1. SUBSISTENCE AND COMMERCIAL
AGRICULTURE
SUBSISTENCE
AND
COMMERCIAL

2. Classification of Economic Activities & Economics
Factors -
Physical environment and cultural considerations
Exploit resources dependent upon technology
Political decisions
economic factors of demand
Categories of Activity
Quinary Activities
Executive Decision Maker
Quaternary Activities
Info/Research/Management
Tertiary Activities
Retail & Wholesale/Personal & Prof. services
Transportation & Comm.
Secondary Activities
Manufacturing/Processing/Construction/Power Production
Primary Activities
Agriculture/Gathering/Extractive Industries

3. Primary Activities: Agriculture
Def. : growing crops and tending livestock, for sale or subsistence.
10% of the total earth land is for crop farming.
Declining trend in agriculture employment in developing countries
Developed - 8% in most of W. Europe, < 3% in the US.
Agriculture is still the major components in developing countries

4. Agriculture in Gross Domestic Product
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Agriculture in Gross Domestic Product
Figure 8.7
8-4
Source: The World Bank

5. Declining Agricultural Employment
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Declining Agricultural Employment
Figure 8.6
8-3
Source: FAO and World Bank

6. Trends in Food Production
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Trends in Food Production
Figure 8.11
8-6
Source: Data from Food and Agricultural Organization, World Resources Institute, and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

7. Origins and Diffusion of Agriculture, Fig. 8.12
SE Asia (no date given)
rice, citrus, taro, bananas, sugarcane
secondary center - North China Plain (millet)
Fertile Crescent (10,000 bp)
wheat, barley, rye, oats
Mesoamerica (>= 5,000 bp)
corn, tomatoes, beans, squash, chiles
secondary center, Andean S. America (potato, manioc)

8. Fig 8.5 - average length of growing season

9. Differences between Subsistence and Commercial Agriculture
Purpose of farming
Percentage of farmers in the labor force
Use of machinery
Farm size
Relationship of farming to other business

10. LDC Agriculture Shifting cultivation Pastoral nomadism
Intensive Subsistence

11. Subsistence Agriculture
Involves nearly total self-sufficiency on the part of its members. No exchange (or minimal, if any). food for themselves only.
No knowledge of soil chemistry, fertilizing, or irrigation, once the soil become infertile, they move to another parcel of land, clear the vegetation, turn the soil and try again. 150 to 200 million people in Africa, Middle America, tropical South America and parts of Southeast Asia.
In Africa, S and E Asia, Latin America
Two types
Extensive: large areas of land and minimal labor input per unit area. Production and pop density is low.
Intensive: cultivation of small landholdings through the expenditure of great amounts of labor per unit area. Production and pop density are both high.

12. Subsistence Agricultural Areas
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Subsistence Agricultural Areas
Figure 8.8
8-5

13. Extensive Subsistence Agriculture
Nomadic herding (8.8) - wandering and controlled movement of livestock dependent on natural forage - the most extensive type of land use system.
Sheep, goat, and camels are most common and others such as cattle, horses and yaks are important too.
Animal provides milk, cheese, meat for food; hair, wool and skins for clothing; skin for shelter and excrement for fuel.
Nomadic herding is declining. Social/economic/culture changes are causing nomadic groups to alter their ways of life or disappear entirely.
Shifting cultivation - rotating field once soil lose fertility. Swidden and slash-and-burn. (8.9)

14. Shifting cultivation/Slash-burn
Slash-and-burn : process of preparing low fertility soils for planting. Burning add minerals to the soils, in low level of population
Shifting - rotating the fields to keep soil fertile
After burning, plant crops such as maize (corn) millet (cereal grain), rice, manioc, yam, and sugarcane

15. Images of Shifting Cultivation
Swidden
Slash and burn
Milpa

16. Intensive Subsistence Systems
Half of the people of the world engaged in this activity
Exchange of farm commodities
Mostly in monsoon Asia. warm and moist river valleys and delta
planting rice shoots by hand in standing fresh water is a tedious art (8.10)
Cooler/ drier Asia - wheat and millet is planted.
Rice provides % calories to over 2.8 billion pop.
Water management is crucial to the rice production
Rice Landscape - levees, reservoirs, canals, drainage channels, and terraces to extend level land to valley slopes
Swine, ducks and chickens are main meat. Cattle used for labor and produce fertilizers.

