Food and Agriculture
Chapter 10
Where Did Agriculture Originate?
• Prior to the advent of agriculture, all humans probably obtained
needed food through hunting and gathering.
• Perhaps 250,000 remaining today
• First (Neolithic) Agricultural Revolution
• The time when humans first domesticated plants and animals and no
longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering
• When it began is unclear, long before written records, ~10,000 years ago
• Diffused from many hearths
• Population growth, nomadic v. permanent
• Agriculture is deliberate modification of Earth’s surface through
cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to obtain sustenance or
economic gain.
• Cultivate = “to care for”
• Crop = any plant cultivated by people
Identify the major crop hearths.
Identify the major animal hearths.
Central Asia:
early domesticated animals:
Horses
Southwest Asia:
early domesticated animals:
cattle, goats, pigs, sheep,
and dogs.
How were
crops and
livestock
diffused
around the
world?
What is the connection between agriculture and climate?
• Farming varies around the world because of a variety of cultural and physical environmental factors.
• Agriculture is very different in LDC’s and MDC’s
The Earth today has about 4,100 million hectares of arable land. A little less than 5% of this land is part of
protected parks and wildlife preserves. Of the rest, only 15 million square kilometers are presently used for
agriculture according to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Arable land in these
statistics includes forest land and pasture lands that could possibly be used for traditional agriculture, but might be
realistically needed for other purposes. A small amount of actively farmed land in the world (mostly in the Middle
East) is actually not arable–think desert land made viable by irrigation and fertilization–so, this is not an absolute
limit on agriculture.
10:30
Describe the major differences between
subsistence and commercial agriculture.
• Subsistence agriculture is the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer’s family.
• Practiced primarily in developing countries
• Commercial agriculture is the production of food primarily for sale off the farm.
• Practiced primarily in developed countries.
• Second Agriculture Revolution resulted in the years preceding the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century
in Europe
• Five characteristics distinguish commercial from subsistence agriculture
1. Purpose of farming
2. Percentage of farmers in the labor force (lower in MDC)
3. Use of machinery (MDC high use of machinery)
4. Farm size (MDC has much larger farm size)
5. Relationship of farming to other businesses
New inventions that significantly raised crop yields:
Cotton Gin
Moldboard Plow
Horse Collar
Seed Drill
Agricultural Workers
The percentage of the workforce engaged in agriculture is higher in developing countries than in
developed countries.
Area of Farmland Per Tractor
Farmers in developing countries have more hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres) of land per tractor than
do farmers in developed countries. The machinery makes it possible for commercial farmers to farm
extensive areas, a practice necessary to pay for the expensive machinery.
The average size of a family farm in China is much smaller than in the United States.
(left) Family farm in Anhui Province, China. (right) Family farm in West Brooklyn, Illinois.
Summary:
Where did agriculture originate?
• Before the development of agriculture, people survived by hunting and gathering.
• Agriculture resulted from thousands of years of experiments and accidents.
• Current agriculture practices vary between MDCs and LDCs.
Quick Check
1. Why did the world’s population begin
to grow about 8,000 years ago?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Medical advances
The agricultural revolution
Industrialization
Urbanization
Migration
2. What country would have the most
amount of hectares of farmland per
tractor?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
The United States
Chile
Egypt
France
China
Explain differences between developed and developing
countries in food consumption.
1. Diet
• Dietary energy consumption is the amount of food that an individual consumes.
• Average consumption worldwide: 2,800 kcal per day
• The average person consumes 50% more calories than the recommended minimum (1,800 kcal)
• Consumption of food varies around the world, both in total amount and source of nutrients, for two reasons.
1.
2.
Level of development
Physical conditions
2. Source of Nutrients
• Developed and developing regions typically differ most in their primary sources of protein consumed.
•
Developed Countries
• Leading source of protein is meat products: beef, pork, poultry
•
Developing Countries
• Leading source of protein is cereal grains: wheat, rice, maize
Cereal Grains
Explain the global distribution of undernourishment.
• Nutrition and Hunger
• UN estimates that ~1/8th of the people on
Earth do not have food security
• Undernourishment is dietary energy
consumption that is continuously below the
minimum requirement for maintaining a healthy
life and carrying out light physical activity.
• UN estimates 850 million people in world are
undernourished.
• 99% located in developing countries
• Worldwide, the total number of undernourished
people has not changed much in several decades.
• East Asia (China) has had the largest decrease
South Asia has seen the
largest increase in number of
undernourished people.
Quick Check
1. The main source of protein in
developed countries comes from
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
tofu.
soybeans.
wheat.
maize.
meat.
2. Among developing regions ______
has had the largest decrease in
undernourished people.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
India
Pakistan
China
Mongolia
Vietnam
The Green Revolution: Waging A War Against Hunger
Eyes of Nye - GM foods
7:57
CAFO
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation
To be considered a CAFO, a farm must first be categorized as an animal feeding
operation (AFO). An AFO is a lot or facility where animals are kept confined and fed or
maintained for 45 or more days per year, and no crops or vegetation is grown.
