Unit V: Agriculture and Rural Land Use
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Unit V: Agriculture and Rural Land Use
What is Agriculture?
• The modification of Earth’s surface through the cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to obtain subsistence or economic gain.
• A crop is a plant cultivated by people.
Agriculture
• 1/3 of all land area committed to agriculture use
• Developing countries = 2/3 involved in agriculture
• Employment in agriculture is declining in developing countries
• < 2 Million
How does agriculture relate to geography?
• Geographers study where agriculture is distributed.– LDCs: agricultural products are
consumed near where they are produced– MDCs: agricultural products are sold and
consumed away from where they are produced.
How does agriculture relate to geography?
• Geographers study why farming practices vary around the world.– Elements of physical environment that
limit agricultural production.
How does agriculture relate to geography?
• Local diversity is shown in the environmental and cultural mix influencing agricultural practices.
• Globalization influences farmers to grow profitable rather than practical crops.
Classification of Economic Activities
• Primary• Secondary• Tertiary
– Quaternary– Quinary
Economic Geography
• Study of how people earn their living• How livelihood systems vary by area• And the spatial linkage between
economic activities
Primary Activities
• Harvesting or extracting something directly from the Earth
• Humans in direct contract with the natural environment
• Hunting & gathering, farming, livestock herding, fishing, forestry
Secondary Activities
• Add value to material by changing their form or combining them into more useful/valuable commodities
• Intermediate products • Manufacturing and processing
industries • Energy and construction industries
Tertiary Activities
• Consists of those business and labor specializations that provide services to the primary and secondary sectors, general community, and private individuals
• “service industries”• Linkage between producer and consumer
2 types of Tertiary Activites
• Quaternary: services performed by “white collar” professionals– Exchange of information, money, or capital
• Quinary: high level decision making activities – Spheres of research and higher education
Primary Activities: Agriculture
• Before farming hunting and gathering were the universal forms of primary production
• Use of tools and fire enabled sustainable population growth in early communities
• Cyclic Migration was the way of life
The First Agricultural Revolution
• 12,000 years ago• First conscious cultivation of plants• Increased the carrying capacity of the
Earth • Caused changes in social organization
and technology
• Living in permanent settlements • Land ownerships• Modification of the natural environment• Trading economies • Developed much later in the Americas
than in Southeast and Southwest Asia • Many agricultural hearths
The First Agricultural Revolution
Diffusion of Agriculture
• Vegetative cultivation in S.E. Asia same time (root removal) – 14,000 years ago
• Agriculture diffused from agriculture centers through stimulus diffusion
• Later through migration and colonialism
Diffusion of Agriculture • Seeds of agriculture began in the fertile
crescent (Iran and Iraq) – 10,000 years ago- because of seed selection,
plants got bigger over time- generated a surplus of
wheat and barley- first integration of plant
growing and animal raising (used crops to feed livestock, used livestock to help grow crops)
Diffusion of Agriculture
• Animal Domestication– Fertile Crescent– began about 8,000 years ago
•Relatively few animals have been domesticated (all by 4500 years ago)-Goats*-Sheep*-Pigs*-Cattle*-Horses*-Camels-Yaks
(*Jared Diamond claims to be the five most important animals)•Attempts at domestication continue, but most fail
Animal Domestication
-Llama-Alpaca-Turkey-Water Buffalo-Cats-Dogs-Reindeer
Carl Sauer
• Proposed that agriculture began in the Bay of Bengal 14,000 years ago
• The cultivation of roots and cuttings came first (cassava, yams, and sweet potatoes) before seed crops
• Proposed other agricultural hearths
World Areas of Agricultural Innovations
Carl Sauer identified 11 areas where agricultural innovations occurred.
Chief Source Regions of Important Crop Plant Domestications
Subsistence Agriculture
• Subsistence Agriculture –Agriculture in which people grow only
enough food to survive.- farmers often hold land in common- Total self-sufficiency - some are sedentary, and some practice shifting cultivation
World Regions of Primarily Subsistence AgricultureOn this map, India and China are not shaded because farmers sell some produce at markets; in equatorial Africa and South America, subsistence farming allows little excess and thus little produce sold at markets.
Shifting Cultivation
• Clear land for planting by slash-and-burn, cultivate crops for several years until it becomes infertile
• Leave land to lie fallow so soil can recover
• 5% of world pop. Still practice shifting cultivation
Slash and Burn
• Swidden agriculture: areas of land cleared and vegetation burned off, layer of ash increases soil’s fertility
• Very efficient with low pop/high land/ low tech
Shifting Cultivation• Crops: rice in SE Asia, maize and cassava in
S America, millet and sorghum in Africa• Often the land is:
– Used for multiple crops in subsistence
– Owned by village, and separated into family plots
• Northern India
Shifting Cultivation• Decreasing as a main type of subsistence• Moving to more sophisticated types of
agriculture with help of state and global organizations
• Deforestation of rainforests bringing global attention
Brazil
Boserup Thesis
• Population increases necessitates increased inputs of labor and technology to compensate for reduction in the natural yields of swidden farming
• Why?
Intensive Subsistence Systems• Work small parcels of land intensively• Double cropping and crop rotation prevalent• ½ of the worlds
population• Hundreds of millions
of Chinese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indonesians
Settling down in one place, a rising population, and the switch to agriculture are interrelated occurrences in human history.
Hypothesize which of these three happened first, second, and third, and explain why.
