The Agricultural Location Problem

Physical Factors

• Farmers have two options:

  • Ensure that there is a match between animal and plant requirements and the physical environment.

  • Or create artificial physical environments by practicing irrigation or building greenhouses.

• Climatic factors are the main physical variables affecting agriculture.

  • Plants have precise temperature and moisture requirements.

  • Low temperatures result in slow plant growth, while short growing seasons may prevent crops from reaching maturity.

  • Moisture is crucial to plant to plant growth to plant growth; too little or too much moisture can damage plants.

• Soil and topographical relief are also variable factors.

  • The ideal soil texture is the one that is not dominated by either large sand particles or small clay particles.

  • Most crops require neutral or slightly acidic soils.

  • Soil fertility needs to be maintained if regular cropping is practised.

  • Relief affects agriculture through slope and altitude.

  • A slope's angle's direction and exposure to sun determines both the probability of soil erosion and the use of machinery.

  • The more flatter the land, the more suitable it is for agriculture.

Technological, Cultural and Political Factors

• Advancement in biotechnology, plant and animal breeding has brought drastic changes in agricultural production.

• An effective uses pesticides and fungicides reduces the competition between crops and various pests for both light and nutrients.

• In the more developed world, they typically favour security and a relatively constant income over a life dedicated to the unlikely goal of profit maximisation.

• In the less developed world, they typically maximize product output for subsistence ratehr than profit.

• A groups religious beliefs may favour specific agricultural activities because of the value placed on either the activity or the product of activity.

  • For example, Christianity values wine made from grapes.

• Similar to it, many agricultural activities are negatively affected by religious beliefs.

  • For example, pigs are not allowed in Islam, while Hindu and Buddhists believe it's wrong to kill/slaughter animals (cattle animals).

• Government's policies influence farmer's behaviour:

  • in the more developed world the most common motive is the desire to support the an activity that, as measured by income, is in decline.

    • government's may intervene by fixing product and providing financial support to farmers for certain farm improvements.

  • in the less developed world,

    • government's may provide assistance that enables farmers to adopt new methods.

• Agriculture is not only affected by state policies but also by national and international trade legislation.

  • Best known examples of these policies are from United States and the European Union

Supply and Demand

• Spatial patterns of agricultural activities are affected by physical, cultural and political variables. It is noted by human geographers that economic variables are also essential.

• Agricultural products are produced in response to market demand; thus farming is produced in subject to laws of supply and demand.

• Since when supply increases and demand decreases when the price rises, an equilibrium price (p) can be identified at the intersection of two curves.

• In the developed parts of the world, farmers value stability and independence, and they willingly sacrifice profits accordingly or choose to respond to decreasing prices by increasing rather than decreasing supplies.

• Farmers in the less developed parts of the world, tend not to be profit maximizers, but their behaviour may well be rational.

• The aim of subsistence agriculture is to produce the amount required to meet only family needs; here profit maximization has no meanings.

Competition for Land

• Land is assigned to the use that generates the greatest profits.

• The greater the profits a certain use generates, the more that use can afford to pay for the land. The maximum amount that a given use can pay is called the ceiling rent.

• Agricultural location theorists use idea of location theory in combination with the concept of economic rent, which explains why land is or not used for production.

• Land is used for production if a given land use has an economic rent above zero.

Domesticating Plants and Animals

Early Domestication and Diffusion

• A domesticated plant is deliberately planted, raised and harvested by humans.

• A domesticated animal depends on humans for food and in many cases, shelter.

• Domesticated animals and plants are superior then the non-domesticated ones, as they are fed with organic or selective breeding.

• It is dated that agriculture began around 11,200 to 11,400 years ago in areas of current day Iraq.

• Agriculture spread to other areas, by replacing pre-agricultural activities, such as, hunting, gathering and scavenging.

• Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, yaks and buffalo; all are domesticated in various ways in different parts of the world.

• The fact that many different groups of people came up with the idea of domesticating animals suggests that the reason specifies are not domesticated is not that no-one tried but they proved to be unsuitable candidates.

• Natural selection results in the survival and reproduction of those plants and animals that are best able to cope in a particular environment.

• Artificial selection involves humans allowing certain plants and animals to survive and animals to survive and breed because they possess features judged desirable by humans.

Possible causes of Domestication

• Domestication is occurred mainly due to climate change or population pressure. This hypothesis is based on the idea that, although the process of domestication is not difficult, it can require a great deal of work and therefore it's not attractive.

The Evolution of World Agricultural Landscapes

• Principal technological advancements transforming agriculture:

  • Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century

  • Development of nitrogen fertilizers in the early twentieth century

  • Green Revolution

  • Biotechnology Revolution

  • Ongoing transition in some areas from ploughing the soil prior to planting to use of no-till strategies.

