Agriculture

Agricultural Geography

** 2A Rebecca Ellis, Shammara ** 



>> -crop:any plant cultivated by humans >> Around one million people survive today from this form. >> -They live in isolated areas such as the Artic and the African Bushmen >> -privides and insite to people'es customs >> -hunters switched to Nomadic herding b/c the absorbed that over time, damaged or discarded food produced new plants -  Vegetative planting: reproduction of plants by direct cloning(cutting stems/roots)
 * ** KEY POINTS **
 * Agriculture:the deliberare modification of Earth's surface through cultivation.
 * Before the invention of agriculture, all humans obtained food they needed for survial through hunting and gathering.
 * __ Invention of Agriculture, __ accident
 * __ Cultivation __

> -Seed agriculture: reproduction of plants through annual planting ·  __ Origin __ -Agri. originated in multiple locations ·  __ Classifying Agriculture Regions __
 * -Vegetative planning was thought to have originated in S.E Asia, then went north and east ward to China & Japan & westward to India, southwest Asia, tropical Africa, and Med. Islands.
 * -Seed agri. was started in Western india, northern China and Ethiopia

> -Subsistence agriculture is found in LDC, production of food primarily for consumption. > -Commercial agriculture is found in developed countries, primarily for sale off farm. ·  __ Percentage of farmers in the labor force __

> -in MDC’s les then 5% engaged in farming compared to more than 55% in LDC’s ·  __ Use of Machinery __

> -tractors, combines, corn pickers, planters replaced manual labor > -use scientific advances to increase growth and productivity ·  __ Farm Size __

> -farm sizes relatively large in commercial agric. especially in U.S & Canada. ·  __ Relation of farming to other businesses __

> -commercial farming sells products for processing into other goods > -system in U.S called agribusiness > -farmers less than 2% of U.S labor force > <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> __ Mapping Agriculture Regions __

> -11 main agri. Regions > -divided by climate > -pastoral nomadism in predominantly in the M. East > -shift cultivation is in central Africa > -S.East China (warm, intensive subsistence agri. Wet rice dominant) > -N.East China (cold, intensive subsistence not wet rice dominant) > -Western U.S is dry & livestock ranching <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> __ Less Developed Countries __

> -practice shifting cultivation, pastoral nomadism, intensive subsistence <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> __ Shifting cultivation __ -cultivated garden

> -practiced in humid low latitude or high temp. w/ abundant rainfall > -Amazon of S.America, Central and West Africa, S.E. Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, & Indochina > -farmers clear land by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris. (Slash & burn) > -farmers grow crops on a cleared field for only a few years until nutrients are depleted. > -live in small villages

<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> Pastoral Nomadism-herd of domesticated animals -depend on animals rather than crops -declining form of agric. -gov’ts forces them to give up land for their use <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> __ Commercial Farming __, found in MDC’s

> -Mixed crop & livestock-U.S & central Europe 1. integration of animals and crops. 2. most crops are fed to animals 3. animals supply manure for fertilizer 4. workload distributed evenly throughout the year -Dairying- northeast U.S, southeast Canada, and northwest Europe

> -Grain-east Europe, & north central U.S > -Ranching-dry lands of west U.S and southeast S.America > -Mediterranean- Med. Sea, Western U.S Chile > -Commercial gardening- S.E U.S, S.E Australia > -Plantation-Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;">· <span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol;"> Intensive subsistence -waste virtually no land -done by hand -wet rice: refers to the practice of planting rice on dry land in a nursery and then moving the seedlings to a flooded field to promote growth -Asia’s most important source of food.



-agribusiness -agriculture -cereal grain -chaff -combine -commercial agriculture -crop -crop rotation -double cropping -grain -green revolution -horticulture -hull -intensive subsistence agriculture -milk shed -paddy -pastoral nomadism -pasture -plantation -ranching -sawah -seed agriculture -slash and burn -shifting cultivation -subsistence agriculture -sustainable agriculture -swidden -thresh -transhumance -truck farming -winnow -wet rice
 * KEY TERMS **
 * USEFUL WEB SITES **

