Future of Food | OCR A-Level Geography (H481)

Future of Food

347 questions
22 subtopics
Component 03: Geographical debates, two of five
Component 03

Future of Food is examined in Component 03, Geographical debates.

It covers food security and its three pillars, measuring hunger: undernourishment data and food security indices, shifting patterns of food security between and within countries, climate, soil, water and relief as controls on where food can be grown, the journey of food from farm to plate, and the waste it leaves, types of farming: intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial, globalisation, rising demand and global tastes, the issues and opportunities of a globalised food industry, land ownership, competition and land grabbing, malthus, Boserup and the population–resource debate, yemen: conflict, aridity and the collapse of food access, vulnerable people and the pinchpoints in global food distribution, desertification and the drylands of the Sahel, extreme weather, water scarcity and tectonic shocks to food production, inuit hunting and food security in the Arctic, salinisation, deforestation and agrochemical pollution from farming, the Aral Sea: a landscape remade by irrigation, health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemical exposure, malawi and the United States: contrasting experiences of food insecurity, trade policy, the World Trade Organization and appropriate aid, agribusiness, food TNCs, supermarkets and fair trade and from emergency relief to capacity building and system redesign.

Sample questions from Future of Food

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Food security and its three pillars

Explain how a country can have plenty of food available and still have hungry citizens.

Show the answer
Availability only puts food inside the country, so if households lack the income to buy it or live far from any market the access pillar fails and they go hungry.
Shifting patterns of food security between and within countries

Explain why food security can be unequal within a single household.

Show the answer
Where food is short it is often shared according to status, so women and girls may eat last and least while earning members are fed first.
Types of farming: intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial

Explain why intensive and subsistence are not opposites.

Show the answer
They describe different things, because intensity measures the level of input per hectare while subsistence and commercial describe who the output is for, so intensive subsistence rice growing and extensive commercial ranching both exist.
The issues and opportunities of a globalised food industry

Give two ways the global spread of technology has helped food production.

Show the answer
Improved seed varieties and machinery have been transferred rapidly between countries, and mobile networks now deliver price and weather information straight to farmers.
Yemen: conflict, aridity and the collapse of food access

Which port handles the bulk of Yemen's food imports?

Show the answer
Hodeidah, on the Red Sea coast.
Desertification and the drylands of the Sahel

Describe the surface hydrology of the Sahel.

Show the answer
Most watercourses are ephemeral and flow only after storms, so people depend on a few perennial rivers such as the Niger, on seasonal ponds, and increasingly on boreholes into groundwater.
Salinisation, deforestation and agrochemical pollution from farming

Name two crops that tolerate moderately saline soils.

Show the answer
Barley and date palm.
Health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemical exposure

Explain how a person can be obese and food insecure at the same time.

Show the answer
Where money is short, cheap filling food high in fat and sugar is bought in preference to costlier fresh produce, so energy intake is adequate or excessive while diet quality is poor.