A second Agricultural Revolution: England after 1700

• Involved the following changes:

  • new farming techniques; fodder crops and new crop rotation

  • increase in crop output

  • introduction of labour saving machinery

Nitrogen Fertilizers

• Nitrogen is added naturally to soil through rainfall. But rainfall alone does not add enough nitrogen, and it was soon discovered that growing cereal crop on the same land year after year impoverished the soil and ultimately reduced yields.

  • A favourable solution for this was to plant legumes along with cereal crops to replenish the soils nitrogen content.

• With the use of organic fertilizers, crop yields were too limited to feed the entire population.

• In the nineteenth century, demand for cereals grew rapidly, so the need of nitrogen arose.

  • One option was to use horse manure or use human waste.

• In the twentieth century, nitrogen fertilizer production began on a commercial scale producing around two million tons each week.

• Nitrogen fertilizers have associated with environmental damage - including soil and water contamination, increasing soil acidity, and the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

The Green Revolution

• Introduction of HYV seeds seeds and improvement of crops such as beans, maize, millet and sorghum.

• Besides genetic improvements, the green Revolution involved expanded use of fertilizers, other chemical inputs and irrigation.

• Agricultural changes associated with the green revolution had some unfortunate consequences, and had plentiful consequences.

  • Economic circumstances - only better off farmers could afford it, poor farms prevented it.

  • Undesirable environmental consequences - resulted in water pollution which caused serious health problems.

Biotechnology: Another Agricultural Revolution

• Genetic modification is the process of changing DNA off living things in a way that it does not occur in nature.

• This involves introduction of new genes from other plants or micro-organisms.

  • The insertion of new genes is intended to give crop a favourable new characteristic.

No-till technique

• Pros of technique:

  • reduces soil erosion

  • conserves water

  • improves health of soil

  • lowers fuel and labour cost

  • reduces sediment and fertilizer pollution

World Agriculture Today: Types and Regions

Primitive Subsistence Agriculture

• Also known as shifting agriculture.

• Practised in tropical areas.

• Involves selecting a location, removing vegetation and showing crops on the cleared land. - Little care is given to there crops.

• In this farming system, lands is not owned or controlled by and individual or family but rather by some larger social unit such as the village or tribe.

• Mainly for subsistence purposes.

Wet Rice Farming

• Rural population of East Asia is supported with this method. - it requires only a small portion of land and large labour.

• Restricted to specific local environments, mostly flat land adjacent to rivers.

  • Surrounded by low height walls which hold water.

• Wet rice fields on terraced hillsides are characteristics of South China and some areas of Southeast Asia.

Pastoral Nomadism

• Practiced in the hot/dry and cold/dry areas of America and Asia.

• Main reason for decline is the use of new technologies and changing social and economic circumstances.

• Subsistence oriented - rely on their herds for milk and wool. - meat is rarely eaten

Mediterranean Agriculture

• Associated with a particular climate (mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers).

• Has three components;

  • wheat and barley and barley,

  • vine and tree crops,

  • grazing land for sheep and goats

Mixed Farming

• Originates throughout Europe, eastern North America, and other temperate areas of European overseas expansion.

• Involves both crop and livestock.

• Contemporary mixed farming is intensive and commercial and integrates crops and livestock.

Dairying

• Associated with Europe and areas of European overseas expansion.

• Farms are relatively small and capital intensive.

• Fluid milk producers are making increasing use of the feedlot system, in which cattle feed is purchased rather than grown on the farm.

  • In such cases, dairying operations begin to look more like factory systems than the traditional image of an agricultural way of life. This development is most evident in North America.

Plantation Agriculture

• Plantations produce crops such as coffee, tea, oil-palm, cacao, coconuts, bananas, jute, sisal, hemp, rubber, tobacco, groundnuts, sugar cane, and cotton for export primarily to Europe and North America.

• This is extremely intensive, operating on a large scale using local labour and producing only one crop on each plantation.

• It has profound social and economic implications and has been seen as exploiting both land and labour, due to colonialism.

• Designed to serve needs of distant areas.

Ranching

• Limited to areas of European overseas expansion and is closely related to the needs of urban population.

• Cattle and sheep are major ranch animals, since beef and wool are products in most demand.

• Ranching is a large-scale operation because of the low productivity involved and hence is associated with areas of low population density.

Large-Scale Grain Production

• Major grain producers are the US, Canada, and Ukraine.

• Farms are large and highly mechanized.

• This evolved in the nineteenth century to supply urban markets of Western Europe and eastern North America.

• Wheat and grain staples were also grown in many areas.

• Today, in many areas population relies on mixed farming than on grain production.

• In recent decades non-grain crops have become increasingly important on the prairies, among them oil seeds, especially canola and flax, and such specialty crops as peas, lentils, mustard seed, and canary seed.