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Alex Ritter 2B [] There are four rings of agricultural activity surrounding the city. Dairying and intensive farming occur in the ring closest to the city. Since vegetables, fruit, milk and other dairy products must get to market quickly, they would be produced close to the city (remember, we didn't have refrigerated oxcarts!) Timber and firewood would be produced for fuel and building materials in the second zone. Before industrialization (and coal power), wood was a very important fuel for heating and cooking. Wood is very heavy and difficult to transport so it is located as close to the city as possible. The third zone consists of extensive fields crops such as grains for bread. Since grains last longer than dairy products and are much lighter than fuel, reducing transport costs, they can be located further from the city. Ranching is located in the final ring surrounding the central city. Animals can be raised far from the city because they are self-transporting. Animals can walk to the central city for sale or for butchering. Beyond the fourth ring lies the unoccupied wilderness, which is too great a distance from the central city for any type of agricultural product. [] ~Agriculture** refers to the production of [|food] and [|goods] through **farming** and [|forestry]. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of [|civilization], with the [|husbandry] of [|domesticated] [|animals] and plants ~Agriculture encompasses a wide variety of specialties and techniques, including ways to expand the lands suitable for plant raising, by digging water-channels and other forms of irrigation. [|Cultivation] of crops on [|arable land] and the [|pastoral] [|herding] of [|livestock] on [|rangeland] remain at the foundation of agriculture
 * **Farming:**
 * Truck Farming: Commercial gardening and fruit farming
 * Crop Rotation: Practice of rotating the use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting the soil
 * Vegetative Farming: Reproduction of plants by direct cloning from existing plants, was first observed by Carl Sauer
 * Pastoralism: Herding of animals
 * Transhumance: Seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowlands
 * Agribusiness: Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in food processing industry, usually through the ownership of a large coporation
 * Plantation: A large farm in the tropics and subtropics that specializes in one or two crops
 * Sustainable Agriculture: Farming method that preserves long term productivity and minimizes pollution
 * Ridge Tillage: Process where plants grow on a hill or bund
 * Desertification: Process in semi arid regions where human actions caue land to deteriorate to a desert like condition
 * Farming around the world**
 * Double Cropping: Heavily used in southeastern china to increase crop yields
 * Pastoral Nomadism: Most commonly found in Dry areas
 * Commercial Grain: The United States, Russia, India, and China are the leading producers
 * Intensive Subsistence: Practiced heavily in China
 * Agribusiness: Many farmers in the US have integrated to this
 * Key Terms**
 * Grain: Seed of a cereal grass
 * Pasture: Grass grown for feeding grazing animals
 * Paddy: The flooded field in which wet rice is planted, name given by Europeans
 * Ap Human Geography 1B

~Agriculture has played a key role in the development of human [|civilization]. Until the [|Industrial Revolution], the vast majority of the human population labored in agriculture ~[|Thomas Malthus] famously predicted that the Earth would not be able to support its growing population, but technologies such as the Green Revolution have allowed the world to produce a surplus of food.[|[7]] ~Agricultural practices such as [|irrigation], [|crop rotation], [|fertilizers], and [|pesticides] were developed long ago, but have made great strides in the past century 1921 man plowing an alfalfa field. ~With the rapid rise of [|mechanization] in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the form of the [|tractor], farming tasks could be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible ~[|Shifting cultivation] (or [|slash and burn]) is a system in which forests are burnt, releasing nutrients to support cultivation of annual and then [|perennial] crops for a period of several years ~Cropping systems vary among farms depending on the available resources and constraints; geography and climate of the farm; government policy; economic, social and political pressures; and the philosophy and culture of the farmer [|Food and Agriculture Organization] (FAO)//[|[30]] ||
 * ~ top agricultural products, by crop types(million metric tons) 2004 data ||
 * [|Cereals] || 2,263 ||
 * [|Vegetables] and [|melons] || 866 ||
 * [|Roots] and [|Tubers] || 715 ||
 * [|Milk] || 619 ||
 * [|Fruit] || 503 ||
 * [|Meat] || 259 ||
 * [|Oilcrops] || 133 ||
 * [|Fish] (2001 estimate) || 130 ||
 * [|Eggs] || 63 ||
 * [|Pulses] || 60 ||
 * [|Vegetable Fiber] || 30 ||
 * //Source:

