Document: 1. Food. From a human perspective, production of enough food for peopl

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1. Food. From a human perspective, production of enough food for people to eat is a perpetual challenge. Assuming people eat 2000 food Calories per day, and that it is all corn (a terrible assumption, of course), what fraction of the earth's cropland area (1.5 x 10m) is needed to feed the current human population, to one significant figure? (All information needed to answer this question is in the Earth Systems text posted in the Resources folder under Lecture Notes; present your answer to one significant figure only.)

Explanation / Answer

Fraction of cropland area for population=

Food/ person = 2000 cal.

1 serving of corn = 122g = 422 cal.

Corn/ person = 4.52 servings/ day = 552 gms/ day

Corn produced per area = 1kg/ m2 (High yield corn)---- A

Total population of earth = 7,400,000,000 m2

Corn required for total population per day = .552kg x 7,400,000,000

= 4084800000 kg/ day

Ie, from A , Area required to produce total corn required for entire population = 4084800000 m2/ day----- B

Total cropland= 15000000000000 m2-------C

Therefore, answer , fraction of cropland area for population= B/C = 0.00027232 of total cropland

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