MEDCs vs LEDCs

MEDC	LEDC
The cost of sample food items are relatively cheap	Staple food items may not be always affordable as prices fluctuate
Most people make purchases based on taste and preference	People tend to make purchases based on nutritional need and affordability
Produce seasonality has mostly disappeared due to globalization	Political and economic agendas can affect food production
This has also allowed for a greater international variety in most supermarkets	Even if food crops are not used as cash crops, food production is still impacted since arable land
The average caloric content per capital per day of food is 3314 calories. In the USA specifically, this number is 3774 calories	In LEDCs the average caloric content per capital per day of food is 2666 calories. In Eritrea this number is 1512 calories

Food consumption

	MEDC	LEDC
Meat	12.9	7.3
Fish and Seafoods	1.4	0.9
Cereals	37.3	56.1
Vegetables, fruits, fats	48.4	35.7

The American Association for the Advancement of Science suggests that there is an average of 2790 calories available each day for every human on the planet. That is enough to feed everyone.

If food production has kept up with population growth, why are there still so many problems with famine, hunger and malnutrition?

Factors to consider

• Distribution:
• If countries like Canada, USA, and Australia have an excess to food, can that be shipped to Bangladesh, Ethiopia, or Sudan? Who will pay for it? Do they even want that kind of food?

• Politics
• If excess food is not paid for, is the receiving country in debt of the donating country

• So far, food supply has kept pace with human population growth, seemingly refuting Malthus… however recently some are doubting if this can continue

• As we adapt an increasing amount of global NPP to human needs. use and degrade more land, eat more meat, contaminate more water, we are getting closer to the planet's K... we just don't know that this is yet.

• There are 1.1 billion people living in poverty... They are increasing and growing hungrier.

Annual grain yields per hectare have slowed their rate of increase since the Green Revolution (1990-2000 had the lowest increase since before the 1950s).

Food Supply

Important Terms


Food security: This expression means that every person in a given area has a daily access to enough nutritious food to have an active and healthy life.
Food insecurity: The opposite of the first one. There are not enough food supply or simply people have not the needed resources to access them.

Undernutrution	Malnutrition	Overnutrition
Food consumed doesn't provide enough energy	Food has enpugh nergy but lacks nutrients, vitamins, proteins  and minerals	Food consumes has an excess of energy than the one needed and used

Basic Nutrients which cause malnutrition:

Vitamin A	Iodine	Iron
Blindness and children become prone to infection	Afects metabolism processes and causes stunted growth and may lead to goiter	Anemia, fatigue , risks of infection and increases risk for hemorrhage in labor.

Famine: A famine is a situation of severe shortage of food supply in an area accompanied by mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption. 

Population Pyramids

Demographic Transition Model

• DTM describes the pattern of decline in mortality and natality (fertility) of a country due to social and economic development
• Can be described as a 5-stage model
• Pre-industrial
• LEDC
• Wealthier LEDC
• MEDC-stable
• MEDC-population decline

Environmental Economics

• How do we value resources
• Economic --> money
• Ecological --> support systems
• Scientific --> research
• Intrinsic --> cultural

• Natural capital
• Natural resources, services, and processes
• Natural income

• Types of natural capital
• Renewable
• Replace or restock themselves
• Non-renewable
• Exist in finite amounts on the planet
• Replenishable
• Between renewable and non-renewable
• Example Groundwater
• Recyclable
• Resources that can be transformed into usable materials after already being used for something else
• Iron, aluminum, etc

• Sustainability
• Living within the means of nature, on the "interest" or sustainable natural income generated by natural capital.
• However, economist and environmentalists may have very different views on what is sustainable
• Any society that supports itself in part by depleting essential forms of natural capital is unsustainable.

Population and Resource Use

• Population size is not the only factor that determines our species' impact on the environment
• Amount of wealth, including distribution
• Resource desire
• Resource need

• Many environmental impact models are based on the assumption that all individuals in a population have the same resource use and waste profile and thus impact the environment equally

Population Growth and Food Shortages

• Thomas Maltus was an English clergyman and economist who lived back in the day (1766-18434)

Population Size

• Four main factors that affect  population size
• Birth rate
• Death rate
• Immigration
• Emigration

• The measures of population change are
• Crude birth rate (CBR)
• The Crude Birth Rate (CBR) includes the number of births per 1000 individuals. So, the formula for this is:

• CBR = (Number of births / population size) x 1000
• The CBR in the world is 20.3 per 1000 per year.
• Crude death rate
• The number of deaths per 1000 individuals in a population per year
• Calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the size of population and multiplied by 1000
• Doubling rate
• The time in years that it takes a population to double its size
• Doubling time = 70/NIR
• Natural increase rate
• NIR=(CBR-CDR) / 10
• This gives NIR on %
• Does not consider immigration or emigration
• Total Fertility Rate
• The average number of children that each woman has over her lifetime. It shows the potential for population change in a country.
• A TRF > 2.0 results in a population increase
• A TRF < 2.0 results in a population decrease
• A TRF = 2.0 results in a stable population