Agricultural and Rural Land Use

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Agricultural and Rural Land Use
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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 Sauers 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

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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

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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
  1945-1990
• 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 cant
  afford technologies from the Green Revolution
• Environmental problems like pollution and soil
  contamination are more common, water resources
  have been strained

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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

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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

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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

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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 citys central marketplace,
  the farming activities changed from intensive to
  more extensive

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Von Thunens Model
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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
• Lets look at if Von Thunen is real!

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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 Hindus 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

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U.S. Agricultural Regions
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Global land use patterns
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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)

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Global agricultural regions
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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

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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

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World Food Production per Capita
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Graph of agricultural exports
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Global Food Availability
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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

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Hunger

• Hunger around world is not usually caused by
  humans ability to grow food but by distribution
  of food supply and peoples 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

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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

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