2. Topic V: Agriculture and Rural Land Use

3. What is Agriculture?
The modification of Earth’s surface through the cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to obtain subsistence or economic gain.
A crop is a plant cultivated by people.

4. Agriculture 1/3 of all land area committed to agriculture use
Developing countries = 2/3 involved in agriculture
Employment in agriculture is declining in developing countries
< 2 Million

5. How does agriculture relate to geography?
Geographers study where agriculture is distributed.
LDCs: agricultural products are consumed near where they are produced
MDCs: agricultural products are sold and consumed away from where they are produced.

6. How does agriculture relate to geography?
Geographers study why farming practices vary around the world.
Elements of physical environment that limit agricultural production.

7. How does agriculture relate to geography?
Local diversity is shown in the environmental and cultural mix influencing agricultural practices.
Globalization influences farmers to grow profitable rather than practical crops.

8. Classification of Economic Activities
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Quaternary
Quinary

9. Economic Geography Study of how people earn their living
How livelihood systems vary by area
And the spatial linkage between economic activities

10. Primary Activities
Harvesting or extracting something directly from the Earth
Humans in direct contract with the natural environment
Hunting & gathering, farming, livestock herding, fishing, forestry

11. Secondary Activities
Add value to material by changing their form or combining them into more useful/valuable commodities
Intermediate products
Manufacturing and processing industries
Energy and construction industries

12. Tertiary Activities
Consists of those business and labor specializations that provide services to the primary and secondary sectors, general community, and private individuals
“service industries”
Linkage between producer and consumer

13. 2 types of Tertiary Activites
Quaternary: services performed by “white collar” professionals
Exchange of information, money, or capital
Quinary: high level decision making activities
Spheres of research and higher education

14. Primary Activities: Agriculture
Before farming hunting and gathering were the universal forms of primary production
Use of tools and fire enabled sustainable population growth in early communities
Cyclic Migration was the way of life

15. The First Agricultural Revolution
12,000 years ago
First conscious cultivation of plants
Increased the carrying capacity of the Earth
Caused changes in social organization and technology

16. The First Agricultural Revolution
Living in permanent settlements
Land ownerships
Modification of the natural environment
Trading economies
Developed much later in the Americas than in Southeast and Southwest Asia
Many agricultural hearths

17. Diffusion of Agriculture
Vegetative cultivation in S.E. Asia same time (root removal) – 14,000 years ago
Agriculture diffused from agriculture centers through stimulus diffusion
Later through migration and colonialism

18. Diffusion of Agriculture
Seeds of agriculture began in the fertile crescent (Iran and Iraq) – 10,000 years ago
- because of seed selection,
plants got bigger over time
- generated a surplus of
wheat and barley
- first integration of plant
growing and animal raising
(used crops to feed livestock,
used livestock to help grow crops)

19. Diffusion of Agriculture
Animal Domestication
Fertile Crescent
began about
8,000 years ago

20. Animal Domestication Relatively few animals have been domesticated
(all by 4500 years ago)
Goats*
Sheep*
Pigs*
Cattle*
Horses*
Camels
Yaks
(*Jared Diamond claims to be the five most important animals)
Attempts at domestication continue, but most fail
-Llama
-Alpaca
-Turkey
-Water Buffalo
-Cats
-Dogs
-Reindeer

21. Carl Sauer
Proposed that agriculture began in the Bay of Bengal 14,000 years ago
The cultivation of roots and cuttings came first (cassava, yams, and sweet potatoes) before seed crops
Proposed other agricultural
hearths

22. World Areas of Agricultural Innovations
Carl Sauer identified 11 areas where agricultural innovations occurred.

23. Chief Source Regions of Important Crop Plant Domestications

24. Subsistence Agriculture
Agriculture in which people grow only enough food to survive.
- farmers often hold land in common
- Total self-sufficiency
- some are sedentary, and some practice shifting cultivation

25. World Regions of Primarily Subsistence Agriculture
On this map, India and China are not shaded because farmers sell some produce at markets; in equatorial Africa and South America, subsistence farming allows little excess and thus little produce sold at markets.

26. Shifting Cultivation
Clear land for planting by slash-and-burn, cultivate crops for several years until it becomes infertile
Leave land to lie fallow so soil can recover
5% of world pop. Still practice shifting cultivation

27. Slash and Burn
Swidden agriculture: areas of land cleared and vegetation burned off, layer of ash increases soil’s fertility
Very efficient with low pop/high land/ low tech

30. Shifting Cultivation
Crops: rice in SE Asia, maize and cassava in S America, millet and sorghum in Africa
Often the land is:
Used for multiple crops
in subsistence
Owned by village, and
separated into family plots

31. Northern India

32. Shifting Cultivation Decreasing as a main type of subsistence
Moving to more sophisticated types of agriculture with help of state and global organizations
Deforestation of
rainforests bringing
global attention
Brazil

33. Boserup Thesis
Population increases necessitates increased inputs of labor and technology to compensate for reduction in the natural yields of swidden farming
Why?

34. Intensive Subsistence Systems
Work small parcels of land intensively
Double cropping and crop rotation prevalent
½ of the worlds
population
Hundreds of millions
of Chinese, Pakistanis,
Bangladeshis, and
Indonesians

35. Settling down in one place, a rising population, and the switch to agriculture are interrelated occurrences in human history.
Hypothesize which of these three happened first, second, and third, and explain why.

