Agriculture Chap 11 Envs 204. Defining A. Defining Word Agriculture AGRICULTURE – (A.) Deliberate modification of earth's surface by (1) cultivating crops.

Agriculture

Chap 11 Envs 204

Defining

 A. Defining Word Agriculture 

AGRICULTURE –(A.) Deliberate modification of earth's surface by (1) cultivating crops or (2) raising animals 

(B.)for economic gain or sustenance·  ·  (Breakdown definitions into their constituent parts, this makes it easier to remember them.) 

Defining

B. TWO TYPES1. Subsistence -- crops produced and consumed on farm 

2. Commercial -- surplus produced and traded 

C.  PRODUCTION METHODS1.Seed based 2.Vegetative planting3.Animal Husbandry/ Domestication 

Define

D. ORIGINS1. From Folk customs -- what does this imply???? Think of all the differences between folk and popular customs.

2. Different crops originate in different regions & at different times -- what does this say about the environment? Does this indicate anything about Possiblism ?

Define

E. DIFFUSION – how does this relate to spread of agriculture- Consider the mechanisms and describe the types 

 Examples: - Wheat to the US- Corn to Nepal

Examples: Wheat and CornWhere did each come from?

Nepali Cornfield

USA Cornfield & Wheatfield

8.1 Where did Agriculture Originate

• THE JERICHO STORY (Based on the "folk tale" of Douglas North, Nobel prize laurette formerly with UW Economics Department)

http://howardbloom.net/jericho_walls_wide_view.jpg

Location• Background -- 6 mi N of Dead Sea, on W side of Jordan River

• -- about 250' below sea level• -- based on Biblical accounts (although some historians dispute it) the site of famous battle in 1400BC with Joshua

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPZuWzZvoYQ

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.10332/full

Aside – General Development in Region

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clihis10k.html

Early History

9500BC Hunters & Gathers establish camp 1. Climate in general area -- Mediterranean 2. Transition zone between desert and forest 3. Work divided by gender 4. Demographic stage & place on food chain

As a society moves from hunting to agriculture it moves down from near the top of the food chain to a more middle position, since food chains can be thought of as organized in a pyramid fashion the quantity of potential food is much greater at the bottom then at the top. By moving down the food chain through the introduction of agriculture suddenly humans had much, much larger quantities of food. Result, better nutrition and health, greater survival rates, and fewer people devoted to food production.

Changing Food Chain Position

Change Potential

What does this mean in regards to – Demographic change – Productivity gains – Economic & cultural development – Ability of a society to create urban areas where people live and work outside of food production 

– Possibility of popular as opposed to folk customs 

Food gathering methods

Food gathering method -- for wild Barley and later Wheata. Prior to 3500BC no pottery in the areab. Select least shatterable wild grains, bundle these into large sheaves and carry them back to their homes, recall that shatterabilitty is how easily the seeds fall off the stem of the grain. By selecting the least shatterable most of the grain arrives intact at the home. More shatterable varieties will fall off along the way. 

c. Most shatterable thrive -- based on this process of human selection, by taking less shatterable varieties year after year soon this type will begin to disappear, but by accident the more shatterable will be scattered and tramped into the ground at the site of the gathering. 

8000BC AGRICULTURE DISCOVEREDAlternate Hypotheses1. At gathering Site: Seeds that fall onto the ground and 

are stepped on at areas harvested reproduce at a higher rate, sort of a crude form of sowing grain.

 2. At Home Site: Based on Animistic Religious practices there is the possibility of grain offerings near the home site, this would begin to create small patches of grain growing in areas they had not previously been found. Again, a very crude way of sowing a new field.

3. Also near the home site:  Food will sometimes be discarded. This too could provide for a very crude form of sowing. (think also latrines or garbage mounds)

 4. It is impossible to know which if any of these stories/hypotheses is correct. Also, each requires a leap of understanding from accidental scattering and stomping grain in the ground to actually choosing to put it there.

