AP HUG: Unit 5 Agriculture

• Climate is the most important factor when farming

• The Hearth of Agriculture: fertile Crescent, Indus River Valley, Southeast Asia, and Central America

• To have agriculture you need cultivation

  • cultivation: to care, to tend to

• The Columbia Exchange:

  • the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies

  • between the Americas and the rest of the world

  • named after Christopher Columbuses expedition

• Food is a part of a global supply chain

  • products from less developed low-latitude regions are consumed globally

Why Did Agriculture Originate?

• Environmental Factors:

  • the end of the ice age

• Cultural Factors:

  • preference for living in a fixed place

How Did Plant Cultivation Begin?

• Accidentally

• Experimentally

• Subsistence Agriculture: production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer’s family

  • developing countries

• Commercial Farming: production of food primarily for sale off the farm

  • developed countries

• Three Distinguishing Factors:

  • percentage of farmers in the labor force

    • higher for substience

    • lower for commercial

  • the use of machinery

    • lower for subsistence

    • higher for commercial: meaning we can have less farmers

  • the size of the farm

    • lower for subsistence: the don’t have the technology to take care of a larger farm

    • high for commercial

1st Agricultural Revolution

• Birth of agriculture leads to the 1st agricultural revolution

• People staying in one place, grow food, develop societies, which grow into villages

• A lot of people dying as people are still figuring out agriculture and how it works

  • practice subsistence farming

• stage 1 of DTM —> stage 2 of DTM

2nd Agricultural Revolution

• Europe becoming more industrialized

• People moving off of farms and into urban life

• Working in factories

  • subsistence farming isn’t going to work anymore

    • people not farming anymore but working in factories

• Industrial Revolution starts this revolution

  • birth of commercial agriculture

• Farmers land size increases as they buy their neighbor’s land because they are in the factories

• Fencing in their land

• Field Rotation: technique

• Machinery is more efficient and becomes more popular

• Animal breed selection

• Importing food

3rd Agricultural Revolution (Green Revolution)

• Population continuing to grow

  • more areas becoming more industrial

  • FOOD CRISIS LUMING

  • need to feed more people with less space

• Started in the 1930’s

  • scientists began experimenting with manipulating seeds to increase crop yields

• Called the Green Revolution because people thought they could fight Communism with feeding more people

  • fighting the Red Revolution

• Creation of GMO (genetically modified organisms)

• IR36 - genetically modified strain of rice

  • larger

  • stronger stem

  • genetically resistant against 15 pests

  • growing cycle of 110 days (3x faster) \

  • saved many lives as it could grow where many people were dying of starvation

• Pros:

  • agriculture now outpaces population

  • nitrogen-based fertilizers increase farm sources

  • scientist continue to invent new food sources

  • higher productivity reduces dependency on imports in places such as India and China

• Cons:

  • poor countries cannot afford the machinery

  • farmers in poor countries cannot afford fertilizers

    • could lead to grow water pollution

  • overfishing

  • irrigation has led to serious groundwater depletion

• Should GMOs be Labeled?

  • Yes:

    • give consumers the information necessary to choose

    • consumers can cut back on their consumption of GMOs until more in learned

  • No:

    • could “spook” consumers

    • severely disrupt U.S. agriculture

Controversies in Agriculture

• Losing a Farm

  • farming becoming very expensive

    • costs for labor, machinery, water, etc

    • inflation

    • unpredictability (weather, etc)

  • farming is passed down and generational

    • losing a farm is also losing a home

    • kids have to find a new profession that require skills that they weren’t trained to have or grew up learning

• Eating Healthy is Expensive

  • why most Americans will eat more processed foods

• Child and Slave Labor

  • having enough kids to work on the farm used to be a value

  • family lives in poverty so they use their children

  • can’t afford an education for the kids

  • needing money, selling kids to other farms to work

Agriculture Theories

• Metes and Bounds

  • method of land description which involves identifying distances and directions

  • makes. use of both physical boundaries and measurements of the land

• Township and Range

  • a rectangular land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson

  • disperse settlers evenly across farmlands

    • still used today

• Long Lots

  • a settlement pattern in southern Quebec and other areas in Canada

  • individual lots tend to be long and narrow and extend back from major rivers or roads

• Factors that affects the location of food-processing facilities:

  • markets

  • economies of scale

  • transportation

  • government policies

• Bid-Rent Theory

  • the price and demand for land changes at it gets further away from the market

  • its all about maximizing profits

  • being closer to the market increased the potential for mare customers

  • trade-off between accessibility and the cost of land

  

• Von Thunen Theory

  • emphasizes the importance of transportation costs associated with distance from the market

  • explains the contemporary distribution of agricultural regions

    • dairy, horticulture, wheat, etc

• Limits of VT

  • the city is located centrally within the “Isolated States”

    • which are self sufficient and has no external influences

  • the city is surrounded by an unoccupied wilderness

  • the land is completely flat and has no rivers or mountains ti interrupt the terrain

  • the soil quality and climate are consistent throughout the State

  • farmers transport their own goods to market via oxcart, across land, directly to the central city

    • therefore, no roads

  • farmers act to maximize profits

Women in Agriculture

• Differ by region: changing rapidly in some areas

• Comprises 43% of the agricultural labor force in developing countries

  • 20% in Latin America

  • 50% in Eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

• Women in LDC’s have to work as men are trying to find a job

• Women have less access than men to productive resources and opportunities

• Gender gap found in:

  • land ownership

  • livestock ownership

  • labor

  • education

• Female run households

  • especially in Africa

  • the gender gap adds to the challenges women face in agriculture

• Female wage workers dominate employment in areas of export-oriented high-value agriculture in the developing world

• Girls who stay in school are more likely to feed themselves and their families when adults

• Without credit women cannot buy essentials or get a loan

  • seeds

  • tools

  • fertilizers

• Policy reform

  • eliminating discrimination against women in agriculture

  • investing in labor-saving and productivity-enhancing technologies

  • paying women fairly for there products

• Women in MDC’s agriculture

  • finical and technical resources and key information being kept from women

  • women-led farms are making substantially less money

  • women are at greater risk for violence and discrimination

  • 14% of farm owners are women