Studied by 32 people
Agriculture
The cultivation of crops and livestock.
Climate
The average pattern of weather over a 30-year period for a particular region.
Intensive Farming
Agriculture practice that requires large inputs of paid labor relative to the size of the landholding.
Intensive farms are located closer to the central business district and consist of perishables such as fruits and milk.
Extensive Farming
Agricultural practice that requires little hired labor or monetary investment to successfully raise crops and animals.
Extensive farms are located farther from the central business district and consists of monocropping, such as corn.
Market Gardening
A small-scale farming system in which a farmer plants one to a few acres of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers in local and regional markets.
Plantation Agriculture
Large landholding developed to capital-intensive, specialized production of a single crop for the global marketplace.
Mixed-Crop/Livestock Agriculture
A diversified system of agriculture based on the cultivation of cereal grains and root crops (such as potatoes and yams) and the rearing of herd livestock.
Shifting Cultivation
The cultivation of a plot of land until it becomes less productive. When productivity drops, the farmer shifts to a new plot of land that has been prepared by slash-and-burn agriculture.
Ranching
The commercial grazing of livestock over extensive tracts of land.
Metes & Bounds
Land survey system that uses natural features, distance, and direction to delinate property boundaries.
Township & Range
Land survey system created by the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785, which divides most of the country’s territory into a grid of square-shaped townships with 6-mile sides.
Long Lot
A land surveying system in which each township is situated at one end of a long, narrow, and rectangular lot that is connection to a major linear resource, usually a river or a major road.
Fertile Crescent
Area in Southwest Asia that includes the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; the earliest center for domestication of seed plants; the hearth of agriculture.
Animal domestication is the raising of animals for food and protection. Animal domestication occurred prior to plant domestication.
Plant domestication is the harvesting of crops.
Columbian Exchange
The interaction and widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, disease, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa and Afro-Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
First Agricultural Revolution
Period during which the early domestication and diffusion of plants and animals and the cultivation of seed crops led to the development of agriculture.
The first agricultural revolution consisted mainly of subsistence farming.
Second Agricultural Revolution
Period that brought improved methods of cultivation, harvesting and storage of farm produce that began in the late 1600s and continued through the 1930s.
Domestication
The long-term process through which humans selectively breed, protect, and care for individuals taken from populations of wild plant and animal species to create genetically distinct species, known as domesticates.
Green Revolution
The third agricultural revolution of the 1930s brought developments in research technology in plant genetics as well as the Green Revolution.
The Green Revolution is the development of high-yield seed varieties that increased the productivity of cereal crops and accompanying agriculture technologies for transfer to less developed countries.
The Green Revolution increased crop production in developing countries due to the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yield crops.
Advantages:
Agriculture now outpaces population growth,
Technologies increase productivity of crops
Disadvantages:
Poor countries can’t afford machinery
Groundwater pollution caused by fertilizers
Groundwater depletion due to irrigation
Reduced crop diversity
High-Yield Seeds
Seeds — that are generally genetically modified — that produce larger quantities of crops and are highly productive.
Subsistence Agriculture
Food production mainly for consumption by the farming family and local community rather than principally for sale in the market.
Commercial Agriculture
The production of agriculture commodities for sale in the market.
Agribusiness is commercial agriculture characterized by the implementation of steps in the food processing industry.
Monocropping/Monoculture
The cultivation of a single commercial crop on extensive tracts of land.
Bid-Rent Theory
Theory that explains how the demand for and price of land decreases as the distance from the central business district increases.
Commodity Chain
A series of links connecting a commodity’s many places of production and distribution.
Economies of Scale
Cost advantages that can come with a larger scale of operations.
Carrying Capacity
The number of people a particular environment or Earth as a whole can support on a sustainable basis.
Von-Thunen Model
A model that represents the relationship between land cost, transportation cost, and an agricultural commodity’s distance from the central business district.
0.Central Business District
Intensive farming, dairying
Forest, lumbering
Extensive farming
Ranching, animal products
Infrastructure
The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities, such as buildings, roads, and public utilites, needed for the operation of a society.
Pollution
A substance or thing that harms the environment and makes it unsuitable or unsafe.
Desertification
The process by which once-fertile land becomes desert as a result of climate variation or human activates.
Soil Salinization
The concentration of dissolved salts in the soil.
Slash-and-Burn Agriculture (Swidden)
Agriculture that involves cutting small plots in forests or woodlands, burning the cuttings to clear the round and release nutrients, and planting the ash of the cleared plot.
Terrace Farming
Agriculture practice that rearranges farmlands or turns hills into farmlands by constructing flat planes that allow crops to grow.
Irrigation
The process of diverting water from its natural source to aid in the production of crops.
Deforestation
Clearing and deconstruction of forests to clear land for agriculture use.
Pastoral Nomadism
System of cultivating livestock by following the seasonal movement of rainfall.
Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)
A living organism, including crops and livestock, that is produced through genetic engineering.
Fertilizer
A chemical or natural substance added to soil or land to increase its fertility.
Urban Farming
The practice of growing fruits and vegetables on small private plots of shared community gardens within the confines of a city.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
A direct-to-consumer marketing arrangement in which farmers are guaranteed buyers for their produce at guaranteed prices and consumers receive fresh food directly from their producers.
Fair Trade
A certification program that supports good crop prices for farmers and environmentally sound farming practices.
Organic Farming
The production of crops and livestock using ecological processes, natural biodiversity and renewable resources rather than industrial practices and synthetic inputs.
Value Added/Specialty Crops
A crop whose physical state or form has been changed to increase its value.
E.g. changing strawberries into strawberry jam.
Food Security
The situation in which all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to healthy and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Food Insecurity
Occurs when large numbers of people experience long periods of inadequate diets.
Food Desert
An area with limited access to fresh, nutritious foods.
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