17. Fig 8.10

18. Fig 8.24 Farmers Market in China
Fig Fish harvesting in Thailand

19. Paddy Rice
Supports highest population densities Multiple crops per year
Labor intensive
East and Southeast Asia plus eastern India.

20. The Economy of Chinese Village
Rice planted in March and August, harvested in July and Nov.
Water buffalo, transplanting of rice seedlings from seedbed.
Two weeding by hands
Harvest - threshing
Vegetable gardening, spring/summer grows eggplants, squash and beans, green-leafed in fall to spring. Watering with the long-handled wooden dipper, additional fertilizer, usually diluted urine or a mixture of diluted urine and excreta was given every 10 days or so.
Threshing rice

21. At the border-Wheat and Rice in China (Fig. 8.4)
Impact on food system
Noodle/rice
Population density
Rice’s labor needs

22. Water Buffalo and Rice Paddies in Asian Country
                                                                           

23. China -Xinjiang - Uygur yurt
                                                                           

24. Stone house of Nepal
                                                                           

25. Icelandic sod farm house
                                                                           

26. Maasai - in Mayotte, southern Africa, France affiliated
                                                                           

27. Nias Island, West Coast of Sumatera, Indonesia
                                                                           

28. Urban Subsistence Farming
Provide 1/7 of the world food production - mostly in Asia engaged in small garden plots, backyard livestock breeding and raising fish in ponds and streams.
China, Taiwan, Cuba, Kenya and many other countries residents engaged in urban subsistence farming.
In parts of the developing world, this has reduced the incidence of adult and child malnutrition in cities. Many rely on this as sole income
Advantages- convert waste from problem to resource by reducing run-off and erosion from open dumps and by avoiding costs of wastewater treatment and solid waste disposal. Examples - Sudan, Calcutta..
Disadvantage - diseases, water pollution

29. MDC Agriculture Mixed crop and livestock farming Dairy farming
Grain farming
Livestock ranching
Mediterranean
Commercial gardening and fruit farming
Plantation agriculture

33. Intensive Commercial Agriculture
Characterized by high yields per unit of cultivated land
Large amount of input - justified by fruits, vegetable and dairy products. Truck Farm produces wide range of vegetable and fruits with refrigerated trucks and custom packaging. (distribution of truck farm 8.17)
Livestock-grain farming - growing grain for livestock feed. corn and livestock at same farm reducing transportation cost. Close to the great coastal and industrial zone markets.
livestock price higher than feed, farmer convert their corn into meat on the farm by feeding it to the livestock

34. Extensive Commercial Agriculture
Farmland values decline westward with increasing distance from the northeastern market of the US, but not increasing while near west coast. Climate and environmental considerations (increasing aridity and mountain ranges..)
Large-scale wheat farming - requires large amount capital input. Spring wheat (Dakotas, e Montana, S Canada) winter wheat (Kansas..) Argentina in S hemisphere. Wheat is the most grain production in the world
Livestock ranching - oriented to the urban market of industrialized countries. Confined to areas of European settlement., Caused destruction of tropical rain forests in Central America and the Amazon basin due to expanded cattle ranching. (in land with low quality, low pop density, and require low labor)

35. Special Crops - mostly due to climate factor
Mediterranean agriculture - grapes, olives, oranges, figs, vegetables and similar commodities - needs warm temp. all year round plus summer sunshine. Summer drought and winter rain, irrigation system is needed.
Plantation crops - foreign to the areas
tea in India and Sri Lanka, jute in India and Bangladesh, rubber in Malaysia and Indonesia, cacao in Ghana and Nigeria, can sugar in Cuba...., coffee in Brazil and Colombia, banana in central America.
Most plantation in coastal area, easy for export.

