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Early Agricultural Regions
GEOG 247 Cultural Geography AGRICULTURE
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Prof. Anthony Grande
Hunter College‐CUNY
©AFG 2015
What accounts for this distribution?
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World
Climates
Köppen Climate Classification
System groups the world’s climates
on the basis of temp. and precip.
Climate and Agriculture
Climate provides an insight into the location of
agricultural regions.
Wladimir Köppen, an
Austrian botanist,
developed it as a
means to categorize
natural vegetation.
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Map of Agriculture
Most world regions can
support some type of
food production (some
 Note areas having natural favorable conditions of average
temperature, seasonality, and precipitation.
 To this we add landforms and soil development.
 People’s perceptions of local conditions influenced the
agricultural movement.
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Areas of Naturally Fertile Soil
better than others).
INSERT FIGURE 11.18
Most fertile areas have high food production ratios and higher populations.
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Compare this map to the maps of world hunger, undernourishment and
population density.
Can a correlation be made?
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Ancient Hearths and Current
Production Areas
Predominant Types
of Agriculture
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Agricultural Hearths
Agriculture began with the domestication of plants.
Plant domestication was a gradual process
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Agriculture is Invented
 Geographer Carl Sauer postulated that the trials and
errors necessary to establish agriculture and settle in
one place would occur in lands of plenty.
– He suggested that Southeast and South Asia
may have been where the first tropical plant
domestication occurred, more than 14,000 years
ago.
– The earliest form of plant cultivation was
vegetative planting, direct cloning from existing
plants, such as dividing roots and cutting stems.
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Location of First
Vegetative Planting
• Sauer believed that vegetative planting originated in SE
Asia because the region’s
diversity of climate and
topography encouraged
plants suitable for dividing.
• Also, the people there obtained food primarily by fishing, not hunting and gathering, so
they may have been more
sedentary and able to devote
more attention to growing
plants.
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Vegetative Planting Hearths
Other early hearths of vegetative planting
also may have emerged independently in
West Africa and northwestern South America.
The first plants domesticated in
SE Asia probably included roots
such as the taro and yam, and
tree crops such as the banana
and palm.
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Chief Centers of
Plant and Animal Domestication
Domestication of Animals
• It is believed that animal domestication began
earlier than plant cultivation, but others argue that
animal domestication began as recently as 8000
years ago—well after crop agriculture.
• The advantages of animal domestication - their
use as beasts of burden, as a source of meat, and as
providers of milk - stimulated the rapid diffusion of
this idea and gave the sedentary farmers of SW
Asia and elsewhere a new measure of security.
• Only five domesticated mammals are important
worldwide:
 the cow, sheep, goat, pig, and horse.
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Agricultural Revolutions
First Agricultural Revolution
First Agricultural Revolution
The cultivation of seed crops marked the
beginning of the First Agricultural Revolution.
– Domestication of plants and animals dating back over
10,000 years
Second Agricultural Revolution
– Coincided with the industrial revolution of the 1800s; gave
the world mechanization (improved methods of cultivation,
harvesting and storage); crop yields improved; economies of
scale realized.
Third Agricultural Revolution
– Currently in progress; called the Green Revolution; noted
for scientific methodologies to create higher yields and
increase resistance to debilitating conditions; genetically
modified organisms (GMOs); specialized fertilizers;
antibiotics, precision irrigation.
 Seed crops: plants that are reproduced by collecting
and cultivating seeds.
 People are able to select and control the
distribution of plants used for food.
 The view now is that the first domestication of seed
plants took place in the Fertile Crescent of SW
Asia (Mesopotamia).
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Diffusion of Seed Agriculture
Seed Agriculture Hearths
 Seed agriculture diffused from
SW Asia across Europe and
through North Africa.
 Greece, Crete, and Cyprus
display the earliest evidence of
seed agriculture in Europe.
 Seed agriculture also diffused Lentils
eastward from Southwest Asia
to northwestern India and the
Indus River plain.
 Various domesticated plants
(and animals) were brought from
Wheat
Southwest Asia, although other
plants, such as cotton and rice,
arrived in India from different
hearths.
Fertile
Crescent
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Diffusion of Seed Agriculture
From the northern China
hearth, millet diffused to S. Asia
and SE Asia.
Rice has an unknown hearth.
Sauer identified a 3rd independent hearth in Ethiopia, where
millet and sorghum were domesticated early (but argued that
Diffusion of Seed Agriculture in
the Western Hemisphere
 Two independent seed agriculture
hearths originated in the Western
Hemisphere: southern Mexico and
northern Peru.
• Agricultural practices diffused to other
parts of the Western Hemisphere.
• That agriculture had multiple origins
means that, from earliest times, people
have produced food in distinctive ways
in different regions.
