Unit V: Agriculture and Rural Land Use

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Topic V Agriculture and Rural Land Use
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What is Agriculture?

• The modification of Earths surface through the
  cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to
  obtain subsistence or economic gain.
• A crop is a plant cultivated by people.

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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
• lt 2 Million

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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.

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How does agriculture relate to geography?

• Geographers study why farming practices vary
  around the world.
• Elements of physical environment that limit
  agricultural production.

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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.

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Classification of Economic Activities

• Primary
• Secondary
• Tertiary
• Quaternary
• Quinary

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Economic Geography

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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Diffusion of Agriculture

• Animal Domestication
• Fertile Crescent
• began about
• 8,000 years ago

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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
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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

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World Areas of Agricultural Innovations
Carl Sauer identified 11 areas where agricultural
innovations occurred.
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Chief Source Regions of Important Crop Plant
Domestications
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Subsistence Agriculture

• 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

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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.
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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

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Slash and Burn

• Swidden agriculture areas of land cleared and
  vegetation burned off, layer of ash increases
  soils fertility
• Very efficient with low pop/high land/ low tech

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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

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• Northern India

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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

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Boserup Thesis

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

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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

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• 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.

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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

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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

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Industrial Revolution

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

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Von Thunens 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 Thunens farm

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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

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Contemporary Variables

• More efficient transportation
• Transportation cost no longer proportional to
  costs
• Firewood not a factor
• Technology has reduced perishability

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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

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The Third Agricultural Revolution 3 Phases

• Mechanization, chemical farming with synthetic
  fertilizers, and globally widespread food
  manufacturing

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Mechanization

• Replacement of human labor with machines
• Tractors, combines, reapers, pickers, since late
  1800s

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Chemical Farming

• Application of synthetic fertilizers to the soil
• Also herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides
• Important environmental impact

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Food Manufacturing

• Adding economic value to agricultural products
  through a range of treatments
• Processing, canning, refining, packing, packaging

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The Third Agricultural Revolution

• The Green Revolution
• Began in the 1960s
• Scientists created IR36an artificial rice
  plant
• By 1992 IR36 was the
• most widely grown
• crop on Earth

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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

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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

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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

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Cadastral System

• A system the delineates property lines
• Adopted in places where settlement could be
  regulated by law
• Main Type Township-and-range system

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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

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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.
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Metes and Bounds Survey

• Natural features used to demarcate irregular
  parcels of land
• Used commonly along the eastern seaboard
• Rivers, lakes, streams, mountains

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• Tennessees 3rd Surveyors District using Metes
  and Bounds to describe the plot

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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

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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
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Dominant Land Survey Patterns in the US
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Agricultural Villages

• Linear Village
• Cluster Village (nucleated)
• Round Village (rundling)
• Walled Village
• Grid Village

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Village Forms
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Functional Differentiation within Villages

• Cultural landscape of a village reflects
• Social stratification
• Differentiation of buildings
• Cultural norms
• Economic way of life
• Levels of Interdependence

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Stilt village in Cambodia Buildings look alike,
but serve different purposes.
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Farm in Minnesota each building serves a
different purpose
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Commercial Agriculture

• Production primarily for sale to processing
  companies, not for individual consumption
• MDCs, semi-peripheral, core
• Machinery and biotechnology
• Dairying, grain farming, Livestock higher costs

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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

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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

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AgribusinessThe 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

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

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Organic Agriculture
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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

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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.
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Tragedy of the Commons

• "Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into
  a system that compels him to increase his herd
  without limitin 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.