The following links offer some useful revision on Food Production to support your learning:
BBC Bitesize – Food Production
West OS – Food Production
To help with your learning, you may also wish to try some of the following resources:
Food Production PPQs & Marking Scheme
Within the National 5 Biology course, you will need to know:
- Increasing human population requires an increased food yield. This can involve the use of fertilisers and pesticides.
- Fertilisers provide chemicals such as nitrates which increase crop yield.
- Plants and animals which reduce crop yield can be killed by pesticides.
- Nitrates dissolved in soil water are absorbed into plants. Nitrates are used to produce amino acids which are synthesised into plant proteins.
- Animals consume plants or other animals to obtain amino acids for protein synthesis.
- Fertilisers can be added to soil to increase the nitrate content of the soil.
- Fertilisers can leach into fresh water, adding extra, unwanted nitrates. This will increase algal populations which can cause algal blooms.
- Algal blooms reduce light levels, killing aquatic plants. These dead plants, as well as dead algae, become food for bacteria which increase greatly in number. The bacteria use up large quantities of oxygen, reducing the oxygen availability for other organisms.
- Genetically modified (GM) crops can be used to reduce the use of fertilisers.
- Pesticides sprayed onto crops can accumulate in the bodies of organisms over time. As they are passed along food chains, toxicity increases and can reach lethal levels.
- The use of biological control and genetically modified (GM) crops as alternatives to the use of pesticides.