The 22 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Food security and its three pillars	Recall questions on what food security means, the availability, access and use pillars and stability as a fourth, hunger amid plenty, chronic and acute food insecurity, undernourishment and hidden hunger, sanitation, food sovereignty, Amartya Sen's entitlement theory of famine, and household coping strategies.	15
Measuring hunger: undernourishment data and food security indices	Recall questions on FAO undernourishment estimates and Zero Hunger, the Global Food Security Index and its strengths and limits, the Global Hunger Index, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and famine thresholds, child stunting and wasting, the fall and renewed rise of global hunger, and why calorie data understate malnutrition.	16
Shifting patterns of food security between and within countries	Recall questions on the dynamic pattern of food security, Sub-Saharan Africa and improvement in East and South East Asia, hunger hidden by national averages, remote rural districts, food deserts and hunger in wealthy countries, urban price spikes, the lean season, inequality within households, conflict, hungry food exporters, and displaced people.	13
Climate, soil, water and relief as controls on where food can be grown	Recall questions on the growing season, altitude and aspect, rainfall reliability, soil texture and loam, humus, nutrients and pH, geology and granite soils, soil air, wind, carbon dioxide and crop growth, water availability, latitude and world farming, and how physical geography makes food security unequal.	18
The journey of food from farm to plate, and the waste it leaves	Recall questions on the stages and supply chain from farm to consumer, value added by processing, the cold chain, the share of food lost or wasted, food loss versus food waste in richer and poorer countries, household waste, embedded water and energy, methane from landfill, supermarket waste, circular approaches, and waste reduction.	14
Types of farming: intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial	Recall questions on intensive, extensive, subsistence and commercial farming, cattle ranching, why intensive and subsistence are not opposites, rice cultivation in monsoon Asia, shifting cultivation and its breakdown, pastoral nomadism, monoculture, intensive livestock units and their criticisms, and agroforestry.	15
Globalisation, rising demand and global tastes	Recall questions on how population growth and rising incomes raise food demand, the nutrition transition, the global spread of tastes and supermarkets, year-round produce, container shipping and air freight, trade liberalisation, animal feed and land use, global commodity chains, food advertising, convenience food, and migrant cuisines.	13
The issues and opportunities of a globalised food industry	Recall questions on food miles and air freight, farmers' small share of retail prices, buyer-driven chains and cosmetic standards, obesity and the double burden of malnutrition, the 2007 to 2008 food price crisis and urban unrest, war and bread prices, technology transfer, disaster relief and food aid, and the costs of consumer choice.	17
Land ownership, competition and land grabbing	Recall questions on land tenure and insecure tenure, sharecropping, customary and communal land, land fragmentation, women's land rights, land grabbing and its growth after 2008, the motives and local impacts of farmland acquisition, the failed Daewoo deal, competition from other land uses, and why ownership patterns vary.	15
Malthus, Boserup and the population–resource debate	Recall questions on Malthus and his 1798 essay, positive and preventive checks and the Malthusian ceiling, Boserup's 1965 argument and her sequence of intensification, why her view is optimistic, evidence for each side, neo-Malthusians and cornucopians, and why neither explains modern famine.	15
Yemen: conflict, aridity and the collapse of food access	Recall questions on Yemen's location and arid climate, why it grows little of its food and imports most cereals through Hodeidah, the civil war since 2014 and its damage to food access and production, qat and water use, groundwater depletion under Sana'a, currency collapse, the use pillar, and how physical and human causes combine.	14
Vulnerable people and the pinchpoints in global food distribution	Recall questions on the groups most at risk of food insecurity, young children and landless labourers, the most affected countries, small island states and oil-rich desert states, hunger in high-income countries, chokepoints such as the Suez Canal, Hormuz, Malacca and the Turkish Straits, drought on inland canals, post-harvest losses, and hermetic storage.	16
Desertification and the drylands of the Sahel	Recall questions on desertification and why it is not an advancing desert, its human and climatic causes, overgrazing and albedo feedback, effects on dryland ecosystems, the Sahel's location, rainfall, ITCZ, vegetation, millet and sorghum, hydrology and shrinking Lake Chad, population growth, land acquisition, climate change, and farmer managed natural regeneration.	18
Extreme weather, water scarcity and tectonic shocks to food production	Recall questions on how climate change intensifies extreme weather, drought, floods and wildfire, El Niño and the Peruvian fishery, its regional effects and influence on food prices, La Niña in East Africa, physical and economic water scarcity, agricultural water use, groundwater depletion, virtual water, and the effects of volcanic ash, tsunamis and earthquakes on farming.	18
Inuit hunting and food security in the Arctic	Recall questions on the Arctic climate and tundra where the Inuit live, low productivity and the impossibility of arable farming, country food and the animals hunted, sea ice as a hunting platform, food preservation and nutrition without plants, sharing, thinning ice, thawing ice cellars, contaminants, store-bought food, and the effect of bans on seal products.	15
Salinisation, deforestation and agrochemical pollution from farming	Recall questions on salinisation and waterlogging under irrigation, their effect on yields and extent, reclamation and salt-tolerant crops, cattle ranching, soy and oil palm as causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss and reduced rainfall, eutrophication and dead zones, nitrate in groundwater, pesticide bioaccumulation, pollinator decline, and changing farm landscapes.	18
The Aral Sea: a landscape remade by irrigation	Recall questions on the Aral Sea in Central Asia, the diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for cotton, the Karakum Canal and water losses, the shrinking sea, the collapse of fishing and death of fish, salt dust storms and health, climate change around the sea, damage to farmland, and the partial restoration of the northern basin.	14
Health effects of hunger, over-nutrition and agrochemical exposure	Recall questions on malnutrition, marasmus and kwashiorkor, lifelong effects of stunting, undernutrition and infection, vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiencies, obesity and body mass index, related chronic diseases, cheap energy-dense food, obesity alongside food insecurity, obesogenic environments, pesticide poisoning of farm workers, persistent residues, and the Bhopal disaster.	18
Malawi and the United States: contrasting experiences of food insecurity	Recall questions on Malawi's maize staple, single rainy season and lean season, tiny landholdings, drought's effect on households, Cyclone Idai and declining soil fertility, and on food insecurity in the United States, how it is measured, food deserts and SNAP, access rather than availability, and contrasting health consequences in the two countries.	14
Trade policy, the World Trade Organization and appropriate aid	Recall questions on tariffs and agricultural subsidies, how rich-country subsidies harm poorer farmers, food export bans, the World Trade Organization, its agreement on agriculture and the stalled Doha Round, tariff escalation, regional trade blocs, appropriate aid, cash transfers versus food shipments, tied aid, and long-term development aid.	15
Agribusiness, food TNCs, supermarkets and fair trade	Recall questions on agribusiness and vertical integration, its advantages and criticisms, concentration in seeds and agrochemicals, food transnationals such as Unilever and their supply chains, standards and diets, Tesco and supermarket buying power, how supermarkets change the food chain and help consumers, fair trade, the Fairtrade Premium and minimum price, its criticisms, and cooperatives.	18
From emergency relief to capacity building and system redesign	Recall questions on relief, capacity building and system redesign, the limits of emergency relief, appropriate technology, bottom-up schemes, the Green Revolution and its criticisms and absence from Sub-Saharan Africa, genetically modified crops, Brazil's Zero Hunger strategy, Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, and what the two strategies show.	18

Future of Food is 347 of the 3,740 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.