• This diversity derives from a unique
legacy of wild plants, climatic
conditions, and cultural preferences in
each region.
agricultural advances in Ethiopia did not
diffuse widely to other locations).
millet
Food Product
Diffusion
rice
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While the original diffusion of
food products took thousands
of years, with the start of the
Age of Exploration products
quickly moved between
continents.
maize
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Agricultural Practice:
Subsistence vs. Commercial
 Subsistence agriculture is the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer’s family.
 Commercial agriculture is the production of food primarily for sale.
This distinguishes agriculture in less developed
countries from more developed countries.
 Five principal features distinguish
commercial from subsistence agriculture:
–
–
–
–
–
Improved communications starting in
the mid-20th century along with international organizations and aid has
allowed the diffusion of food products
to varied locations around the world.
purpose of farming
percentage of farmers in the labor force
use of machinery
farm size
relationship of farming to other businesses.
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Areas Where Subsistence
Agriculture Predominates
Regional and Local Change
• Shifts from subsistence agriculture to commercial
agriculture have had dramatic impacts on rural life.
• Dramatic increases in the production of export crops
have occurred at the expense of crop production for
local consumption.
• Environmental, economic, and social changes have
affected local rural communities.
• Production is market-driven.
• The “culture” of being a farmer changes.
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Subsistence Agriculture
Extensive Subsistence Agriculture
 Shifting cultivation: farmers move from place to place
in search of better land.
There are two chief types of subsistence agriculture:
1. Extensive subsistence agriculture
• Large areas of land
• Minimal labor input per acre
• Product per land unit and population densities are
low
2. Intensive subsistence agriculture
• Cultivation of small land holdings
• Great amounts of labor per acre
• Yields per unit area and population densities are
both high
– Found primarily in tropical and subtropical zones, where
traditional farmers had to abandon plots of land after the
soil became infertile.
– Swidden or Slash-and-burn agriculture: farmers use
hand tools (machetes and knives) to slash down trees and tall
vegetation, and then burn the vegetation on the ground. A
layer of ash from the fire settles on the ground and
contributes to the soil’s fertility.
– Less than 3% of world’s people engaged in this type of
cultivation
Subsistence agriculture is returning in parts of the world where
farmers feel production for the global market has not benefited them
financially or culturally.
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Extensive
Subsistence
Agriculture
Swidden Plot Preparation
Liberia, West Africa
Shifting cultivation
– Plots are cleared and
burned, then cultivated
until fertility is lost, after
which cropping shifts to
a newly prepared site
– Highly efficient cultural
adaptation where land is
abundant in relation to
population and levels of
technology and capital
availability are low
a)
b)
The vegetation is hacked down and
set on fire.
The field is planted by hand. Stumps
and unfelled trees remain in the field.
Benefits of a “Good” Burn:
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Extensive Subsistence
Agriculture
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Removal of unwanted vegetation.
Killing of insect, animal and weed pests.
Softens soil for easier penetration by small hand tools.
Provides a protective cover of wood ashes.
Nutrients in the ash enriches soil fertility and maintains soil structure.
Burned stumps and logs provide charcoal for cooking
Nomadic
Herding
 Nomadic herding is practiced in dry,
cold lands and in warmer areas with a
moisture deficiency: deserts, prairies,
savanna.
 Herders move livestock to new
grazing and water sources usually
in response to the seasons.
 Nomads have few possessions.
 Wealth is based on size of livestock
holdings.
 Sedentary cultivation being encouraged in some areas as governments
seek to stabilize a population in place.
Nomadic herding
– Wandering but controlled movement of
livestock solely dependent on natural forage
– Most extensive type of land use system
(requires greatest amount of land area per person
sustained)
– Animals provide a variety of products for
food, clothing, shelter and fuel (dried dung).
– Nomadic movement is tied to sparse and
seasonal rainfall or cold temperatures as
well as quality and quantity of forage
 Transhumance: seasonal movement to
exploit locally varying pasture conditions.
It is on the decline.
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Modern-day Nomadic Herders
Intensive Subsistence
Agriculture
• Involves about 45% of world’s people.
• Small-plot production of grains as
rice, wheat, maize, or millet
– The warm, moist districts of monsoon
Asia are well-suited to rice production
– The cooler and drier portions of Asia
produce wheat, millet and upland rice.
• Intensive use of fertilizers, mostly
animal manure
• Promise of high yields in good years
• Polyculture (variety of crops) is practiced
for food security and dietary custom
• Urban agriculture is rapidly growing
activity
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Intensive Agriculture
Farmers in Madagascar
plant highland rice by
hand in a field that
was prepared by the
swidden (slash and burn)
method.
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Intensive Agriculture
Farmers in Indonesia
tending to terraced rice
paddies. This highly
labor intensive form of
agriculture provides a
very high return.
Frans Lanting/Corbis
Climate allows for double cropping. Climate also provides the
large amounts of
Deniswater
Waugh/TonyrequirStone Images
ed for this form of agriculture.
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