Tropical Africa: Food Production and the Inquiry Model EssayHunger is the result of disasters such as drought, floods, the changing of thejet stream patterns and other natural disasters. They are beyond our control. It has been estimated that one third of the land in Tropical Africa ispotentially cultivable, though only about 6% of it is currently cultivated.
However, to change farming from a low-input low-yield pattern to a high-input,high-yield pattern necessitates the use of more fertilizer and the planting ofhigh-yielding varieties of cropsThere are a number of environmental factors, related mostly to climate, soilsand health, resisting easy developmental solutions. Rainfall reliability isclosely connected to rainfall quantity The rainfall in the equatorial heart isvery plentiful and reliable. However, there is much less rainfall towards theouter edges of the rain belt. Periodic and unpredictable droughts are acharacteristic feature of these border zones.
There are three climatic zones in Tropical Africa: 1. a region of persistent rainat and near the Equator 2. a region on each side of this of summer rain andwinter drought, and 3. a region at the northern and southern edges afflicted bydrought. All the climates listed in the previous paragraph are modified in the easternparts of Tropical Africa by the mountains and monsoons.
The soils of Tropical Africa pose another problem. They are unlike the soils oftemperate areas. Soils are largely products of their climates, and tropicalsoils are different from temperate soils because the climate is different. Because of the great heat of the tropics tends to bake the soils, while on theother hand, the rainfall leaches them. The combined heat and moisture tend toproduce very deep soils because the surface rock is rapidly broken down bychemical weathering. All this causes the food’s rate of growth to slow down ormaybe even stop and as a result food production won’t even come close incatching up to the rate of population increase; therefore starvation and hungeris present.
In the process of a flood and drought, the roots of trees areshallow and virtually no nutrients are obtained from the soil. The vegetationsurvives on its own humus waste, which is plentiful. If the vegetation iscleared, then the source of humus is removed and the natural infertility of thesoils becomes obvious. As being another factor, this will cause the soil toproduce wasteful and useless products which in turn will decrease the production. To conclude this essay, the climates in Tropical Africa take a big role as beingfactors that could endanger or destroy the process of plantation. On the otherhand, it could also bring good fortune if climatic regions are fairly good.
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