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APHUG Unit 5 Summary

5.1 Introduction to Agriculture

  • Agriculture - the process of planting & harvesting domesticated plants and raising domestic animals for food

    • domesticated = not wild; grown or raised by humans on purpose

    How are agricultural practices influenced by physical geography & climate conditions?

Factors for Agriculture

  1. Physical Environment

    • presence or absence of nutritious soil

    • topography (mountains, rivers, plains)

  1. Climate (long-term weather)

    • Tropical Climate (low-latitude) - great for agriculture

      • typically used for commodity crops (exports)

    • Arid Climate - no good for agriculture

    • Semi-Arid Climates - get just enough precipitation for agriculture (good for grazing and nomadic lifestyle)

    • Moderate Climate (mid latitude) - warm summers and cold winters w/ average rainfall; okay for agriculture

    • Mediterranean Climate - average temp. year-round, decent rainfall in winters

  • tropical = growing fruits

  • moderate = wheat, flat terrain

  • Mediterranean = palm oil, grapes, dates

Types of Farming:

Commercial Farming:

  • crops and livestock are grown solely for the purpose of being sold

  • grow to feed someone else

Subsistence Farming -

  • grow/ raise crops/ livestock to feed yourself and/or your family

Intensive Farming:

  • farmers and ranchers use a high amount of inputs (human labor, money, machines, pesticides, herbicides, etc.) in order to maximize maximize their yield

  • intensively used land and as maximum output per acre

Market Gardening (Truck Farming):

  • small scale farming of fruits & veggies

  • served to a specific local market

  • commercial & intensive → investing in greenhouses, pesticides, and seeds

  • not much machinery

Extensive Agriculture:

  • farmers & ranchers use relatively low inputs and gain lower yields, relying on natural soil

    • no enhancers/pesticides

  • occurs primarily in LDC, as these countries can’t afford the intensive agriculture inputs (labor, pesticides, machinery)

  • Subsistence

Types of Extensive:

1. Shifting Cultivation - the cultivation of a plot of land until all the resources are exhausted and then moving to new land (shifting your agriculture location to where it’s supported cycle)

  • ex Slash & Burn

2. Nomadic Herding - breeding of domestic animals to drive across large pasture lands in different seasons

3. Ranching - use of large tracts of land to raise animals to sell their meat, hides, or wool

Plantation Farming:

  • very large scale farming of a single crop to sell in the distant market

  • typically specialized in a certain commodity crop

    • ex. palm oil, cotton, coffee, sugarcane, wheat etc.

  • requires large amounts of human labor, high quality seeds, herbicides, etc.

Mixed Crop/Livestock:

  • both crops + livestock on farm are raised for sell on the market

    • make money year-round

  • cycle of animal manure -. plants, plants → feed animals, excess sold

  • high labor input

5.2 Survey Methods and Settlement Patterns

Climate and physical geography affects the possibilities of agriculture, while humans respond and further change the agricultural landscape to suit their agricultural needs.

ex. Rice Paddies in the Philippines

  • Patterns of Settlement (where farmers settle)

  1. Clustered (Nucleated)

  • a village is packed together

  • fields are usually a distance away, surrounding the houses

  • shared services (ex.schools)

  • a strong sense of community

  • usually sedentary farming

  1. Dispersed (Isolated)

  • a village is spread out

  • assumption that there are enough resources for everyone to spread out

  • usually nomadic herding

  1. Linear

  • equal access to rivers and roads

  • Survey Methods

  1. Metes & Bound

(ex. East Coast)

  • land is split up by natural landmarks like trees and rivers, creating irregularly shaped areas

  1. Township & Range

ex. Midwest and Land Ordinance of 1785

  • land divided by precise straight lines, typically in a grid pattern, that doesn’t take into account the natural

  1. Long Lot

ex. Mississippi River Delta

  • land is divided into narrow strips, typically along a river or road, for equal access to trade and resources

Vocabulary

  • Urban - in the city, characterized by large, dense population

  • Rural - an area outside of the city, characterized by sparse population

  • Survey Methods - legal ways to establish boundaries of property ownership that often explains settlement patterns

5.3 The 1st Agriculture Revolution Origins & Diffusion

Agricultural Revolution: transition from hunter gathering societies to sedentary agriculture society

First Agricultural Revolution Hearths:

Fertile Crescent

  • wheat, barley, pigs, sheep

Indus-River Valley (Pakistan)

  • wheat, barley, peas, camels, buffalo

Southeast Asia (the Philippines)

  • sugarcane, root veggies, pigs

Central Americas

  • maize, potatoes, beans, turkey

Patterns of Diffusion - (expansion diffusion)

Columbian Exchange

Exchange of plans, animals, people, and resources between the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

Horses came to America’s + food came to Europe

Vocabulary:

  • Domesticated - the planting of seeds and taming of wild animals

  • Hunter Gathering - nomadic farming across large patches of territory to gather berries and kill animals, groups usually by families

  • Hearths - cultural centers in which new cultural traits develop and spread elsewhere (trendsetter/origin)

  • Expansion Diffusion - people stay in their hearth, while their culture’s traits diffuse out.

