Food Production

• Farming can be classified in four paired categories: arable/pastoral, commercial/subsistence, extensive/intensive, nomadic/sedentary — and mixed farms combine crops and livestock.
• Physical factors (climate, soil, relief, drainage) and human factors (tradition, subsidies, transport, farm size, market demand, capital) decide what type of farming happens where.
• Every farm works as a system: inputs → processes → outputs — and farming systems change the ecosystems they sit in.
• Case Study: Hill sheep farming in Cumbria, UK — a real example of extensive, commercial, pastoral, sedentary farming under pressure.
• Food shortages have both natural causes (flooding, drought, disease, pests, cyclones) and human causes (war, rising prices, corruption, population growth, soil degradation).
• Food shortages cause undernutrition, malnutrition, wasting, social unrest, migration, and economic decline.
• Solutions range from food aid and irrigation to GM crops, the Green Revolution, mechanisation, fertilisers, and appropriate technology — each with real trade-offs.
• Case Study: Yemen — a live example of how conflict, drought, pests, corruption, and population growth combine into a severe food crisis.

Before you can describe any farm, you need the vocabulary to categorise it. Examiners love asking you to classify a farm using these four pairs — think of them as four separate yes/no questions you can ask about any farm on Earth:

A farm that grows crops and keeps livestock together is called a mixed farm.

system