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The Geography of Agriculture

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Title: The Geography of Agriculture


1
The Geography of Agriculture
2
The Geography of Agriculture
  • Agricultures Origins and History
  • Classifying Agricultural Regions

3
Introduction
  • Importance of agriculture
  • All humans depend on agriculture for food
  • Urban-industrial societies depend on the base of
    food surplus generated by farmers and herders
  • Without agriculture there could be no cities,
    universities, factories, or offices

4
Introduction
  • Agriculturethe principal enterprise of humankind
    through most of recorded history
  • Today remains the most important economic
    activity in the world
  • Employs 45 percent of the working population
  • In some parts of Asia and Africa, over 80 percent
    of labor force is engaged in agriculture

5
Agricultural regions
  • Formal agricultural regions
  • Peoples living in different environments develop
    new farming methods
  • Numerous spatial variations have been created

6
History of Agriculture
  • Hunter-Gatherers
  • Neolithic Revolution
  • Domestication of Plants and Animals
  • Diffusion of Agriculture
  • Agricultural Industrialization
  • The Green Revolution
  • Hybrids, scientific application of fertilizer,
    pesticide, and water
  • Modern Agribusiness

7
Neolithic Revolution
  • Primary effects
  • Urbanization
  • Social stratification
  • Occupational specialization
  • Increased population densities
  • Secondary effects
  • Endemic diseases
  • Famine
  • Expansionism

8
  • Origins of Agriculture

9
Agricultural diffusion
  • The origin and diffusion of plant domestication
  • Agriculture apparently began with plant
    domestication
  • Domesticated plantone deliberately planted,
    protected, and cared for by humans
  • Genetically distinct from wild ancestors because
    of deliberate improvement through selective
    breeding
  • Tend to be larger than wild species, bearing
    larger, more abundant crops
  • For examplewild Indian maize grew on a cob only
    0.75 inches long

10
Agricultural diffusion
  • Plant domestication and improvement constituted a
    process, not an event
  • Began because of close association between humans
    and natural vegetation over a period of hundreds
    or even thousands of years
  • Useful plants were protected by humans, which led
    to deliberate planting

11
Agricultural diffusion
  • Carl Sauers beliefs on domestication
  • Domestication probably did not develop in
    response to hunger
  • Starving people must spend every waking hour
    searching for food
  • Started by people who had enough food to remain
    settled in one place
  • Did not occur in grasslands or river floodplains
    because of thick sod and periodic flooding
  • Must have started in regions where many different
    kinds of wild plants grew
  • Started in hilly district areas, where climates
    change with differing sun exposure and altitude

12
Agricultural diffusion
  • Most geographers now believe agriculture arose in
    at least three regions of great biodiversity
  • The Fertile Crescent located in the Middle East
  • Bread grains, grapes, apples, olives and many
    others
  • Oldest archaeological evidence of
    crop-domestication10,000BP
  • Diffused to Central Africa creating a secondary
    center of domestication adding such crops as
    sorghum, peanuts, yams, coffee, and okra

13
Agricultural diffusion
  • 2. Second great center developed in Southeast
    Asia
  • Possibly included land now covered by shallow
    seas
  • Rice, citrus, taro, bananas, and sugarcane, plus
    others
  • Stimulus diffusion yielded a secondary
    centernortheastern China

14
Corn v maize
15
Great biodiversity
16
Mesoamerica
17
Agricultural diffusion
  • 3. Mesoamericathe third great region of
    domestication
  • Started about 5,000BP
  • Independent invention, not started by diffusion
  • Maize, tomatoes, chili peppers, and squash, among
    many others
  • Stimulus diffusion produced a secondary center in
    northwestern South America, from which came the
    white potato and manioc

18
Classifying Agricultural Regions
  • Commercial Agriculture
  • Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming
  • Dairy Farming
  • Grain Farming
  • Livestock Ranching
  • Mediterranean Agriculture
  • Truck Farming
  • Subsistence Agriculture
  • Shifting Cultivation
  • Pastoral Nomadism
  • Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

19
Subsistence Agriculture Regions
20
Shifting or swidden Cultivation
  • --Vegetation slashed and then burned.
    Soil remains fertile for 2-3 years. Then people
    move on.
  • Where tropical rainforests. Amazon, Central and
    West Africa, Southeast Asia
  • Crops upland rice (S.E. Asia), maize and manioc
    (S. America), millet and sorghum (Africa)?
  • Intercropping planting taller, stronger crops to
    shelter lower and more fragile ones. Also
    provides a more varied diet.
  • Declining at hands of ranching and logging.