SURPLUS RESULTS

Suddenly there was more food and available more regularly

1. Demographic impact -- 2. Urban impact -- Jericho 3. Development impact -- think surplus, think

productivity gains4. First great civilizations -- where in the world

is Jericho located

DIFFUSION along trade & migration routes -- the usual story for any new "inventions" of society

Fertile Crescent

Seed Based Examples

Example of Early civilization from agriculture

A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity By JOHN NOBLE WILFORDNew York Times,Published: November 30, 2009 

Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley  and  the  Balkan  foothills  people who were  ahead  of  their  time  in art, technology and long-distance trade.For  1,500  years,  starting  earlier  than  5000  B.C.,  they  farmed  and  built sizable  towns,  a  few  with  as  many  as  2,000  dwellings.  They  mastered large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age. Their graves held an  impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and,  in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.The  striking  designs  of  their  pottery  speak  of  the  refinement  of  the culture’s  visual  language.  Until  recent  discoveries,  the  most  intriguing artifacts  were  the  ubiquitous  terracotta  “goddess”  figurines,  originally interpreted as evidence of  the spiritual and political power of women  in society. …. The story now emerging is of pioneer farmers after about 6200 B.C. moving north into Old Europe from Greece and Macedonia, bringing wheat and barley seeds and domesticated cattle and sheep.

Rumyana Kostadinova Ivanova and Marius Amarie

LIVING SPACE Artifacts from the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills are presented in an exhibition, “The Lost World of Old Europe,” at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Cont. Copper, not gold, may have been the main source of Old Europe’s economic success, Dr. Anthony said. As copper smelting developed about 5400 B.C., the Old Europe cultures tapped abundant ores in Bulgaria and what is now Serbia and learned the high-heat technique of extracting pure metallic copper.Smelted copper, cast as axes, hammered into knife blades and coiled in bracelets, became valuable exports. Old Europe copper pieces have been found in graves along the Volga River, 1,200 miles east of Bulgaria. Archaeologists have recovered more than five tons of pieces from Old Europe sites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jvjhEd83zA

Example of Early civilization from agriculture

Possibility of Writing in Danube Possibility of Writing in Danube CultureCulture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyEcUR_wnsU

Impact of Agriculture Pre-European America

Impact of Agriculture Pre-European America

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/northamerica/cahokia.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLoqU-IObvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEcD55aTBdA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdUXRmoRKuE

10.2 Diet & 10.3 Hunger

• Will leave this for you to read

10.4 Agricultural Regions

• A very, very crude overview of agricultural regions through out the world

• Note obvious shortcomings of the map– Mississippi Delta indicates “plantation” farming – no longer so though the cotton crop is still important

– Japan is listed as “intensive subsistence” should be commercial grain

• Even with these shortcomings note the striking relationship of climate to agricultural region

1995 Pattern of Agricultural ActivityNote the best, gives a general idea 

Compare with Agriculture

Rural Settlement

• Interesting how different patterns occur• When I teach US Geography we look for

these variations in the US, especially long lot patterns in Louisiana and near Detroit, MI

Rural Settlement

• Interesting how different patterns occur

• When I teach US Geography we look for these variations in the US, especially long lot patterns in Louisiana and near Detroit, MI

10.5 Subsistence & Commercial

• 5 tools for differentiating Commercial from Subsistent Agricultural Regions (How & Why)

• purpose of farming• % of farmers in labor force• use of machinery• farm size• relationships of farming to other businesses

• read through these sections and be familiar with the major differences of the two farming types for each point

 Maps

• Note how next two maps are basically mirror images

• This is a perfect example of what Thomas Homer-Dixon refers to as our (MDCs) “energy slave” economy

PEOPLE POWERPercent Labor Force in Agriculture

MACHINE POWERTractors/ 1000 hectors crop land

Compare Japan, S. Korea, and China also look at Egypt and Turkey

10.6 Subsistence Regions

• Know the four major types of Agricultural that exist in Subsistence Regions and characteristics of each

• Out of these four which supports the most people (look at the demographic chapter if necessary) 

• What typical breakfast food or drink comes from one of these?  Is there a relationship to fair trade?

What kind Agriculture is this???

10.5 Maps

By comparing Figure 10.5.1 on rice production and the earlier 10.2.2 on climate – what type of possibilism can you hypothesize?