36. Second Agriculture Revolution
A series of innovations, improvements, and techniques used to improve the output of agricultural surpluses (started before the industrial revolution).
eg. seed drill
advances in livestock breeding
new fertilizers

37. Second Agricultural Revolution
Began slowly during the middle ages
Modification of tools and equipment of agriculture
Increased efficiency of food storage and distribution
Increased productivity
Aided in the growth of large urban areas

38. Industrial Revolution
Aided the Second Agricultural Revolution
Tractors and Machines
Changed the cultural landscape of agriculture….how?

39. Von Thunen’s Model of Farming
The modification of farming culture created a desire for a spatial understanding of agricultural layout
Created in the 1800s
Based on cities in Germany near Von Thunen’s farm

41. Reasons Profitable options decrease with distance from the market
Rent differences reflects different values of distance
Production Costs + Transportation Costs = economic margin for a crop
Greater the transport cost the less rent a farmer can afford

42. Contemporary Variables
More efficient transportation
Transportation cost no longer proportional to costs
Firewood not a factor
Technology has reduced perishability

43. The Third Agricultural Revolution
Creation of the New World
Late 19th Century and gained momentum through the 20th Century
Big differences between the 2nd and the 3rd is degree

44. The Third Agricultural Revolution: 3 Phases
Mechanization, chemical farming with synthetic fertilizers, and globally widespread food manufacturing

45. Mechanization Replacement of human labor with machines
Tractors, combines, reapers, pickers, since late 1800’s

46. Chemical Farming Application of synthetic fertilizers to the soil
Also herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides
Important environmental impact

47. Food Manufacturing
Adding economic value to agricultural products through a range of treatments
Processing, canning, refining, packing, packaging

48. The Third Agricultural Revolution
The Green Revolution
Began in the 1960s
Scientists created IR36—an “artificial” rice plant
By 1992 IR36 was the
most widely grown
crop on Earth

49. The Green Revolution
New high-yield hybrid varieties of wheat and corn were developed and diffused
Disastrous famines of the past have been avoided
Asia saw a two-thirds increase in rice production

51. Negatives of the Green Revolution
New hybrids required use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
Can lead to reduction of organic matter in the soil
Many small-scale
farmers lack resources
to acquire these
chemicals and the seed

53. Agricultural Landscape
The agricultural imprint of cultivation on the land
The patterns of fields and properties created as people occupy land for the purpose of farming

54. Cadastral System A system the delineates property lines
Adopted in places where settlement could be regulated by law
Main Type: Township-and-range system

55. Township-and-range system
Designed to facilitate the dispersal of settlers evenly across farmlands of the interior
Basic unit = section (1sq. Mi of land)
Land frequently bought in half or quarter sections
Townships – (36 sq. mi) serve as political administrative subdistricts

56. Township and Range –
The cultural landscape of Garden City, Iowa reflects the Township and Range system. Townships are 6x6 miles and section lines are every 1 mile.

57. Metes and Bounds Survey
Natural features used to demarcate irregular parcels of land
Used commonly along the eastern seaboard
Rivers, lakes, streams, mountains

58. Tennessee’s 3rd Surveyor’s District using Metes and Bounds to describe the plot

59. Long-Lot Survey System
Long, narrow unit block stretching back from a road, river, or canal
Central and Western Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Southern Louisiana, Texas

60. Longlot Survey System
The cultural landscape of Burgandy, France reflects the Longlot Survey system, as land is divided into long, narrow parcels.
French Long Lot agricultural fields in Louisiana

61. Dominant Land Survey Patterns in the US

62. Agricultural Villages
Linear Village
Cluster Village (nucleated)
Round Village (rundling)
Walled Village
Grid Village

63. Village Forms

64. Functional Differentiation within Villages
Cultural landscape of a village reflects:
Social stratification
Differentiation of buildings
Cultural norms
Economic way of life
Levels of Interdependence

65. Stilt village in Cambodia
Buildings look alike, but serve different purposes.

66. Farm in Minnesota
each building serves a different purpose

67. Commercial Agriculture
Production primarily for sale to processing companies, not for individual consumption
MDC’s, semi-peripheral, core
Machinery and biotechnology
Dairying, grain farming, Livestock – higher costs

68. Commercial Agriculture
Roots = Plantation Farming
Latin America, Africa, and Asia
Specialization in one or two crops
ex: cotton, sugarcane, coffee, rubber, tea
Large labor force needed, often live on the plantation
Today = global production made possible by advances in transportation and food storage

69. Commercial Agriculture
More land needed – why has the amount of farm land increased, while farms have decreased in the US?
Closely tied to other food processing business – chain called agribusiness employs 20% of US labor

70. Agribusiness: The industrialization of Agriculture
Created by advances in science and technology
Process of the farm moving from the centerpiece of agriculture production to being on part of an integrated (vertical) industrial process
eg. Poultry industry in
the US

73. Advances in Transportation and Food Storage
- Containerization of seaborne freight traffic
- Refrigeration of containers, as they wait transport in Dunedin, New Zealand

75. Organic Agriculture Organic Agriculture –
The production of crops without the use of synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers or the raising of livestock without hormones, antibiotics, and synthetic feeds.
- sales of organic foods on the rise
- grown everywhere
- demand in wealthier countries

77. Organic Agriculture

78. Fair Trade Agriculture
Fair Trade Coffee –
shade grown coffee produced by certified fair trade farmers, who then sell the coffee directly to coffee importers.
- guarantees a “fair trade price”
- over 500,000 farmers
- produced in more than 20 countries
- often organically produced

79. Fair trade coffee farmer in El Salvador grows his beans organically and in the shade, allowing him to get a much better price for his coffee.

80. Tragedy of the Commons
"Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”