Second Agriculture Revolution
• A series of innovations, improvements, and techniques used to improve the output of agricultural surpluses (started before the industrial revolution).– eg. seed drill
advances in livestock breedingnew fertilizers
Second Agricultural Revolution
• Began slowly during the middle ages• Modification of tools and equipment of
agriculture • Increased efficiency of food storage and
distribution• Increased productivity • Aided in the growth of large urban areas
Industrial Revolution
• Aided the Second Agricultural Revolution
• Tractors and Machines • Changed the cultural landscape of
agriculture….how?
Von Thunen’s Model of Farming
• The modification of farming culture created a desire for a spatial understanding of agricultural layout
• Created in the 1800s• Based on cities in Germany near Von
Thunen’s farm
Reasons
• Profitable options decrease with distance from the market
• Rent differences reflects different values of distance
• Production Costs + Transportation Costs = economic margin for a crop
• Greater the transport cost the less rent a farmer can afford
Contemporary Variables
• More efficient transportation• Transportation cost no longer
proportional to costs• Firewood not a factor • Technology has reduced perishability
The Third Agricultural Revolution
• Creation of the New World• Late 19th Century and gained
momentum through the 20th Century• Big differences between the 2nd and the
3rd is degree
• Mechanization, chemical farming with synthetic fertilizers, and globally widespread food manufacturing
The Third Agricultural Revolution: 3 Phases
Mechanization
• Replacement of human labor with machines
• Tractors, combines, reapers, pickers, since late 1800’s
Chemical Farming
• Application of synthetic fertilizers to the soil
• Also herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides
• Important environmental impact
Food Manufacturing
• Adding economic value to agricultural products through a range of treatments
• Processing, canning, refining, packing, packaging
The Third Agricultural Revolution
The Green Revolution• Began in the 1960s• Scientists created IR36—an “artificial”
rice plant• By 1992 IR36 was the most widely grown crop on Earth
The Green Revolution
• New high-yield hybrid varieties of wheat and corn were developed and diffused
• Disastrous famines of the past have been avoided
• Asia saw a two-thirds increase in rice production
Negatives of the Green Revolution
• New hybrids required use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
• Can lead to reduction of organic matter in the soil
• Many small-scale farmers lack resources to acquire these chemicals and the seed
Agricultural Landscape
• The agricultural imprint of cultivation on the land
• The patterns of fields and properties created as people occupy land for the purpose of farming
Cadastral System
• A system the delineates property lines • Adopted in places where settlement
could be regulated by law• Main Type: Township-and-range
system
Township-and-range system
• Designed to facilitate the dispersal of settlers evenly across farmlands of the interior
• Basic unit = section (1sq. Mi of land)• Land frequently bought in half or quarter
sections• Townships – (36 sq. mi) serve as
political administrative subdistricts
Township and Range – The cultural landscape of Garden City, Iowa reflects the Township and Range system. Townships are 6x6 miles and section lines are every 1 mile.
Metes and Bounds Survey
• Natural features used to demarcate irregular parcels of land
• Used commonly along the eastern seaboard
• Rivers, lakes, streams, mountains
• Tennessee’s 3rd Surveyor’s District using Metes and Bounds to describe the plot
Long-Lot Survey System
• Long, narrow unit block stretching back from a road, river, or canal
• Central and Western Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Southern Louisiana, Texas
Longlot Survey System
The cultural landscape of Burgandy, France reflects
the Longlot Survey system, as land is divided into long, narrow parcels.
French Long Lot agricultural fields in Louisiana
Dominant Land Survey Patterns in the US
Agricultural Villages
• Linear Village
• Cluster Village (nucleated)
• Round Village (rundling)
• Walled Village
• Grid Village
Village Forms
Functional Differentiation within Villages
• Cultural landscape of a village reflects:– Social stratification – Differentiation of buildings– Cultural norms– Economic way of life– Levels of Interdependence
Stilt village in Cambodia
Buildings look alike, but serve different purposes.
Farm in Minnesota
each building serves a different purpose
Commercial Agriculture
• Production primarily for sale to processing companies, not for individual consumption
• MDC’s, semi-peripheral, core • Machinery and biotechnology• Dairying, grain farming, Livestock –
higher costs
Commercial Agriculture
• Roots = Plantation Farming– Latin America, Africa, and Asia– Specialization in one or two crops
• ex: cotton, sugarcane, coffee, rubber, tea– Large labor force needed, often live on the
plantation• Today = global production made possible by
advances in transportation and food storage
Commercial Agriculture
• More land needed – why has the amount of farm land increased, while farms have decreased in the US?
• Closely tied to other food processing business – chain called agribusiness employs 20% of US labor
Agribusiness:The industrialization of Agriculture • Created by advances in science and technology • Process of the farm moving from the
centerpiece of agriculture production to being on part of an integrated (vertical) industrial process
• eg. Poultry industry in the US
Advances in Transportation and Food Storage- Containerization of seaborne freight traffic- Refrigeration of containers, as they wait transport in Dunedin, New Zealand
Organic Agriculture
• Organic Agriculture –The production of crops without the use of
synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers or the raising of livestock without hormones, antibiotics, and synthetic feeds.
- sales of organic foods on the rise- grown everywhere - demand in wealthier countries
Organic Agriculture
Fair Trade Agriculture
• Fair Trade Coffee –shade grown coffee produced by certified
fair trade farmers, who then sell the coffee directly to coffee importers.
- guarantees a “fair trade price”- over 500,000 farmers- produced in more than 20 countries- often organically produced
Fair trade coffee farmer in El Salvador grows his beans organically and in the shade, allowing him to get a much better price for his coffee.
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