,000 acres.
• Steiner saw each field as "integrated, whole, living organism... made up of
independent elements: fields, forests, plants, animals, soils, composts, people, and the
spirit of the place."
Organic agriculture - ANS-• Organic agricultural techniques are attributed to traditional
farmer of the Indian subcontinent.
• Also associated with the work of British botanist Sir Albert Howard in the early 20th
century.
• Howard realized how the industrial agricultural techniques were less effective than the
techniques already in place by farmers.
• Howard's most celebrated technique is known as the "law of the return".
• Law of the return
• The general principle of closing the nutrient loop by reducing the potential oss of
organic matter stemming from harvesting and cultivation.
• Howard advocated for the use of techniques such as:
• Composting, cover cropping, and animal integration.
• The closed-loop approach is vastly different from many of the linear approaches of
contemporaries.
• In the late 1940s, Jerome Irving Rodale introduce organic farming to the US.
Early regenerative agriculture - ANS-Early regenerative agriculture
• American agricultural scientist and inventor, George Washington Carver, was a
proponent of farming practices to regenerate degraded land for agricultural production.
• At the Tuskegee Institute in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Carver explored practices
that could build soil organic matter and fertility.
• He actively promoted these concepts to the poor black farmers in his area that he saw
as his main constituents.
• In the Southern US, under the Jim Crow laws, many Black farmers only had access to
the most degraded and least valuable farmland.
• Extension services from Land Grant universities were not available for these farmers.
Carver taught farming in innovative ways, such as using the Jesup Agricultural Wagon.
• Carver taught the importance of soil health, diversifying crops, and crop rotation.
, Alternatives linked to the environmental movement - ANS-• In the mid-1950s, the Green
Revolution paved the way for agricultural innovation.
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring showed the detrimental and widespread effects of the
pesticide DDT.
• This and other events helped to spawn the environmental movement of the 1960s and
1970s.
• At this time, food security and environmental conservation became closely linked and
spawned new alternative agricultural techniques.
Permaculture - ANS-• In the 1970s, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren of the University
of Tasmania set out to develop a permanent form of agriculture.
• The emphasis was on perennial plants, using natural ecosystems as an example.
• Permaculture is design-centered, using design principles of Buckminster Fuller and
Percival A. Yeomans.
• Fuller championed "doing more with less" as the basis for permaculture.
• Yeomans used contours, slopes, and draining patterns to inform placement.
Standards-based agriculture - ANS-• In the 1980s, the US defined a certification
programs for growth of organic food.
• In 1990, the Organic Foods Production Act directed national standards for organic
foods.
• Developed National List of Allowable and Prohibited Substances
Regenerative agriculture - ANS-• Rather than sustaining nutrients in soil, the focus is on
regenerating the essential natural resources of agroecosystems.
• Farmers need to build up organic matter content, increase internal nutrient cycling,
and repair and restore the damage done to the natural resource base of
agroecosystems.
• Regenerative agriculture is identified as a promising strategy for mitigating CO2
emissions.
• Also provides a means of carbon sequestration.
Agroecology - ANS-• Basil M. Bensin, a Russian agronomist, was concerned about
companies selling seeds, fertilizers, and tractors taking advantage of farmers post-WWI.
• Bensin called for the research of ecological conditions on each farm so that decisions
were site-specific.
• In the 1970s, post-Green Revolution, agroecological techniques saw usage outside of
academia in Mexico.
• By the 1980s, distinct agroecological frameworks came to the forefront.
Agroecology. What is agroecology?
What is an agroecosystem? - ANS-What is an agroecosystem?
• Agroecosystem
• A site or integrated region of agricultural production (e.g., a farm) that is understood as
an ecosystem.
Complete Solutions
Practices of Industrial Agriculture - ANS-• Industrial Agriculture is built around two goals:
• Maximization of production
• Maximization of profit
• Monoculture - ANS-• Extensive growth of one crop, growing in one field.
• Allows more efficient use of farm machinery for cultivation, sowing, weed control, and
harvest.
• Can create economies of scale regarding the purchase of seeds, fertilizer, and
pesticides.
Cross-resistance - ANS-• Evolved resistance to one type of pesticide can confer
resistance to others, though not necessarily related pesticides
Consequences of industrial agriculture - ANS-• Current industrial agriculture techniques
put future productivity at risk in many ways.
Specifically, agricultural resources are overdrawn and degraded.
• Resources such as soil, water, and genetic diversity are affected by industrial
agricultural techniques.
• As a result, the social, political, and economic conditions conducive to resource
conservation are weakened and dismantled.
• Externalized costs - ANS-• In economic terms, a negative consequence that is put
outside (made external to) the system being considered.
