1. Agricultural and Rural Land Use

2. Origin of Agriculture
Most experts believe agriculture developed over time
First agriculture is vegetative planting
Cutting off a stem of another plant or dividing roots of a plant
Seed agriculture came next where farming is done by planting seeds rather than part of the parent plant
Agricultural Hearths: Carl Sauer’s theory says it started in SW Asia the diffused north and east to China and and Japan then west toward SW Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean

4. Agricultural Revolutions
First Agricultural Revolution, sometimes called the Neolithic Revolution
Involved humans domestication of seeds and animals
2nd Agricultural Revolution: started in 1880s in North America with globalization of industrialized agriculture and new technologies that increased food supply like mechanized farm technology and chemical fertilizers
Impact of Industrialization: with the third agricultural revolution, we now produce the raw material then move it to a factory to be changed into something that can be more easily sold at market
Example: milk
Agribusiness: system of food production involving everything from development of seeds to marketing and sale of food products at market

7. The Green Revolution
Began in 1940s as part of third agricultural revolution with development of hybrid seeds and fertilizers that increased output
Started with U.S. funding of charities to increase output in third world countries
Benefits have been huge in battling world hunger
Grain production increased 45% world wide from
Asia increased rice production by 66% by 1985
India became self-sufficient with rice by 1980s
Negatives of Green Revolution
Reduced number of workers needed on farms
Higher-yield crops are often more susceptible to viruses and bugs
Farmers in peripheral countries often can’t afford technologies from the Green Revolution
Environmental problems like pollution and soil contamination are more common, water resources have been strained

10. Subsistence Agriculture
Defined: agriculture where farmers grow enough food consume but no surplus
Most commonly seen in peripheral and less developed countries
Three types: shifting cultivation, intensive subsistence and pastoralism
Shifting cultivation: farmers rotate field to allow soil to replenish nutrients rather than farming the same types of land over and over
Helps prevent leaching of soil nutrients
Common in tropical zones because of thin topsoil
Many farmers use slash-and-burn agriculture to prepare new plots of land called swidden
Can cause environmental problems because of large areas of land necessary
Used on nearly 25% of earths land

11. Intensive Agriculture
Type of subsistent agriculture
Happens when farmers cultivate small amounts of land very efficiently to produce food for their families
Usually found in regions with high populations because of limited land availability
Rice is dominant intensive subsistence agriculture crop
Many intensive agriculture farmers practice double cropping where they grow more than one crop in a year

12. Final Subsistence Agriculture
Pastoralism: breeding and herding of animals to produce food, shelter and clothing for survival
Usually practiced in climates with limited arable land
Can be sedentary or nomadic
Usually practice transhumance (the movement of animal herds to cooler highland areas in summer and to warmer lowland areas in winter)
Practice is declining world wide
Mediterranean Agriculture
Primarily associated with area around Mediterranean climates because of long, dry summers and cool wet winters
Usually produces crops like wheat, vine and tree crops, olives and figs

13. Von Thunens Agricultural Location Theory
Von Thunen was 19th Century German economist who developed theory about where and why agricultural activities would take place around a city's marketplace
Model explains and predicts agricultural use patterns
Basic patterns of Von Thunen
Central marketplace is surrounded by agricultural activity zones that are in concentric rings representing a different type of agricultural land use
Moving outward from city’s central marketplace, the farming activities changed from intensive to more extensive

14. Von Thunen’s Model

15. Why use von Thunen?
Useful in comparing real situations to his theoretical farming situation-restricted to one variable, transportation costs
Shows the influence of distance as a factor in human location decisions
Settlement patterns in villages vary by culture
In Europe, villages were on hillside to leave flatlands for farming and near rivers
In Asia and Africa, villages were often round to protect cattle
Let’s look at if Von Thunen is real!

16. Rural land use and Settlement patterns
Factors Affecting Farm Locations: why do farms end up where they do?
Physical factors: obviously, location on earth can be important but humans can modify the environment with innovations like irrigation, greenhouses, etc.
Soil: evaluated by depth, texture, nutrient composition and acidity
Relief: shape of potential field including slope and altitude, exposure to sun and access to water
Climate: temperature and rainfall
Political-cultural factors: certain factors can influence like Hindu’s holding cows sacred or Muslims not eating pig
In less-developed countries government usually encourage farmers to adopt more advanced technology
More-developed countries may pay farmers NOT to grow food
Economic factors: farmers will try to grow crops that produce the most money
Example: coffee in South America
Oft times land rent (price farmer pays for each acre of land) is important with cheaper land usually located further away from city center

18. U.S. Agricultural Regions

19. Global land use patterns

20. Commercial Farming
Defined: farming that produces crops to sell at the market place
Mixed crop and livestock: involved growing crops and raising animals
Farmers use crops to feed animals, animal manure to fertilize crops with the animal products (like eggs or milk) as the primary money producer
Popular in Europe and North America, usually near large, urban areas
Ranching: commercial grazing or raising of animals on a plot of land on which they graze
Usually requires large amounts of land
Common in North and South America
Dairying: growth of milk-based products for the market place
Farms closer to market place usually produce milk while ones further from the market typically produce cheese and butter
Most are capital-intensive farms (use machinery) unlike labor-intensive farms (use human labor)

21. Global agricultural regions

22. More Commercial Farming
Large-scale grain production: where grains are grown to be exported to other places for consumption
Most common in Canada, U.S., Argentina, Australia, France, England and Ukraine
Many farms actually produce grains for animals, not humans
Plantation farming: uses large-scale areas (called plantations or agricultural estates) that specialize in farming of one or two high-demand crops for export
Introduced by Europeans in tropical zones during colonial periods
Today, most commonly found in low-latitude areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America where companies own plantations that are close to coastal areas for easy export
Coffee, cocoa, sugar common goods produced

23. Globalization of Farming
Started with colonization and plantation system
In modern system, a neocolonial or postcolonial relationships has developed between former colonies and colonizers with colonies still producing raw products and colonizers manufacturing them
Truck farms: when agricultural goods (example, flowers) are flown in from tropical zones for sell in core countries
Humans in developed world have been forced into agribusiness
Humans in less-developed countries have been forced to sell their lands to MNC and grow food primarily for export

25. World Food Production per Capita

26. Graph of agricultural exports

27. Global Food Availability

28. Biotechnology
Defined: using living organisms to produce or change plant or animal products
Often used with genetic modification-a form of biotechnology that uses scientific, genetic manipulation of crop and animal products to improve agricultural productivity and products
Creation of modern “superplants” that grow faster and have higher yield
Has moved into animals in recent years to produce more meat

31. Hunger
Hunger around world is not usually caused by humans ability to grow food but by distribution of food supply and people’s ability to access those food supplies
Under nutrition: lack of sufficient calories or nutrients
Famine: mass starvation resulting from prolonged under nutrition
Historically, women have higher rates of under nutrition
Nearly 25,000 people in world die each day because of under nutrition
Currently, biotechnology is looking for more sustainable yield crops

33. Desertification and Soil Erosion
Soil erosion is caused when soil is not allowed enough time to recuperate between harvests
It takes 100 to 500 years to naturally regenerate half an inch of nutrient topsoil with some estimates saying soil erosion destroys 55 billion tons of topsoil each year
Desertification: loss of habitable land to the expansion of deserts
Usually caused by cutting down rainforests like in Africa and the Sahara because cutting down the trees yields more immediate income than preservation of land
To fight this, some countries are using debt-for-nature swaps where international debt is forgiven in exchange for preservation of rainforests