RICENote how the scale is logrithmic, what does this tell us about the quantity of rice produced in the US, the world’s largest exporter of rice

 10.7 Commercial

• Washington State is so diverse that we have all of these types here

• Think carefully and describe which type we might find in– Whatcom County (two kinds dominate two others are present)

– Lincoln County (next to Spokane)– Near Ellensburg– Near Wenatchee – Where are there vineyards? 

Types

• Grain • Dairying• Ranching• Farm Med.• Garden & Fruit Farming • Mixed Farming 

MILKNote India

Steady increase in Milk production in LDCs

WHEAT4 Major exporters are: US, Canada, Argentina, & Australia But China is largest producer

MEATChina has caught up, but still has a much larger population

Major Global Crop Producers

• Maize• Rice• Milk• Wheat • Meat (all combined)

Maize:US & China with Brazil Moving Up

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=corn

Rice: China & IndiaWorld: rice production in metric tonnes

Rice 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010Total World 316,345,692 396,871,306 518,568,263 599,355,455 672,015,587

1 China 113,101,869 142,876,520 191,614,672 189,814,060 197,212,0102 India 63,337,800 80,312,000 111,517,000 127,465,000 120,620,0003 Indonesia 19,331,000 29,651,900 45,178,800 51,898,000 66,411,5004 Bangladesh 16,714,900 20,821,000 26,777,900 37,627,500 49,355,0005 Viet Nam 10,173,300 11,647,400 19,225,100 32,529,500 39,988,9006 Myanmar 8,161,900 13,317,400 13,971,800 21,323,900 33,204,5007 Thailand 13,850,000 17,368,100 17,193,200 25,843,900 31,597,2008 Philippines 5,578,410 7,646,490 9,885,000 12,389,400 15,771,7009 Brazil 7,553,080 9,775,720 7,420,930 11,089,800 11,308,900

10 USA 3,801,310 6,629,250 7,080,000 8,657,820 11,027,00011 Japan 16,493,000 12,189,000 13,124,000 11,863,000 10,600,00012 Cambodia 3,814,000 1,717,000 2,500,000 4,026,090 8,245,32013 Pakistan 3,298,400 4,684,800 4,891,200 7,203,900 7,235,00014 Korea, South 5,476,000 5,311,410 7,721,970 7,196,580 5,804,00015 Madagascar 1,945,900 2,108,910 2,420,000 2,480,470 4,737,970

http://www.geohive.com/charts/ag_rice.aspx

Milk: Us and India

http://www.milkproduction.com/Library/Editorial-articles/World-Milk-Production/

Wheat:EU-27, China, India with US and 

Russia below

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=wheat&graph=production

Meat: China & US

Global Warming Impacts

http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/env-howmeat.html

10.8 Fishing

• Leave this to you to read

 10.9 Subsistence & Population• Note Ag Land growth has topped out

– In China it is in decline• Past productivity gains

– Expensive to maintain, why?• New food sources

– Is this the way to go?• Exports

– In other courses we discuss the long term possibilities and problems here (see ENVS 342 Global Economy)

• Africa– Another reason for increase emigration?

Import – Export BalanceNote W. Europe vs Africa or US vs Mexico

Calories per person

Obesity Climbs in USSub-Sahara lags in basic needs

 10.10 Commercial Ag. & Market Forces

• In my next class (ENVS 342) we look in more detail at the Von Thunen Model and Farm Subsidy programs

Here note that distance from markets does effect crop grown

 Market Forces

• Note also that we don’t have a “capitalist free market” in agriculture – despite strong Republican Party support in rural areas– Note all the ways that the government intervenes with approval of farmers 

http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2008/07/ethanol-cartoon.jpg

 10.11 Sustainable Agriculture

• Lightly look at this section, creating truly sustainable agriculture requires far more than this

• But this is some steps in the right direction• Beyond the basic argument here think about Genetically Modified Foods – should they be pursued?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I

Future: GMO’s – the elepahant in the room

Are they a good thing?•Not welcome in Europe•Questions on long-standing ecological balance in agriculture•Adoption can make farmers (especially in LDCs) more dependent on MDCs

Future – Environment Issues???