5.4 The 2nd Agricultural Revolution

Questions:

what is mechanization? machinery and equipment, to perform agricultural operations.

where were the first canals and railroads? Transcontinental Railroad + Erie Canal

what migration happened? rural-urban as huge waves of farms out of work (because of machines) fled to factories in the city

Causes:

  • New Technology

    • Seed Drill - allowed planting more at one time

    • Steel Plow - (John Deere) clear more land, faster, of weeds

    • McCormick Reaper/Harvester - horse drawn, allowed more goods gathered

  • New Transportation

    • Railroad - expanded rapidly, selling in distant markets

    • Canal - most efficient route between farmers and market, speedier

Effects:

  1. Better diets

  2. Longer life expectancy (population boom)

  3. Demographic shift (rural-urban migration)

5.5 Green Revolution

How did the Green Revolution diffuse?

The green Revolution spread by Hierarchical diffusion, from the U.S. to peripheral and semi-peripheral countries like:

  • India

  • Mexico

  • Indonesia

    • all known for subsistence farming with big populations

Inputs:

  1. Synthetic fertilizers

    • required to produce high-yield crops

  2. Chemical pesticides

    • defending the vulnerable engineered seeds from pests

  3. Increased mechanization

    • tractors

    • tillers

    • grain carts

      • increased efficiency of farming practices

Effects:

Positive

Negative

High crop yield

  • LDCs could feed population and sell excess in market

Environmental Consequences

  • double cropping → exhaustion of soil and erosion

  • chemicals caused runoff into freshwater sources

Lower food cost

  • solved world hunger

Exclusion of Women

  • men were given decision-making power based on traditional gender roles

More efficient and use

  • more yield per acre of agricultural land

Economic problems

  • farmers lost independence

  • forced to buy seeds annualy from mega corporations (they engineered the seeds to keep the farmers dependency)

Vocabulary:

  • Green Revolution - movement from 1960-70’s of scientists cross-breeding to engineer high yield grain crops

  • Cross Breeding - mixing species of plants/animals to create a hybrid, with best characteristics

  • GMOs doesn’t = outcome of Green Revolution

  • Double cropping - planting of more than one seed in same soil per year

5.6 Agricultural Production Regions

Subsistence Agriculture vs.

  • (farming for yourself and family)

    • goal: raising a variety of crops to support year-round diet

  • often mixed crop/livestock

  • mostly in LDCs (ex. South Asia, Subsaharan Africa)

Commercial Agriculture

  • (farming for profit in market

    • monocropping - growing the same crop year after year (all eggs in 1 basket)

    = soil + nutrients destroyed →need for fertilizers

  • commodity crops → (grown for export)

Extensive

  • a lot of land, for small-yield

  • ex. Commercial-Extensive = Ranching

Intensive

  • high input labor, maximizing yield from land

  • ex. Subsistence-Intensive = …

5.7 Spatial Organization of Agriculture

…

5.8 Von Thunen Model

Is the theory that shows how distance to market decides type of agriculture that’s practiced.

PROS

  • Good prediction of agricultural practices

  • Good for local farmers market

CONS

  • There’s only one CBD

  • All land is isotopic and distance of friction

  • Only one mode of transportation

  • Doesn’t answer for specialty crops

Vocabulary:

  • CBD - Central Business District

  • Isotopic - flat and unvaried land

  • Specialty crops - high value, perishable, and grown in a special climate (ex, Citrus fruits from Florida

5.9

…

5.10 Consequences of Agricultural Practices

What Agricultural Practices affect the Physical landscape?

  1. Slash & Burn - burning healthy ground to get nutrients dense soil in order to then start planting (Shifting Cultivation)

  2. Terrace Farming - cutting steps into mountains for irrigation purposes

  3. Irrigation - diverting of water to supply crops

    • ex. Dams and “pivot irrigation”

      • leads to salinization of soil (direr climate + runoff)

  4. Draining Wetlands - swamps/marshes for other plants (ex. the Netherlands)

  5. Pastoral Nomadism/Transhumance - degrading of plants and soil

Environmental Consequences:

  1. Pollution - pesticides & wind runoff getting INTO other water/crops

  2. Runoff - pollution in water from over-irrigation

  3. Desertification - areas becoming deserts (ex. Pastoral Nomadism degradation of Semi-Arid landscape )

  4. Soil Salinization - “salty soil” the salty leftovers from over-irrigation

Societal Consequences:

  1. Diet Change - (ex. change from beef to poultry from <60s to >60s!)

  2. Women’s Roles - mechanized = less involvement

  3. Economy - shift in workforce, more money = less farmers!

Vocabulary:

  • Deforestation: excessive removing of trees

5.11

…

5.12 Women in Agriculture

Main Idea: as women get more involved in agriculture, food productivity and security goes up

Subsistence (peripheral) -

Women typically take care of plant farming

  • Pastoral nomads are men while women stay home

  • Mixed plant/livestock = more participation close to homestead

Women don’t/can’t make money due to ownership and traditional roles

  • ½ of agriculture is women

Commercial (core) -

More women participate in subsistence than commercial "

  • “Homestead Aesthetic”

  • Focus on lifestyle, earning money

QUESTIONS:

  • What is crop rotation? growing different crops in different lands to preserve land fertility.

  • What is a commodity crop? basic crops grown for the market

  • What is a specialty crop? crops that are high value, perishable, and important to consumers.

  • What is a value-added crop? a crop who’s value goes up as you process it more (ex. dairy → cheese or butter)

  • What’s the relationship between cost-per-unit and economic of sale?

  • What is pivot irrigation?

  • what is fallow? period of allowing land to rest.

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