Human Geo Agriculture Unit 5

9.1 Why do people consume different foods?

level of development, physical conditions, and cultural preferences

  • America and Canada farmers are more familiar with machines and computers while Asian farmers usually only grow enough food to survive, with little surplus

  • Sub-s Africa has a large percentage of Africans not getting enough to eat, and production and population are both growing

  • N America has the highest share of obese people

  • Almost 2/3 of produce has pesticides lingering in the US

Global Agriculture & Undernourishment:

  • 10% of global pop do not have food security

  • undernourishment most prevalent in Sub-S Africa and S Asia

    • ¼ of ppl in Sub-S Africa

    • 1/5 of ppl in S Asia

  • 803 mil ppl undernourished

    • largest numbers in India and China

    • India has ¼ of the world’s

  • declined from 15% to 11% from 2000 to 2013

    • East Asia has had the largest decrease by far

Food Prices:

  • challenge is food prices not food supply

    • on average ppl spend less than 20% of their income on food in developed countries

    • more than 40% in Sub-S Africa

  • Food prices have more than doubled between 2006 and 2008

  • high prices in 2014, declined sharply in 2015, and then increased again in 2017

  • The UN says the record high prices are from four factors

    • Poor weather, especially in major crop-growing regions

    • Higher demand, especially in China and India

    • smaller growth in productivity, no major new breakthroughs

    • use of crops as biofuels instead of food

  • Record high prices for agricultural land as well

Source of Nutrients:

  • most calories are gained through cereal grain

  • 3 leading cereal grains are wheat, maize, and rice

    • 90% of all grain production

    • more than 40% of calories worldwide

  • MAP: Wheat in the US, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Europe, N Africa. Maize in S and E Africa, Mexico. Rice in SE Asia, W Africa

Protein:

  • in developed countries, the leading source of protein is meat products

    • approx. 1/3 of all protein intake in developed

    • approx. 1/10 in developing

  • in developing countries, cereal grains

  • because meat is a generally expensive way to obtain protein, it is a reflection of higher incomes in developed countries.

9.2 Where did agriculture originate?

Invention of Agriculture:

  • long before recorded history

Hunters & Gatherers

  • lived in small group, less than 50

  • traveled frequently based on movement of game and seasons

  • men hunted and fished, women gathered

  • quarter mil or less still today

Agricultural Revolution

  • occurred around 8000 BC

  • environmental factors: climate change marking end of ice age, many redistribution of plants, human, and animals

  • cultural factors:

    • preference for living in fixed place

    • realization that damaged fruits/plants could produce new plants

    • later generations learned water and soil=plant cultivation

Agricultural Hearths

  • agriculture originated in multiple hearths around the world and invented independently by many groups

  • Southwest Asia

    • earliest crops 10,000 yrs ago

    • barley, wheat, lentil, and olive

    • cattle, goats, pigs, sheep 8000-9000 yrs ago

    • domestication of dog 12,000 yrs ago

    • diffused to Europe and Central Asia

  • East Asia

    • rice more than 10,000 yrs ago in China

    • Millet along Yellow River

  • Central and South Asia

    • Chickens around 4000 yrs ago

    • horse, thought to be diffused with Indo-European language

  • Sub-Saharan Africa

    • Sorghum around 8000 yrs ago

    • yams, millet, and rice independently

    • diffused farther south in Africa

  • Latin America

    • Mexico and Peru 4-5000 yrs ago

    • beans and cotton for mexico, potato for Peru

    • corn independently around same time

    • diffused North America and tropical South America

  • unique because of wild plants, climate conditions, and cultural preferences

  • Columbian exchange diffused, for example, wheats, oats, and barley to W Hemisphere and corn to E Hem.

Subsistence & Commercial Agriculture

  • main features that distinguish commercial from subsistence agriculture is: labor force, use of machinery, and farm size

Farmers: Fewer grow more

  • in developing countries, large percentage of pop are subsistence farmers

    • around 35%

  • in developed countries, few people are engaged in farming, and buy food with money by working in factories, office, or service jobs

    • around 3%

    • North America average is 1%- but provides enough food for themselves, rest of region, and elsewhere

    • 10% of US jobs are in the food industry (restaurants, supermarkets..)

    • declined dramatically in 20th century

    • pushed by poor income

  • MAP: high percentage in Africa, low in North America and W Europe, medium in most of Asia, E Europe, and South America

Technology: Agriculture’s Game Changer

  • commercial: rely on machinery

  • subsistence: use hand-tools and animal power

  • first all-iron plow in 1770s

  • today we use tractors, combines, corn pickers, planters, and other machines

  • experiments have made new fertilizers, herbicides, hybrid plants, and animal breads

  • use GPS for precise coordinates for planting and spreading fertilizers

  • on large ranches, use GPS to monitor cattle and tractors

  • satellite imagery to measure crop progress

  • monitors on combines to track number of bushels harvested

Farm Size: Is Bigger Better?

  • Farms average 441 acres in the US, compared to 2.5 in South Asia

  • machinery performs most efficiently at large scales to justify their large expense

  • commercial is dominated by a handful of large farms

    • the largest 3% of US farms produce 42% of the nation’s total agriculture

    • 99% of US farms are family owned and operated

  • expansion of urban areas has decreased the amount of hectares

9.3 Where is agriculture distributed?

The most widely used map of world agriculture is based on the work of Derwent Whittlesey in 1936.

Agricultural Regions:

  • 11 main regions plus an area where agriculture is nonexistent

  • 6 important in developed, 5 important in developing

in Developing Countries

  • Intensive subsistence, wet rice dominant

    • large populations of East Asia and South Asia

  • Intensive subsistence, wet rice not dominant

    • large populations of East Asia and South Asia where growing rice is difficult

  • Pastoral nomadism

    • drylands of SW Asia, N Africa, C Asia, and SE Asia

  • Shifting cultivation

    • tropical regions of Latin American, Sub-S Africa, C Asia, and SE Asia

  • Plantation

    • tropical and subtropical regions of Latin America, Sub-S Africa, S Asia, and SE Asia

in Developed Countries

  • Mixed crop and livestock

    • US Midwest and C Europe

  • Dairy

    • NE United States, SE Canada, NW Europe

  • Grain

    • NC United States, SC Canada, and E Europe

  • Livestock Ranching

    • drylands of western N America, SE Latin America, C Asia, Sub-S Africa, and South Pacific

  • Mediterranean

    • lands surrounding the Mediterranean sea, as well as W United States, southern tip of Africa and Chile

  • Commercial gardening

    • SE United States and SE Australia

Subsistence Agriculture in Population Concentrations:

  • ¾ of the world live in developing countries and is mostly feed by intensive subsistence agriculture

Intensive Subsistence Farming

  • used deeply in S, E, and SE Asia

  • the ratio of farmers to arable land is very high in E and S Asia

  • most work is done by hands or with animals

  • many asian farmers own segmented parts

  • waste virtually no land

  • double cropping is popular in places with warm winters

  • normally alternating between wet rice in the summer and dry crops like wheat or barley