~In the United States, food costs attributed to processing, distribution, and marketing have risen while the costs attributed to farming have declined. From 1960 to 1980 the farm share was around 40%, but by 1990 it had declined to 30% and by 1998, 22.2%. Climate change has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature and moisture regimes.Agriculture can both mitigate or worsen global warming. Some of the increase in CO2 in the atmospherecomes from the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and much of the methane emitted into the atmosphere is due to the decomposition of organic matter in wet soils such as rice paddies.Further, wet or anaerobicsoils also lose nitrogen through denitrification, releasing the greenhouse gas nitric oxide Changes in management can reduce the release of these greenhouse gases, and soil can further be used to sequester some of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Pesticide use has increased since 1950 to 2.5 million tons annually worldwide, yet crop loss due to pests has remained relatively constant. The World Health Organization estimated in 1992 that 3 million pesticide poisonings occur annually, causing 220,000 deaths.Pesticides select for pesticide resistance in the pest population, leading to a condition termed the 'pesticide treadmill' in which pest resistance warrants the development of a new pesticide. An alternative argument is that the way to 'save the environment' and prevent famine is by using pesticdes and intensive high yield farming, a view exemplified by a quote heading the Center for Global Food Issues website: 'Growing more per acre leaves more land for nature'. However critics argue that a tradeoff between the environment and a need for food is not inevitable,and that pesticides simply replace good agronomic practices such as crop rotation. Differences in economic development, population density and culture mean that the farmers of the world operate under very different conditions. A US cotton farmer may receive US$230 government subsidies per acre planted (as in 2003), farmers in Mali and other third world countries do without. When prices decline, the heavily subsidised US farmer is not forced to reduce his output, hence making it difficult for cotton prices to rebound, his Mali counterpart may go broke in the meantime. A livestock farmer in South Korea can calculate with a (highly subsidized) salesprice of US$1300 for a calf produced. With the former, scarcety and high cost of land is compensated with public subsidies, the latter compensates absence of subsedies with economics of scale and low cost of land. In the Peoples Republic of China, a rural household`s productive asset may be one hectare of farmland. In Brazil, Paraguay and other countries where local legislature allows such purchases, international investors buy thousands of hectares of farmland or raw land at prices of a few hundred US$ per hectare Agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries. Farmers are at high risk for fatal and nonfatal injuries, work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss skin diseases, and certain cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. Farming is one of the few industries in which the families (who often share the work and live on the premises) are also at risk for injuries, illness, and death. In an average year, 516 workers die doing farm work in the U.S. (1992-2005). Of these deaths, 101 are caused by tractor overturns. Every day, about 243 agricultural workers suffer lost-work-time injuries, and about 5% of these result in permanent impairment. Agriculture is the most dangerous industry for young workers, accounting for 42% of all work-related fatalities of young workers in the U.S. between 1992 and 2000. Unlike other industries, half the young victims in agriculture were under age 15.For young agricultural workers aged 15–17, the risk of fatal injury is four times the risk for young workers in other workplaces.Agricultural work exposes young workers to safety hazards such as machinery, confined spaces, work at elevations, and work around livestock. An estimated 1.26 million children and adolescents under 20 years of age resided on farms in 2004, with about 699,000 of these youth performing work on the farms. In addition to the youth who live on farms, an additional 337,000 children and adolescents were hired to work on U.S. farms in 2004. On average, 103 children are killed annually on farms (1990-1996). Approximately 40 percent of these deaths were work-related. In 2004, an estimated 27,600 children and adolescents were injured on farms; 8,100 of these injuries were due to farm work.
 * [|Tillage]** is the practice of plowing soil to prepare for planting or for nutrient incorporation or for pest control. Tillage varies in intensity from conventional to [|no-till]. It may improve productivity by warming the soil, incorporating fertilizer and controlling weeds, but also renders soil more prone to erosion, triggers the decomposition of organic matter releasing CO2, and reduces the abundance and diversity of soil organisms.[|[33]][|[34]]
 * [|Pest control]** includes the management of [|weeds], [|insects/mites], and [|diseases]. Chemical ([|pesticides]), biological ([|biocontrol]), mechanical ([|tillage]), and cultural practices are used. Cultural practices include [|crop rotation], [|culling], [|cover crops], [|intercropping], [|composting], avoidance, and [|resistance]. [|Integrated pest management] attempts to use all of these methods to keep pest populations below the number which would cause economic loss, and recommends pesticides as a last resort.[|[35]]
 * [|Nutrient management]** includes both the source of nutrient inputs for crop and livestock production, and the method of utilization of [|manure] produced by livestock. Nutrient inputs can be chemical inorganic [|fertilizers], [|manure], [|green manure], [|compost] and mined [|minerals].[|[36]] Crop nutrient use may also be managed using cultural techniques such as [|crop rotation] or a [|fallow] period.[|[37]][|[38]] Manure is utilized either by holding livestock where the feed crop is growing such as in [|Managed intensive rotational grazing], or by spreading either dry or liquid formulations of manure on cropland or [|pastures].
 * [|Water management]** is where rainfall is insufficient or variable, which occurs to some degree in most regions of the world.Some farmers use irrigation to supplement rainfall. In other areas such as the Great Plains in the U.S., farmers use a fallow year to conserve soil moisture to use for growing a crop in the following year. Agriculture represents 70% of freshwater use worldwide.