Agricultural Practices and Economic Forces

Capital Expenditures

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

Bid-Rent Theory

Explains how the demands 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 Operations

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

Monocropping (Monoculture)

The 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; services or production resources are provided to individual farm members

Family Farm

A farming operation wholly owned by a family or family corporation that sells its products to some defined market, either directly or through a cooperative

Commodity

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

Commodity Chain

A series of links connecting a commodity’s many places of production, distribution, and consumption.

Agribusiness

Large corporation that provides a vast array of goods and services to support the agricultural industry.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)

Animal rearing system that confines livestock (such as cattle, sheep, turkeys, chickens, and hogs) in high density cages only large enough to allow the animal’s body to grow and to accommodate equipment for feeding and waste removal.

Cool Chain

The system that uses refrigeration and food-freezing technologies to keep farm produce fresh in climate-controlled environments at every stage of transport from field to retail groceries and restaurants.