Agriculture, Food Production and Biodiversity

obligatory courses

Classroom and field classes

Lectures:

1. How it has started. Impact of human foraging on the ecosystems from his origins up to the times of ancient civilsations.

2. Traditional agriculture and its geography.

3. Impact of traditional agriculture on Earth's environment.

4. Conservation of seminatural ecosystems and farmland biodiveristy.

5. Modern hunters-gatherers - utilisation of wild organisms as food nowadays.

6. From Arkadia to a global village - development of modern global-market based agriculture during 20th century.

7. Use of pesticides and its envionmental impacts.

8. Use of fertilisers and problem of eutrophication.

9. Impact of ariculture on the Earth' s surface - degradation and fragmentation of ecosystems and its consequences.

10. Carbon footprint of modern agriculture – methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide.

11. Modern animal husbandry and its environmental and ethical consequences.

12. Genetically modyfied organisms.

13. Pollination crisis and insect population collapse.

14. International institutions and organizations acting for sustaining agriculture and food production.

15. Modern trends in food production: organic farming, artificial meat and urban agriculture.

Exercises:

The first part of the exercises will have a form of a seminar during which, the students will prepare presentations dealing with the most relevant and urgent environmental issues related to impacts of agriculture and food production on environment and biodiversity. Among others:

1. Habitat degradation due to agricultural expansion.

2. Soil erosion and depletion in conventional intensive agriculture.

3. Wetland degradation due to agricultural reclamation and ecological consequences.

4. Overproduction of meat as a cause of increasing land demand and eutrophication.

5. New agricultural pollutants: antibiotics, hormones and other biologically active substances.

6. Palm oil and other massive plant productions in the tropics – loss of rainforests and tropical peatlands.

7. Aquaculture and loss of coastal and freshwater systems.

8. Permaculture as a solution to land degradation.

9. Local markets for food products.

10. New challenges: Invertebrates as new source of food, in vitro meat production, reduction of meat consumption.

During the second part of the course dung a series of short, one-day, trips the students will have an opportunity to experience and perceive alterations of ecosystems related with the different types of agriculture (eutrophication of a water body, wetland drainage, regulation of watercourse, semi-natural ecosystems, intensive and sustainable solutions).

• https://www.intechopen.com/books/organic-farming-a-promising-way-of-food-production/the-role-of-biological-diversity-in-agroecosystems-and-organic-farming

• Lindenmayer, D., Cunningham, S., Young, A. (Eds.), 2012. Land Use Intensification: Effects on Agriculture, Biodiversity and Ecological Processes.

During the course students will learn about the positive and negative impacts of agriculture on ecosystems from its beginning up to modern times they will also gather knowledge about the possibilities and global mechanisms allowing for a positive (both for human and for nature) changes in the future.

After completion of the course the student:

- understands the concept of sustainable development in all its aspects (K_W01);

- knows global and regional environmental, social and economic challenges and understands the mutual connections between them (K_W02);

- recognizes the problems and challenges of sustainable development and is able to choose the methods, tools and procedures leading to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals at various spatial scales (global, regional, local) and in different disciplines (K_W03);

- knows and is able to choose, depending on the type of the goal, the right indicators of sustainable development (K_W07);

- can pose critical questions and find appropriate solutions (K_U04);

- is able to participate in international and local initiatives as well as academic and practical debates on sustainable development issues (K_U06);

- identifies weaknesses and strengths of standard actions taken to solve the problems of sustainable development (K_U07);

- effectively communicates in speech and in writing with the public and specialists in various fields (K_K03).

Lecture: written exam. Excercises: presence, presentation during the seminar part, involvement during the field part.

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