21
Sorghum is used for breads, gruel, beer, and
syrup.
Manioc or Cassava
22
Pastoral Nomadism
  • The breeding and herding of domesticated animals
    for subsistence.
  • Where arid and semi-arid areas of N. Africa,
    Middle East, Central Asia
  • Animals Camel, Goats, Sheep, Cattle
  • Transhumance seasonal migrations from highlands
    to lowlands
  • Most nomads are being pressured into sedentary
    life as land is used for agriculture or mining.

Bedouin Shepherd
Somali Nomad and Tent
23
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
  • Wet Rice Dominant
  • Where S.E. Asia, E. India, S.E. China
  • Very labor intensive production of rice,
    including transfer to sawah, or paddies
  • Most important source of food in Asia
  • grown on flat, or terraced land
  • Double cropping is used in warm winter areas of
    S. China and Taiwan

The Fields of Bali
Thai Rice Farmers
24
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25
Commercial Agriculture
  • Products are Value-Added
  • Very little of the value of most commercial
    products comes from the raw materials
  • Adding value is the key to high profit margins

Roughly 6 of the price of cereal is the cost of
the grain.
26
Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming
  • Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming
  • Where Ohio to Dakotas, centered on Iowa much of
    Europe from France to Russia
  • crops corn (most common), soybeans
  • In U.S. 80 of product fed to pigs and cattle
  • Highly inefficient use of natural resources
  • Pounds of grain to make 1 lb. beef 10
  • Gallons of water to make 1 1b wheat 25
  • Gallons of water to make 1 1b. beef 2500

27
Dairy Farming
  • Where near urban areas in N.E. United States,
    Southeast Canada, N.W. Europe
  • - Over 90 of cows milk is produced in
    developed countries. Value is added as cheese,
    yogurt, etc.

Dairy Farm, Wisconsin
Von Thunens theories are the beginning of
location economics and analysis (1826)Locational
Theory butter and cheese more common than milk
with increasing distance from cities and in
West. Milkshed historically defined by
spoilage threat refrigerated trucks changed
this.
28
Grain Farming
  • Where worldwide, but U.S. and Russia predominant
  • Crops wheat
  • Winter wheat Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma
  • Spring wheat Dakotas, Montana, southern Canada
  • Highly mechanized combines, worth hundreds of
    thousands of dollars, migrate northward in U.S.,
    following the harvest.

29
Combines
30
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31
Livestock Ranching
  • Where arid or semi-arid areas of western U.S.,
    Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and Portugal.
  • History initially open range, now sedentary with
    transportation changes.

Environmental effects 1) overgrazing has
damaged much of the worlds arid grasslands (lt 1
of U.S. remain!)? 2) destruction of the
rainforest is motivated by Brazilian desires for
fashionable cattle ranches
32
Mediterranean Agriculture
  • Where areas surrounding the Mediterranean,
    California, Oregon, Chile, South Africa,
    Australia
  • Climate has summer dry season. Landscape is
    mountainous.
  • Highly valuable crops olives, grapes, nuts,
    fruits and vegetables winter wheat
  • California high quality land is being lost to
    suburbanization initially offset by irrigation

33

Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming
  • Where U.S. Southeast, New England, near cities
    around the world
  • Crops high profit vegetables and fruits demanded
    by wealthy urban populations apples, asparagus,
    cherries, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
  • Mechanization truck farming is highly mechanized
    and labor costs are further reduced by the use of
    cheap immigrant (and illegal) labor.
  • Distribution situated near urban markets.

34

Plantation Farming
  • Large scale mono-cropping of profitable products
    not able to be grown in Europe or U.S.
  • Where tropical lowland Periphery
  • Crops cotton, sugar cane, coffee, rubber, cocoa,
    bananas, tea, coconuts, palm oil.
  • What are potential problems with this type of
    agriculture? Environmental? Social?

35
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36
AgribusinessThe industrialization of agriculture
  • Modern commercial farming is very dependent on
    inputs of chemical fertilizer, pesticides,
    herbicides.
  • Oil is required to make fertilizer and
    pesticides.
  • It takes 10 calories of energy to create 1
    calorie of food in modern agriculture.
  • Small farmer cant buy needed equipment and
    supplies.
  • Fewer than 2 of U.S. population works in
    agriculture

37
Subsistence v Commercial Agriculture
  1. Purpose of Farming
  2. Percentage of Farmers in the workforce
  3. Use of machinery
  4. Farm Size
  5. Relationship to other businesses (agribusiness)
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