Chapter 10
Agriculture
* the most “typical” human is an
Asian farmer who grows enough
food to survive, with little surplus
* approximately one-half of the
people in less developed countries
are farmers
Key Issue 1
Where Did Agriculture
Originate?
Agriculture is deliberate
modification of Earth’s surface
through cultivation of plants and
rearing of animals to obtain
sustenance or economic gain
Geographers and
scientists agree that
agriculture originated
in multiple hearths
around the world as
previous hunter
gatherers began to
settle down
Animals were also
domesticated in multiple
hearths at various dates
Southwest Asia is thought to have been
the hearth for the domestication of
cattle, pigs, goats and sheep 8,000 –
9,000 years ago
Subsistence agriculture – food for the farmers family
vs.
Commercial agriculture – food for sale off the farm
5 distinguishing features
1. Purpose of farming – food or profit
2. % of farmers in work force – MDC’s
5% (US is 2-3%) LDC’s 50%
3. Use of machinery – animals or tractors
4. Farm size
(and prime agricultural land)
small family farms vs. large estates
5. Relationship of farming to other
businesses (agribusiness)
farm as part of large food-production
industry
Key Issue 2
Where Are Agricultural
Regions in LDC’s
Shifting cultivation (slash-and-burn agriculture) is
practiced in much of the world’s Humid Low-Latitude
climate regions, especially in the tropical rainforests of
South America, Central and West Africa, and
Southeast Asia
Pastoral nomadism is a form of
subsistence agriculture based on the
herding of domesticated animals
camels desired in
North Africa and
Southwest Asia
horse animal of choice
in Central Asia
Transhumance is seasonal migration of
livestock between mountains and
lowland pastures (grass or other plants
used for grazing animals)
Intensive subsistence agriculture
feeds most of the 3/4th of the
world’s people in LDC’s
wet rice refers to planting rice
on dry land and then moving
to a flooded field to grow
Crops such as wheat and barley are grown
on dry land in areas without wet rice
farming or in conjunction with wet rice
farming in certain climates – a process
know as double cropping
A plantation is a large farm that
specializes in one or two crops
crop rotation is the practice of rotating use
of different fields from crop to crop each
year to avoid soil exhaustion
Key Issue 3
Where Are Agricultural Regions
in MDC’s?
The most distinctive characteristic of mixed
crop and livestock farming is its integration of
crops (most frequently corn in the US) and
livestock
Dairy farming is the most important commercial agriculture practiced on
farms near the large urban areas of the Northeast United States, Southeast
Canada and Northwest Europe
Dairy farming challenges
-labor intensive
-winter feed
Grain (seed from various grasses
like wheat, corn, barley, etc.) is
the major crop on most farms
Three large-scale grain production
areas in North America
1. winter-wheat belt in Kansas,
Colorado and Oklahoma
2. spring-wheat belt in Dakotas,
Montana and Saskatchewan
3. Palouse region of Washington
State
most work done by machines like
reapers (cut grain in fields) and
combines (reap, thresh and clean
all in one)
ranching is the
commercial grazing of
livestock over an
extensive area
romanticized by
Hollywood in TV and
film, but showed the
crucial role ranching
played in the history and
settlement of the West
now part of meat
packing industry
which separates it
even more from
pastoral nomadism
Mediterranean agriculture exists primarily on
the lands that border the Mediterranean Sea, as
well as parts of California, Australia, etc.; most
crops are grown for human consumption rather
than animal feed. In the Mediterranean, cash
crops include olives and grapes. California
provides many fruits and vegetables for the U.S.
horticulture is the growing of
fruits, vegetables, and flowers
Key Issue 4
Why Do Farmers Face
Economic Difficulties?
Challenges for
commercial farmers
-over production; being able to mass
produce goods keep the cost per unit
down which means less profit per
unit as well
-access to markets
von Thünen model is based on market
location – the cost of the land versus the
cost of transporting products to market
The Isolated State – 1826
first ring – milk and perishables
next ring – wood lots for fuel
next ring – crops and pasture
last ring – animal grazing
-sustainable agriculture
(land management, limited chemical use,
integrate crops and livestock, etc.)
Challenges for Subsistence Farmers
Population growth:
-Boserup suggests subsistence farmers increase
yields in two ways.
1. adopt new farming methods
2. Leave land fallow for shorter periods
Drug crops:
-4 million people depend on cultivation of opium poppy or
coco leaves
Afghanistan is the source of around 80%of the world’s opium
Strategies to increase food supply:
increase productivity (more food from the same land)
-green revolution: invention and rapid diffusion of
more productive agricultural techniques during the
1970s and 1980s
-better use of seeds, fertilizers, machinery, etc.
expanding agricultural land where possible:
-decrease desertification
(UN estimates that desertification removes 70 million acres of
agricultural land a year; an area roughly the size of Colorado)
identify new food sources
-cultivating oceans
-develop higher-protein cereals
-improve palatability of rarely consumed foods
-increase trade
all photos: Sean Simons