Commodity
Chain
• A series of links
connecting the many
places of production
and distribution and
resulting in a
commodity that is
then exchanged on
the world market.
Vertical Integration
ownership by the same firm of a number of companies that exist along a
variety of points on a commodity chain.
• Poultry production process is vertically integrated, meaning all stages of
chicken production are in full control of the company.
• Vertical integration helps reduce cost layers, which means higher profit
margins and more control over the quality of the final product.
• Most of the poultry processing business in the US is vertically integrated.
For example, companies such as Tyson Foods (TSN), Sanderson Farms
(SAFM), and Hormel Foods (HRL) have vertically integrated facilities for
poultry production and processing.
Vertical Integration
• Apple Incorporated:
• Points of commodity chain
• production line
• manufacturing
• Hardware
• software
• processors
• accessories and retail
• marketing
• itunes/App Store/Apple Store
• Apple has many devices such as iphones, ipads, ipods, etc.
• Their design, fabrication, customization, and availability
comes with their design.
• Apple does not use other companies to produce or supply
anything for their products.
Subsistence Agriculture
• Subsistence agriculture is the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer’s
family.
• Practiced primarily in developing countries
• Second Agriculture Revolution resulted in the years preceding the Industrial Revolution in the 18th
century in Europe
• Five characteristics distinguish commercial from subsistence agriculture
1. Purpose of farming
2. Percentage of farmers in the labor force (lower in MDC)
3. Use of machinery (MDC high use of machinery)
4. Farm size (MDC has much larger farm size)
5. Relationship of farming to other businesses
New inventions that significantly raised crop yields:
Cotton Gin
Moldboard Plow
Horse Collar
Seed Drill
Agricultural Regions around the World
Geographer Derwent Whittlesey identified 11
main agricultural regions.
• 5 present in developing countries
1. Pastoral Nomadism
2. Shifting Cultivation
3. Wet Rice Farming (intensive
subsistence)
4. Crops other than rice dominant
(intensive subsistence)
5. Plantation
(commercial agriculture)
• 6 present in developed countries
1. Mixed Crop and Livestock
2. Dairying
3. Grain
4. Ranching
5. Mediterranean
6. Commercial Gardening
Intensive vs. Extensive
Intensive subsistence agriculture
• A form of subsistence agriculture in which
farmers must spend a relatively large amount of
effort to produce the maximum feasible yield
from a parcel of land.
• Example: Families in LDCs must undergo labor
intensive subsistence agricultural practices in
order to provide for themselves.
Intensive vs. Extensive
Extensive subsistence agriculture
• An agricultural production system that uses small
inputs of labor, fertilizers, and capital, relative to
the land are being farmed.
• Affecting a large area of land
• Farming a small crop from a large area with a
minimal attention to expense
• Example: shifting cultivation, pastoral nomadism,
livestock ranching
Pastoral Nomadism
• Pastoral nomadism is a form of subsistence agriculture
based on the herding of domesticated animals.
• Various approaches combine some reliance on
sedentary (no crop rotation) agriculture with the
herding of livestock.
• Some pastoral nomads obtain grain from sedentary subsistence
farmers.
• More commonly, women and children of a nomadic group tend to
crops at a fixed location.
• Nomads may hire worker to practice sedentary agriculture.
• Some nomads will remain in a place and cultivate the land only when
rainfall is abundant.
Shifting Cultivation
• Shifting cultivation is characterized by two distinctive features:
1. Farmers clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and
burning the debris.
2. Farmers grow crops on a cleared field for only a few years, until
soil nutrients are depleted, and then leave it fallow for many
years so the soil can recover.
• Farmers return to a fallow site as few as 6 years later or as
many as 20 years later.
• Land Ownership
• Traditionally, land collectively owned by village.
• Today, private individuals now own land, especially in Latin
America.
Up in Smoke: Slash and Burn
Intensive Subsistence Farming
• Feeds most of the ¾ of the world’s people who
live in developing countries.
• Farmers work intensively to survive on a parcel
of land.
• Most of the work is done by hand or with animals
rather than machines.
• Virtually all available land is used for production.
• Parcels of land are much smaller than elsewhere in
world.
• Example
• Wet rice: the process where rice is planted on dryland
in a nursery and then moved as seedlings to a flooded
field to promote growth.
• Rice is grown in tropical
and subtropical regions
around the world.
• Rice cultivation is
primarily concentrated in
China, India, and
Southeast Asia.
• These regions make up
90 percent of the world's
rice production, mostly
produced by small-scale
farmers.
• Thailand is the world's
leading exporter.
• The most important rice
producer in Europe is
Italy.
Climate prevents farmers from growing wet rice in portions
of Asia, especially where summer precipitation levels are
too low and winters are too harsh.