Types of Agricultural

Whittlesey’s Regions (1936) Whittlesey’s classification is a widely accepted one and is based on the following factors: Crop and livestock association Labor vs. capital intensity  Productivity Consumption pattern of production (do they eat what they grow?) Methods and techniques used

Mapping Agriculture Click to learn

Regional Overviews Click to learn

Intensive Subsistence/Dry Intensive Subsistence/Wet Agriculture in LDCs Shifting Cultivation Pastoral Nomadism Plantation Intensive Subsistence/Dry Intensive Subsistence/Wet

Pastoral Nomadism: Dry Regions A form of subsistence agriculture based on the herding of domesticated animals. May combine some reliance on sedentary agriculture with the herding of livestock. Commonly, women and children of a nomadic group tend to crops at a fixed location, while man herd. Nomad select the type and number of animals for the herd according to local cultural and physical characteristics. Movement is motivated by the need to find water and forage. They use their keen knowledge of the landscape to guide their way.

Shifting Cultivation: Tropical Regions Characterized by two distinctive features: Farmers clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and burning the debris, then grow crops on a cleared field for only a few years until soil nutrients are depleted. Fields are left fallow for many years so the soil can recover. Land Ownership Traditionally, land collectively owned by village. Today, private individuals now own land, especially in Latin America. Shifting cultivation is sometimes called slash-and-burn agriculture.

FIGURE 10-21 SHIFTING CULTIVATION: SLASH AND BURN This field in Mozambique is being prepared through slash and burn.

Intensive Subsistence Farming Feeds most of the ¾ of the world’s people who live in LDCs Farmers work intensively to subsist 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.

Intensive Subsistence- Wet Rice Wet rice: rice is planted in a nursery and then seedlings are moved to a flooded field to promote growth. The dominant type of agriculture in Southeastern China East India Much of Southeast Asia intensiverice

FIGURE 10-25 GROWING RICE: PREPARING THE FIELD Plowing a field with a water buffalo in the Philippines.

Intensive Subsistence- More than Rice! Wheat and barley is grown when climate prevents farmers from growing wet rice in portions of Asia, especially where summer precipitation levels are too low and winters are too harsh. FIGURE 10-24 RICE PRODUCTION China and India produce one-half of the world’s rice.

Intensive Subsistence Farming: Dry Climate wheat barley

Plantation Farming Specialize in 1-2 crops Crops are grown in LDCs… consumed in MDCs Often owned by large corporations Low wages for workers Click to learn

Mixed Crop and Livestock Agriculture in MDCs Dairying Grain Mixed Crop and Livestock Ranching Mediterranean Commercial Gardening

MDCs: Commercial Agriculture Agribusiness is commonly used to refer to these types of farming listed, because the family farm is not an isolated activity but is integrated into a large food-production industry.

Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming Mixes crops and livestock- most of the crops are fed to animals instead of humans. Most land is used to grow crops but most of its income is from the sale of animal products Farmers can distribute the workload more evenly through the year, because crops require less attention Typically involves crop rotation, practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting the soil.

Dairy Farming von Thunen Alert! Most important type of commercial agriculture in the first ring outside the large cities because of transportation factors. Ring surrounding a city from which milk can be supplied is known as the milkshed. Advancements in transportation have increased the radius of milksheds to 300 miles. Dairy farmers typically sell their milk to wholesalers who later distribute it to retailers. Retailers then sell it to consumers in shops or at home. Farmers also sell milk to butter and cheese manufacturers. In the eastern U.S., virtually all milk is sold to consumers because of proximity to major metropolitan areas. e.g. New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Farther west, most of the milk in Wisconsin is processed into butter and cheese because of distance to major urban centers.

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Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming Predominant type of farming in southeastern U.S. Commonly referred to as truck farming Grow many of the following fruits and vegetables that consumers in developed countries demand: apples, asparagus, cherries, lettuce, mushrooms, potatoes

Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming Some of the fruits and vegetables are sold fresh to consumers, but most are sold to large processors for canning or freezing. Truck farms are highly efficient large-scale operations that take full advantage of machines at all stages of the growing process. Labor costs are kept down by hiring migrant farm workers. Specialization in a few crops is common.

Grain Farming Distinguished from mixed crop and livestock farming, because crops are grown primarily for human consumption. Farms sell their output to manufacturers of food products, such as breakfast cereals and bread. Characteristics of a grain farms: Heavily mechanized Farms large in areal extent Oriented to consumer preferences

Grain Farmers: America’s Bread Basket

Mediterranean Agriculture These regions border a sea, and most are on west coasts of continents. Most crops are grown for human consumption olives and grapes are two most important cash crops. About half of the land here is used to grow cereals. Farmers derive a small %of income from animal products

Mediterranean Agriculture: California

Livestock Ranching: Dry Regions Ranching is the commercial grazing of livestock over an extensive area. Well suited for semiarid or arid land Today, ranching has become part of the meat-processing industry where new methods of breeding and sources of water and feed are embraced.

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