HGAP Vocab Unit 5

Agriculture

The planting and harvesting of domesticated plants and the raising of domesticated animals for food.

Domesticated plant

A plant that is deliberately planted, protected, cared for, and used by humans and is genetically distinct from its wild ancestors.

Farmers

Individuals who practice agriculture by growing crops, raising animals, or some combination of the two.

Domesticated animal

An animal that depends on people for food and shelter and is different from its wild ancestors in looks and behavior as a result of close contact with humans.

Physical geography

Study of Earth's physical characteristics and processes: how they work, how they affect humans, and how humans affect them.

Nutrients

Components of topsoil (ex: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) necessary for plants to survive, grow, and reproduce.

Topography

Arrangement of shapes on Earth's surface.

Climate

The average pattern of weather over 30 years for a particular region.

Weather

The day-to-day atmospheric conditions that affect daily decisions.

Tropical wet climate

A climate located along the equator that experiences rain every day of the year.

Tropical wet and dry climate

A climate situated along the equator that has a dry season with little to no rain, usually in the winter; it is often subject to monsoons.

Monsoon

A seasonal reversal of winds with a general onshore movement in summer and general offshore movement in winter; onshore winds bring monsoon rains.

Monsoon rains

Long periods of heavy rains every day at the end of a short dry season.

Arid climate

A climate that receives less than 10 inches of rain annually.

Semiarid (steppe) climate

A climate that receives about 10-20 inches (25-50 centimeters) of rain annually, which can support farming.

Moderate climate

Climate with an average year-round temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit; found north and south of the equator on the edges of tropical climates.

Humid subtropical climate

A climate with long, hot summers and short, mild winters with variable precipitation; found on the east coasts of continents.

Marine west coast climate

A climate found along western coasts of continents closer to the poles; characterized by moderate temperatures during long summers and cool winters.

Mediterranean climate

A climate with winter precipitation, unusually mild winters, and clear skies with abundant sunshine; found along the Mediterranean Sea and a few coastal regions.

Continental climate

A climate that has a large range of temperatures and moderate precipitation; found in the interior of continents, north of the moderate climate zones.

Humid continental climate

Climate with a wide range of temperatures, moderate precipitation, and 4 distinct seasons; experiences warm to hot summers, moderate to abundant rainfall (20-50 inches annually), and cold winters with precipitation falling as snow.

Humid cold climate

Climate with frigid temperatures nearly year-round; found in the northern reaches of the continental climate zone and often described as subarctic.

Intensive agriculture

Crop cultivation and livestock rearing systems that use high levels of labor and capital relative to the size of the landholding.

Subsistence agriculture

Food production mainly for consumption by the farming family and local community rather than principally for sale in the market.

Commercial agriculture

Farming oriented exclusively toward the production of agricultural commodities for sale in the market.

Market gardening

A small-scale farming system in which a farmer plants one to a few acres that produce a diverse mixture of vegetables and fruits, mostly for sale in local and regional markets.

Truck farm

A scaled-up version of market gardening, with more acreage, less crop diversity, and a stronger orientation toward more distant markets.

Plantation

Large landholding devoted to capital-intensive, specialized production of a single tropical or subtropical crop for the global marketplace.

Mixed crop/livestock agriculture

Diversified system of agriculture based on the cultivation of cereal grains and root crops (ex: potatoes and yams) and the rearing of herd livestock.

Cereal grains

Seeds that come from a wide variety of grasses cultivated around the world, including wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, oats, and maize (corn).

Millet

A fast-growing cereal plant that is widely grown in warm regions with poor soil.

Root crops

Vegetables that form below ground and must be dug at maturity, such as cassava, potatoes, and yams.

Cash crop

Crop raised to be sold for profit rather than to feed the farm family and livestock; common cash crops are cotton, flax, hemp, coffee, and tobacco.

Peasants

Small-scale farmers who own their fields, rely chiefly on family labor, and produce both for their own subsistence and for sale in the market.

Paddy rice farming

System of wet rice cultivation on small level fields bordered by impermeable dikes; the fields (paddies) are flooded with 4-6 inches of water for about 3 quarters of the growing season.

Grain farming

A highly mechanized commercial farming system that specializes in the production of cereal grains; requires large farms and widespread use of machinery, synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, and genetically engineered seeds.

Livestock fattening

An intensive system of animal feeding utilizing fenced enclosures to fatten livestock, mostly cattle and hogs, for slaughter and processing for the market.

Feedlot

Fenced enclosure used for intensive livestock feeding that serves to limit livestock movement and associated weight loss.

Dairying

A farming system that specializes in the breeding, rearing, and utilization of livestock (primarily cows) to produce milk and its various by-products, like yogurt, butter, and cheese.

Extensive agriculture

Crop cultivation and livestock rearing systems that require little hired labor or monetary investment to successfully raise crops and animals.

Shifting cultivation

Cultivation of a plot of land until it becomes less productive, typically over a period of about 3-5 years; when productivity drops, the farmer shifts to a new plot of land that has been prepared by slash-and-burn agriculture.

Slash-and-burn agriculture

Agriculture that involves cutting small plots in forests or woodlands, burning the cuttings to clear the ground and release nutrients, and planting in the ash of the cleared plot.

Intercropping

A farming practice of planting multiple crops together in the same clearing.

