1.1. What are the major externalities associated with agriculture?

1.2. What are the two big differences between traditional agriculture and industrialized agriculture?

2. What were the benefits of no-till agriculture in Brazil?

3. Soil is composed of what 5 components?

4. What is parent material? What is the process that reduces it to mineral particles?

5. Biological activity changes what 3 characteristics of soil?

6. What is the most important difference between topsoil and subsoil?

7. What is humus? Why is it important to plant growth?

8. What are the 3 major causes of soil degradation?

9. What is soil erosion?

10. How does it cause problems in the environment?

11. Where is soil degradation a problem?

12. What is "desertification"?

13. How does it start?

14. Where was the  "Dust Bowl"?  What caused it? What were the social consequences?

15. Understand how the following practices protect soil:

    a. crop rotation

    b. contour plowing

    c. intercropping or strip cropping

    d. terracing

    e. shelterbelts

    f. conservation tillage

16. How much land is irrigated, and what % food does it produce?

17. What are the 3 major problems associated with irrigation?

18. How can these problems be reduced?

19. what are the problems associated with fertilizer use?

20. What are the differences between synthetic (inorganic) and natural (organic) fertilizers?

21. What are the effects of overgrazing on:

     community diversity?

     soil structure?

22. How has US farm policy changed over time?

23. What are the global trends in food production?

24. Why are 800 million people hungry or undernourished?

25. What was the Green Revolution?  What did it accomplish?

26. What is the current per capita trend for grain production?

27. What is a "monoculture"?   What are the problems associated with monoculture?

28. Use of synthetic chemical pesticides has increased how much since 1960?

29. What are the 4 problems associated with chemical pesticide use?

30. What does biological control entail?

31. What are the risks or problems associated with biological pest control?

32. What does IPM stand for?  What techniques might be used in IPM?

33. What are pheromones?  How are they used in pest control?

34. What are hormones? How are they used in pest control?

35. What advantages does use of hormones or pheromones have over conventional pesticides?

36. How are pollinators important to agriculture? Native pollinators are negatively effected by what two trends?

37.  What does genetic engineering mean? What are GMOs? What does transgenic mean?

38. What are the three big issues surrounding GMOs?

39. Know what Bt and Round-up Ready refer to.

40. Why is preserving native varieties of crops, and heritage crops considered important by many scientists?

41. What are CAFOs?

42. What are the problems associated with modern industrialized meat and dairy production?

43. In what way is eating meat energy inefficient?  How much US grain is fed to livestock?

44. What is aquaculture? What are the problems associated with it? 

45. What are the goals of sustainable agriculture?

46. In order to be "certified organic", what conditions have to be met?