APHUG Unit 5 Vocabulary

Agrarian

A person who advocates the political interests of working farmers; of, or relating to, the ownership, tenure and cultivation of land.

Agribusiness

Is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales.

Agricultural location model

An attempt to explain the pattern of agricultural land use in terms of accessibility, costs, distance, and prices.

Agriculture

The science and practice of farming including the cultivation of the soil and the rearing of livestock.

Animal domestication

Is the process whereby a population of animals, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control.

Aquaculture

Involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions.

Biorevolution

Decoding of entire genomes, or genetic codes for species, which allows biologists studying organisms, as different as a bacterium and a human being, a common language in which to communicate.

Biotechnology

Is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields.

Collective farm

Communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise.

Commercial agriculture

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

Crop rotation

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

Cultivation regions

Is an area suited by climate and soil conditions to the growing of a certain type of crop or plant group.

Dairying

Branch of agriculture that encompasses the breeding, raising, and utilization of primarily cows, for the production of milk.

Debt-for-nature swap

Are financial transactions in which a portion of a developing nation's foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in conservation measures.

Double cropping

The practice of consecutively producing two crops of either like or unlike commodities on the same land within the same year.

Economic activity

Is an activity of providing, making, buying or selling commodities or services by people to satisfy day-to-day needs of life.

Environmental modification

Through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.

Extensive subsistence agriculture

Is self-sufficiency farming in which farmers grow only enough food to feed their families.

Extractive industry

Industry that involves mining, such as to obtain copper or other valuable minerals found in the.

Feedlot

Is a type of animal feeding operation (AFO) which is used in factory farming for finishing livestock, notably beef cattle.

Green revolution

Great increase in production of food grains (especially wheat and rice) that resulted in large part from the introduction into developing countries of new high-yielding varieties beginning in the mid-20th century.

Growing season

Is the period of each year when native plants and ornamental plants grow.

Hunting and gathering

The subsistence method based on edible plants and animals from the wild.

Intensive subsistence agriculture

Is the primary subsistence pattern of large-scale, populous societies like rice in China.

Intertillage

Turning up land between rows of crop plants.

Livestock ranching

Is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of raising and grazing livestock.

Market gardening

The growing of vegetables or flowers for market.

Mediterranean agriculture

Farming system found in countries within a Mediterranean Climate.

Mineral fuels

A carbonaceous fuel mined or stripped from the earth, such as petroleum, coal, peat, shale oil.

Mining

Is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body.

Nonrenewable resources

Resources that cannot be regenerated.

Planned economy

Is an economic system in which the state directs the economy.

Plant domestication

Genetic modification of a plant such that its reproductive success depends on human intervention.

Plantation agriculture

Is a commercial tropical agriculture system which is essentially export-oriented.

Renewable resources

Resources that can regenerate as they are exploited.

Rural settlement

That which relates to the country, as rural servitudes.

Second agricultural revolution

Took place which increased efficiency of production as well as distribution which allowed more people to move to the cities as the industrial revolution got under way.

Specialization

The separation of tasks within a system.

Staple grains

Is a type of edible grain, usually wheat or corn, on which a group of people are dependent.

Suitcase farm

Commercial grain agriculture, a farm on which no one lives; planting and harvesting is done by hired migratory crews.

Survey patterns

Survey of major patterns of physical features, culture, and human-land relations.

Survey systems

The surveying method developed and used in the United States to plot, or divide, real property for sale and settling.

Sustainable yield

Of natural capital is the ecological yield that can be extracted without reducing the base of capital itself.

Third agricultural revolution

For the first time farmers using substantial inputs purchased off their farms, in the form of fertilizers for their land and artificial feedstuffs for their animals.

Tragedy of the commons

A dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's interest for this to happen.

Truck farm

Commercial gardening and fruit farming so named for bartering or the exchange of commodities.