Nomadic herding/pastoralism

A system of breeding and rearing herd livestock, like cattle, sheep, or goats, by following the seasonal movement of rainfall to areas of open pasturelands.

Tundra

The vast, flat, treeless arctic region of Europe, Asia, and North America in which the subsoil is permanently frozen.

Livestock ranching

The practice of using extensive tracts of land to rear herds of livestock to sell as meat, hides, or wool.

Rural area

An area located outside of towns and cities; all the space, population, and housing not included in an urban area.

Rural settlement

A small group of people living outside of an urban area.

Agricultural landscape

Visible imprint of agrarian practices.

Grain elevator

A large storage facility for grain.

Suitcase farm

In U.S. commercial grain agriculture regions, a farm on which no one lives; planting and harvesting are done by hired migratory crews.

Silo

A round or square tower-like structure that stores feed for the livestock on the farm.

Settlement patterns

Ways in which people organize themselves on the land.

Clustered settlement/farm village

Tightly bunched farm settlement that has anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred inhabitants.

Farmstead

Center of farm operations, which includes the farmhouse, barns, shed, livestock pens, and family garden.

Dispersed settlement/isolated settlement pattern

A settlement pattern in which families live relatively distant from one another.

Linear settlement pattern

A settlement pattern in which buildings are arranged in a line, often along a road or river; limited to areas where legal systems dictated that property lines must be rectangular.

Survey methods

Methods used by surveyors to lay out property lines.

Cadastral survey

Systematic documentation of property ownership, shape, use, and boundaries.

Metes and bounds

A survey system that uses natural features such as trees, boulders, and streams to delineate property boundaries.

Township and 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 survey system

A unit-block surveying system whose basic unit is a rectangle that is typically 10 times longer than it is wide.

Domestication

A 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, also referred to as domesticates.

First Agricultural Revolution

A period during which the early domestication and diffusion of plants and animals, and the cultivation of seed crops, led to the development of agriculture.

Teosinte

A large wild grass native to Mexico that produced the small ears of maize (corn) that were a favored food among early groups in Mesoamerica.

Mesoamerica

A cultural region in the Americas that includes the diverse civilizations in modern-day countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

Biodiversity

Variety and variability among species and ecosystems.

Hearth

A center where innovations or new practices develop and from which the innovations or new practices spread or diffuse.

Fertile Crescent

An area in Southwest Asia that includes the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; the earliest center for domestication of seed plants.

Indus River valley

Area along the Indus River that flows from the highlands of Tibet and continues down along the border between present-day Pakistan and India; a site of the earliest domestication of plants and herd animals.

Columbian Exchange

Interaction and widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, disease, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Second Industrial Revolution

A period that brought improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, and storage of farm produce, which began in the late 1600s and continued through the 1930s.

Seed drill

A machine for planting seeds in a row.

Mechanical reaper

A machine used to harvest grain crops mechanically, patented by Cyrus McCormick in 1831.

Scythe

An agricultural hand tool with a curved blade used for cutting grain in the fields.

Agrichemicals

Chemical compounds obtained from petroleum and natural gas for use in agriculture; agrichemicals include fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

Synthetic fertilizer

Industrially manufactured nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, made from petroleum by-products; contains higher concentrations of nutrients for plants than natural fertilizers.

Pesticide

A material used to kill or repel animals or insects that can damage, destroy, or inhibit crop growth.

Herbicide

A pesticide designed to kill or inhibit the growth of unwanted plants (weeds) that compete with crops.

Nutrient pollution

Consequence of overuse of fertilizer; occurs when excess nutrients seep down into groundwater or are carried into nearby waterways as runoff.

Runoff

The flow of rain or irrigation water over land.

Green Revolution

The U.S.-supported development of high-yield seed varieties that increased the productivity of cereal crops and accompanying agricultural technologies for transfer to less developed countries.

Crossbreeding

The act of mixing different species or varieties of plants or animals to produce hybrids.

Hybrid

The offspring of two plants or animals of different species or varieties.

Double-cropping

Planting another crop on the same plot of land as soon as the first crop has been harvested.

Multicropping

Planting 2 or 3 crops per year on the same land.

Cassava

Root vegetables native to South America.

Sorghum

A grain plant native to northeast Africa.

Endemic

Native to or characteristic of a certain environment.

Environmental contamination

Chemical residue that builds up with each application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Soil salinization

The concentration of dissolved salts in the soil.

Soil salinity

A measure of the concentration of dissolved salts in the soil; high soil salinity results from poor irrigation practices.

Capital expenditures

Assets that cost money, such as land, machinery, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, seeds, and livestock feed.

Bid-rent theory

Explains how the demand for and price of land decrease as its distance from the central business district increases.

Central business district (CBD)

A dense cluster of offices and shops located at a city's most accessible point, usually its center.

Large-scale commercial operation

A large-scale farm oriented exclusively toward the production of agricultural commodities for sale in the market.

Monocropping (monoculture)

Cultivation of a single commercial crop on extensive tracts of land.

Agricultural cooperative

An organization where farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity, such as services or production.

Family farm

A farming operation wholly owned by a family or family corporation that sells its products to some defined market.

Commodity

A primary product that can be bought and sold, such as coffee, rice, or milk.