Food production and tourism
Farming systems and types, the causes of food shortages and how they can be reduced, and the growth and impacts of tourism.
📌 Key points
- A farm is a system: inputs (physical: climate, soil, relief; human: labour, seeds, machinery, fertiliser) → processes (ploughing, sowing, harvesting) → outputs (crops, animals, milk, profit).
- Subsistence farming produces food for the farmer and their family; commercial farming produces food to sell for profit.
- Arable farming grows crops, pastoral farming rears animals and mixed farming does both.
- Intensive farming uses high inputs of labour or capital on a small area; extensive farming uses low inputs over a large area.
- Food shortages can be caused by drought, floods, pests and disease, soil erosion, conflict, poverty and rapid population growth.
- Ways to increase food supply include irrigation, high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds and fertilisers (the Green Revolution), better storage and transport, and appropriate technology.
- Tourism has grown because of higher incomes, paid holidays, cheaper air travel, better information through the internet and the appeal of new destinations.
- Benefits of tourism include jobs, foreign exchange, improved infrastructure and the multiplier effect; problems include seasonal and low-paid jobs, leakage of profits, pollution, damage to environments and loss of local culture.
- Sustainable tourism and ecotourism aim to protect the environment and local culture while benefiting local people, for example by using local guides and limiting visitor numbers.
📖 Key terms
- Subsistence farming
- Farming to produce food for the farmer's own family, with little or no surplus to sell.
- Commercial farming
- Farming to produce crops or animals for sale and profit.
- Intensive farming
- Farming with high inputs of labour or capital per unit of land.
- Extensive farming
- Farming with low inputs per unit of land, usually over large areas.
- Irrigation
- Artificially supplying water to crops.
- Food shortage
- When there is not enough food for people to have a healthy diet.
- Leakage
- Tourist spending that leaves the host country, e.g. to foreign-owned hotels and airlines.
- Ecotourism
- Small-scale tourism that protects the environment and benefits local people.
✏️ Worked example
Tourist arrivals in a country increased from 2.0 million in 2010 to 3.5 million in 2020. Calculate the percentage increase.
- Percentage change = (new value − old value) ÷ old value × 100.
- Increase = 3.5 − 2.0 = 1.5 million.
- Divide by the original value: 1.5 ÷ 2.0 = 0.75.
- Multiply by 100: 0.75 × 100 = 75.
- Answer: tourist arrivals increased by 75%.
When asked about impacts of tourism, give a balanced answer: classify points as social, economic or environmental, and positive or negative, and develop each one with a consequence.
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