Agriculture Textbook Vocabulary

Agribusiness

Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.

Agriculture

The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth's surface through the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain.

Commercial Agriculture

Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm.

Crop

Grain or fruit gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season.

Crop Rotation

The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.

Desertification

Degradation of land, especially in semiarid areas, primarily because of human actions like excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and tree cutting.

Double Cropping

Harvesting twice a year from the same field.

Extensive Agriculture

A type of agricultural production that involves the use of relatively low levels of inputs, such as labor, capital, and chemicals, in order to produce crops or livestock.

Extensive Commercial Agriculture

a type of farming that uses large amounts of land and relatively small amounts of labor and capital to produce high yields.

Extensive Subsistence Agriculture

Large amounts of land and minimal labour input. The difference between this and commercial is there is a low product per land unit, because only necessary commodities produced/used.

Grain Farming

Usually in MDCs; the growing of rice, corn, wheat or other cereals on huge farms with large amounts of mechanization.

Green Revolution

Rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers.

Horticulture

The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

Intensive Agriculture

system of cultivation using large amounts of labor and capital relative to land area.

Intensive Commercial Agriculture

A type of agriculture that uses a small amount of land and high labor to produce a large yield of crops or animals

Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

a farming method where farmers use simple tools and a lot of labor to grow enough food for their families on small plots of land

Milkshed

The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied.

Mediterranean Agriculture

An agricultural system practiced in the climates of Western Europe, California, and portions of Chile and Australia, in which diverse specialty crops such as grapes, avocados.

Market Gardening

The small scale production of fruits, vegetables, and flowers as cash crops sold directly to local consumers. Distinguishable by the large diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, during a single growing season. Labor is done manually.

Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming

Theses farms are found primarily in MDCs and consist of a few different animals and crops. Usually the crops are fed to the animals and the animal's by-products are sold for a profit.

Pastoral Nomadism

A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.

Plantation

A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country.

Prime Agricultural Land

The most productive farmland.

Ranching

A form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area.

Reaper

A machine that cuts grain standing in the field.

Ridge Tillage

System of planting crops on ridge tops, in order to reduce farm production costs and promote greater soil conservation.

Seed Agriculture

- Farming through planting seeds rather than simply plating a part of the parent plant.
- Leads to higher crop yield.
- Would kick off the First Agricultural Revolution.

Shifting Cultivation

A form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for relatively few years and left fallow for a relatively long period.

Slash-Burn Agriculture

Another name for shifting cultivation, so named because fields are cleared by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris.

Subsistence Agriculture

Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family

Sustainable Agriculture

Farming methods that preserve long-term productivity of land and minimize pollution, typically by rotating soil- restoring crops with cash crops and reducing in-puts of fertilizer and pesticides.

Threshed

To beat out grain from stalks by trampling it.

Transhumance

The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures.

Transnational Corporations

Large companies that operate in multiple countries, often managing production or delivering services across borders while having a headquarters in one country.

Truck Farming

Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because truck was a Middle English word meaning bartering or the exchange of commodities.

Vegetative Planting

- The growing of plants by simply cutting off a stem and plating it or dividing up the roots of a plant.
- Geographer Carl Sauer believed that this is how hunters and gatherers first started to grow food.

Wet Rice

Rice planted on dryland in a nursery, then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth.

Winter Wheat

Wheat planted in the autumn and harvested in the early summer

Spring Wheat

Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer.

Value-added Farming

The practice of transforming a raw agricultural product into a more processed or finished good, increasing its market value by adding additional steps like packaging, processing, or further refinement.

Vertical Farms

An innovative agricultural practice that involves growing crops in stacked layers or vertically inclined surfaces, often incorporating controlled-environment agriculture technologies.

Vertical Integration

Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution

Von Thunen Model

Used to explain the importance of proximity to market in choice of crops on commercial farms. Must combine the value of high yield crop per hectare and the cost of transporting the yield per hectare.

Value-added Crops

- have some other product in them or attached to them to make them unique and able to sell at a higher price.
+ Fresh strawberries made into jam sell at a higher price than the original crop.
- Could also be the process used to produce them.
+ Organic produce sells at a higher price.