Global Agricultural Restructuring

Changes to the Food Supply System

• Changes to the food supply system mean that geographers are directing much attention to the idea of a commodity network that links production, distribution, and consumption and that operates in particular environmental, economic, cultural, and political contexts.

• 

• Agricultural change has gone through four distinct phases since World War II:

  • mechanization

  • chemical farming

  • food manufacturing

  • biotechnology

• The significance of gender relations in the agricultural restructuring process is increasingly apparent, especially to those employing a political economy approach to the study of agriculture.

  • The trend for women to leave farming is generally considered a reflection of the conservative gender relations associated with farming communities.

Industrializing Agriculture

• Agriculture is constrained by physical geography, and its success, as measured by productivity or return on investment, is beyond the farmer’s control.

  • But these physical constraints do not prevent the industrialization of agriculture. Rather, they guide that industrialization in particular directions.

• According to American economist Milton Friedman, “the distinction between agriculture and industry is no longer viable, and should be replaced by the conception of an agri-food sector central to capital accumulation in the world economy”.

State Intervention

• Agricultural activity can be understood only in the larger context of state agricultural policies and negotiated trading agreements.

• At first, states tried to respond to the inevitable fluctuations in production by regulating prices and marketing, with the ultimate goal of achieving some stability in agricultural production.

  • In recent years, states have become increasingly involved in agriculture because improvements in productivity have led to the oversupply of domestic markets, reducing both product prices and farm income.

• Inadequate income for farmers is the principal reason behind government intervention in the form of income support.

• In the more developed world, state policies aim to ensure the security of food supplies, price and income stability, protection of consumer interests, and regional development.

Agribusiness

• The term refers to the activities of transnational corporations.

  • Plantation was the first example agribusiness.

• Agribusiness has been widely criticized, most often on the grounds that, it is a form of economic colonialism, with little concern for the social, economic, and environmental consequences of activities in the producing area.

  • Benefits foreign investors and local elites rather than peasant groups.

  • Occupies prime agricultural land.

  • Imports labor that may lead to local ethnic conflict.

Global Trade in Food

• Two causes of current agricultural change are;

  • the ever-increasing demand for food; and

  • the concentration of people in large urban center.

• The global trade in food is a recent phenomenon, associated with the Industrial Revolution and, technological advances in ocean transportation and refrigeration.

• Trade of wheat, corn, or rice is most substantial.

Food Production, Food Consumption, and Identity

Food and Place Identity

• Food consumption habits remain vital indicators of human identity, reflecting regional characteristics as well as individual and group tastes.

• It is common to eat in third places, places other than home or work. Bars and coffee houses, for example, play important roles in many peoples’ daily lives.

• The popularity of ethnic food may well reflect a modern version of the historic association between food and social status.

• Some commentators have suggested that new national dishes, phenomenon perpetuates the former colonial relationship, although one could equally interpret it as representing a reversal of that relationship.

• Specialty foods and drinks explicitly identified with a particular place are increasing in popularity.

  • E.g. maple syrup as a distinctive product of eastern Canada.

Changing Food Preferences

• The contribution of livestock products to diets has risen greatly in recent years and is expected to continue increasing.

• As more and more of us move into cities and become more affluent, food consumption changes.

  • In general, urbanites are wealthier and eat more food than poorer rural dwellers; they eat less fresh food but more processed food and more meat.

  • They also are able to access food from a greater variety of sources than are rural dwellers.

    • This shift in diets is having major environmental impacts as the livestock sector generates significant greenhouse gas emissions and is also a major source of land and water degradation.

• The one counter trend is that some established wealthy urbanites in more developed countries are consciously choosing to diversify their diet for health reasons, in particular by limiting (mainly red) meat consumption.

• In less developed countries, food is lost rather than wasted.

  • Most of this loss occurs in the production and transportation stages of the supply chain, occurring as it does on or close to the farm; very little is wasted at the consumer stage.

• Perishables, such as vegetables and milk, are liable to spoil while being transported.

  • All these losses are avoidable in principle as they are related to problems of rural poverty, inadequate agricultural infrastructure, limited harvesting strategies, and inadequate storage and cooling facilities rather than to inappropriate human behavior.

• In more developed countries, the problem is one of food waste, occurring as it does principally at the consumption end of the supply chain.

• In more developed countries, the problem is one of food waste, occurring as it does principally at the consumption end of the supply chain.

  • Some studies suggest that at least 25 percent of food purchased from shops is thrown away, mostly salad ingredients, while a similar amount of restaurant food is discarded.

  • The problem here is avoidable as the cause is inappropriate human behaviour—people can afford to waste food, so they do.

  • Some specific causes of waste are high consumer expectations of food quality, the practice of indicating a “sell by” date, and buffet-style restaurant meals.

  • Food waste would be lessened if more food items, were purchased as frozen rather than fresh.