Module 6: Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resource

Agribusiness

An integrated form of transnational corporation in the agricultural, or food production, sector. Typically highly capitalized, operating on a large scale), corporately owned, and vertically integrated (encompassing the growing, processing, and marketing of food).

Agricultural Revolution

The transition of human subsistence, beginning about 12,000 years ago, from dependence on foraging to food production through plant and animal domestication.

Commercial Agriculture

A system in which production is primarily for sale for profit. Usually Large scale, using a lot of land, technology, and machines.

Domestication

The process of selectively breeding plants and animals for certain traits so they are more useful to humans.

Economic Operator

A model of human behaviour in which each individual is assumed to be rational. Aim to maximize returns and minimize costs.

Economic Rent

The surplus income that accrues to a unit of land above the minimum income needed to bring a unit of new land into production.

Factory farms

An agricultural enterprise, focused on livestock that typically houses large numbers of domesticated animals in buildings and on feedlots.

Green revolution

The twentieth century introduction of new technologies that dramatically increased agricultural production. Introduced in areas of the less developed world.

Landrace

A local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species that is well adapted to a particular physical and cultural environment.

Location theory

Theories that explain the spatial distribution of economic activities. Commonly applied in agricultural, industrial, and urban contexts.

Neo-colonialism

Economic and political strategies of dominance and subordination by powerful states over others. Often develops after colonialism ends.

Normative theory

A theory that focuses on what ought to happen, rather than what actually does happen. Aimed to seek what is rational, or optimal, according to some given criteria.

Pleistocene

The geological time period from about 1.5 million years ago to 12,000 years ago, characterized by a series of glacial advances and retreats.

Rational choice theory

The theory that social life can be explained by models of rational individual action. An extension of the economic operator to other areas of human life.

Satisficing behaviour

A model of human behaviour that rejects the rationality assumptions of the economic operator model. Assumes that the objective is to reach an acceptable level of satisfaction.

Shifting cultivation

Agricultural system where land is used for crops or livestock grazing, only to be abandoned a short time later when soil fertility has declined. Associated with the process of slashing and burning of tropical forests.