Transcript Unit V: Agriculture and Rural Land Use

Topic V: Agriculture and
Rural Land Use
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.
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
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.
How does agriculture relate to
geography?
• Geographers study why farming
practices vary around the world.
– Elements of physical environment that
limit agricultural production.
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.
Classification of Economic
Activities
• Primary
• Secondary
• Tertiary
– Quaternary
– Quinary
Economic Geography
• Study of how people earn their living
• How livelihood systems vary by area
• And the spatial linkage between
economic activities
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
Diffusion of Agriculture
• Animal Domestication
– Fertile Crescent
– began about
8,000 years ago
Animal Domestication
•Relatively few animals have been domesticated
(all by 4500 years ago)
-Goats*
-Llama
-Sheep*
-Alpaca
-Turkey
-Pigs*
-Water Buffalo
-Cattle*
-Cats
-Horses*
-Dogs
-Camels
-Reindeer
-Yaks
(*Jared Diamond claims to be the five most important animals)
•Attempts at domestication continue, but most fail
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
World Areas of Agricultural Innovations
Carl Sauer identified 11 areas where agricultural innovations occurred.
Chief Source Regions of Important
Crop Plant Domestications
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
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.
Shifting Cultivation
• Clear land for planting by slash-andburn, 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
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
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
• Northern India
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
Boserup Thesis
• Population increases necessitates
increased inputs of labor and
technology to compensate for
reduction in the natural yields of
swidden farming
• Why?
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
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.
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
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
Industrial Revolution
• Aided the Second Agricultural
Revolution
• Tractors and Machines
• Changed the cultural landscape of
agriculture….how?
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
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
Contemporary Variables
• More efficient transportation
• Transportation cost no longer
proportional to costs
• Firewood not a factor
• Technology has reduced perishability
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
The Third Agricultural
Revolution: 3 Phases
• Mechanization, chemical farming with
synthetic fertilizers, and globally
widespread food manufacturing
Mechanization
• Replacement of human labor with
machines
• Tractors, combines, reapers, pickers,
since late 1800’s
Chemical Farming
• Application of synthetic fertilizers to
the soil
• Also herbicides, fungicides, and
pesticides
• Important environmental impact
Food Manufacturing
• Adding economic value to agricultural
products through a range of treatments
• Processing, canning, refining, packing,
packaging
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
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
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
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
Cadastral System
• A system the delineates property lines
• Adopted in places where settlement
could be regulated by law
• Main Type: Township-and-range
system
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
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.
Metes and Bounds Survey
• Natural features used to demarcate
irregular parcels of land
• Used commonly along the eastern
seaboard
• Rivers, lakes, streams, mountains
• Tennessee’s 3rd Surveyor’s District using Metes
and Bounds to describe the plot
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
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
Dominant Land Survey Patterns in the US
Agricultural Villages
• Linear Village
• Cluster Village (nucleated)
• Round Village (rundling)
• Walled Village
• Grid Village
Village Forms
Functional Differentiation within Villages
• Cultural landscape of a village reflects:
– Social stratification
– Differentiation of buildings
– Cultural norms
– Economic way of life
– Levels of Interdependence
Stilt village
in Cambodia
Buildings
look alike,
but serve
different
purposes.
Farm in
Minnesota
each
building
serves a
different
purpose
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
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
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
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
Advances in Transportation and Food Storage
- Containerization of seaborne freight traffic
- Refrigeration of containers, as they wait transport in
Dunedin, New Zealand
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
Organic Agriculture
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
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.
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.”