36. Ranching and Crop Agriculture
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Ranching and Crop Agriculture
Figure 8.21
8-12

37. fig Iowa Corn Storage

38. fig. 8-22 Indonesia rubber plantation worker
fig 8-19 contract harvesters

39. Relative Value per Acre
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Relative Value per Acre
Figure 8.18
8-10
Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States.

40. Agricultural Regions of No. America
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Agricultural Regions of No. America
Figure 8.17
8-9
Source: U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics; Agriculture Canada; and Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos, Mexico.

41. Plantation Agriculture
Large-scale, specialized production of one tropical or sub-tropical crop
Dual economy
Export to developed world

42. Plantation - Cacao Tree - source of chocolate and cacao
                                         

43. Opium Poppy Seeds in Afghanistan
                                                 

44. More Plantation Agriculture

45. Principal Wheat-Growing Areas
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Principal Wheat-Growing Areas
Figure 8.20
8-11

46. Origin of Green Revolution
Started in 1960s, Philippino research crossed a Chinese rice with Indonesian variety and produced IR8 rice with bigger head of grain and stronger stem. In 1982, they produced IR36, the most widely grown crop on Earth
IR36-mixed from 13 parents genetic resistance against 15 pests and growing cycle of 110 days which makes three crops per year possible.
Charting of genome (12 chromosomes) is ongoing, it will eventually increase the production and develop the resistance to diseases and pests
Green Revolution trends in food production Saving an estimated one billion people from starvation. Increased calories per person, pop with adequate food in developing countries jumped from 55% to 80%.

47. Green Revolution
Disadvantages - irrigation destroyed large tracts of land, groundwater depletion, water wars, loss of traditional/ subsistence farming, food production aiming at export, rural society destroyed, reduced variety of crops, rural pop moved to urban
Not all areas benefited from Green Revolution - reasons (belated research effort, great range of growing conditions)
Genetic diversity of crop varieties , fewer than 100 species provide most of the world’s food supply.
Asia - gains fell off - little prime land, less water, adverse ecol. and social consequences. Even biotech can’t help (consumers’ resistance..)
Loss of domestic food availability

48. Fertilizer Consumption of the world (UN)
                                                                                                        

49. Women and Green Revolution
Women and the Green Revolution
Women grow at least half of the world’s food and up to 80% in Africa.. Women perform about 90% of the world in Africa.
Men leave for urban for other jobs, women workload is increasing. Women mostly do not share equally with men in the rewards from agriculture. Working longer hours and less incomes due to cultural and economical factors.
How women can benefit from the Green Revolution?

50. a b
Figure von Thunen’s model

51. Land Use Rings
Meat
Dairy
Wheat
Meat

52. Transport Gradients/Ag Zones
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Transport Gradients/Ag Zones
Figure 8.15
8-7

53. Wheat >$ dairy
Meat >$ wheat

54. Different Products with Different Prices, Costs and Transport Rates

56. Ring Modifications 8-8 Figure 8.16
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Ring Modifications
Figure 8.16
8-8

57. Cutural Interaction in Agriculture
Von Thunen’s Isolated State
Early Core/Periphery Model
ER = economic rent per acrre
Y = Yield per acre
P = market price per unit
C = production cost per unit
t = cost per mile to move a unit
d = distance from market.
ER = Y(P-C)-Ytd or
ER = Y(P-C-td)

58. Gross and Net Profit ER = Y(P-C) gross profit (no transport costs)
ER = Y(P-C-td)
net profit(gross profit minus transport costs)
distance

59. Gross Profits at Market
Dairy: 20( )-20(.25*0) = 50
Wheat: 300( )-300(.00333*0)=30
Meat: 100( )-100(.002*0) = 10