• Conventional agriculture has many
• Conventional agriculture has many externalized costs, including:
• Degradation of ecological resources, hazards to human health, and disintegration of
social systems.
• Every externalized cost involves privatizing a gain and socializing its associated costs.
• Externalized costs of industrial agriculture have an effect on both the future and the
present
• Genetic erosion - ANS-
• Genetic erosion - ANS-• Loss of genetic diversity in domesticated organisms that have
resulted in human reliance on a few genetically uniform food crop plants and animals.
• Increasing genetic uniformity leads to increasing vulnerability to pathogens and insect
damage
,• The role of agroecology can help to bring about change in the food system: - ANS-1.
Knowledge of the ecological relationships between domesticated agricultural species,
the physical environment, and natural systems.
2. Effective and innovative agricultural practices that lay the groundwork for sustainable
practices.
3. Changes in the social and economic systems that determine the distribution of food
around the world.
Biodynamic agriculture - ANS-• Biodynamic agriculture is regarded as the first organic
agricultural approach.
• Derived from the works of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner from a lecture in
1924.
• It is currently used on more than 600,000 acres.
• Steiner saw each field as "integrated, whole, living organism... made up of
independent elements: fields, forests, plants, animals, soils, composts, people, and the
spirit of the place."
Organic agriculture - ANS-• Organic agricultural techniques are attributed to traditional
farmer of the Indian subcontinent.
• Also associated with the work of British botanist Sir Albert Howard in the early 20th
century.
• Howard realized how the industrial agricultural techniques were less effective than the
techniques already in place by farmers.
• Howard's most celebrated technique is known as the "law of the return".
• Law of the return
• The general principle of closing the nutrient loop by reducing the potential oss of
organic matter stemming from harvesting and cultivation.
• Howard advocated for the use of techniques such as:
• Composting, cover cropping, and animal integration.
• The closed-loop approach is vastly different from many of the linear approaches of
contemporaries.
• In the late 1940s, Jerome Irving Rodale introduce organic farming to the US.
Early regenerative agriculture - ANS-Early regenerative agriculture
• American agricultural scientist and inventor, George Washington Carver, was a
proponent of farming practices to regenerate degraded land for agricultural production.
• At the Tuskegee Institute in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Carver explored practices
that could build soil organic matter and fertility.
• He actively promoted these concepts to the poor black farmers in his area that he saw
as his main constituents.
• In the Southern US, under the Jim Crow laws, many Black farmers only had access to
the most degraded and least valuable farmland.
• Extension services from Land Grant universities were not available for these farmers.
Carver taught farming in innovative ways, such as using the Jesup Agricultural Wagon.
• Carver taught the importance of soil health, diversifying crops, and crop rotation.
, Alternatives linked to the environmental movement - ANS-• In the mid-1950s, the Green
Revolution paved the way for agricultural innovation.
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring showed the detrimental and widespread effects of the
pesticide DDT.
• This and other events helped to spawn the environmental movement of the 1960s and
1970s.
• At this time, food security and environmental conservation became closely linked and
spawned new alternative agricultural techniques.
Permaculture - ANS-• In the 1970s, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren of the University
of Tasmania set out to develop a permanent form of agriculture.
• The emphasis was on perennial plants, using natural ecosystems as an example.
• Permaculture is design-centered, using design principles of Buckminster Fuller and
Percival A. Yeomans.
• Fuller championed "doing more with less" as the basis for permaculture.
• Yeomans used contours, slopes, and draining patterns to inform placement.
Standards-based agriculture - ANS-• In the 1980s, the US defined a certification
programs for growth of organic food.
• In 1990, the Organic Foods Production Act directed national standards for organic
foods.
• Developed National List of Allowable and Prohibited Substances
Regenerative agriculture - ANS-• Rather than sustaining nutrients in soil, the focus is on
regenerating the essential natural resources of agroecosystems.
• Farmers need to build up organic matter content, increase internal nutrient cycling,
and repair and restore the damage done to the natural resource base of
agroecosystems.
• Regenerative agriculture is identified as a promising strategy for mitigating CO2
emissions.
• Also provides a means of carbon sequestration.
Agroecology - ANS-• Basil M. Bensin, a Russian agronomist, was concerned about
companies selling seeds, fertilizers, and tractors taking advantage of farmers post-WWI.
• Bensin called for the research of ecological conditions on each farm so that decisions
were site-specific.
• In the 1970s, post-Green Revolution, agroecological techniques saw usage outside of
academia in Mexico.
• By the 1980s, distinct agroecological frameworks came to the forefront.
Agroecology. What is agroecology?
What is an agroecosystem? - ANS-What is an agroecosystem?
• Agroecosystem
• A site or integrated region of agricultural production (e.g., a farm) that is understood as
an ecosystem.
