Agricultural and Rural Land Use Patterns and Processes Part 1

Question 1

Agriculture

Answer 1

The process by which humans alter the landscape in order to raise crops and livestock for consumption and trade.

Question 2

Climate

Answer 2

The long-term weather patterns in a region.

Question 3

Subsistence Agriculture

Answer 3

The primary goal of subsistence agriculture is to grow enough food or raise enough livestock to meet the immediate needs of the farmer and his or her family.

Question 4

Commercial Agriculture

Answer 4

The primary goal of the commercial farmer is to grow enough crops or raise enough livestock to sell for profit.

Question 5

Intensive Agriculture

Answer 5

Practices in which farmers or ranchers use large amounts of inputs, such as energy, fertilizers, labor, or machines, to maximize yields.

Question 6

Extensive Agriculture

Answer 6

Practices that use fewer amounts of the inputs and typically result in less yields.

Question 7

Intensive Commercial Agriculture

Answer 7

Heavy investments in labor and capital are used in this type of agriculture which often results in high yields and profits.

Question 8

Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

Answer 8

This form of agriculture is often labor and animal intensive.

Question 9

Extensive Subsistence Agriculture

Answer 9

Few inputs are used in this type of agricultural activity. It is often practiced in areas that have climatic extremes such as tropical, semi-arid, or arid regions.

Question 10

Extensive Commercial Agriculture

Answer 10

This type of farming uses low inputs of resources but has the goal of selling the product for profit.

Question 11

Capital

Answer 11

The money invested in land, equipment, and machines.

Question 12

Pastoral Nomadism

Answer 12

This type of subsistent extensive agriculture is practiced in arid and semi-arid climates throughout the world. Nomads rely on the animals for survival. Pastoral nomads move their herds to different pastures within their territory and often trade meat for crops with nearby subsistence farmers.

Question 13

Shifting Cultivation

Answer 13

In this type of subsistent extensive farming, farmers grow crops on a piece of land for a year or two. When the soil loses fertility, they move to another field.

Question 14

Plantation

Answer 14

A large commercial farm that specializes in one crop.

Question 15

Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming

Answer 15

Large-scale mixed crop and livestock farming is an intensive commercial integrated system that demonstrates an interdependence between crops and animals. On these farms, the majority of the crops are grains that are eaten by the livestock—to fatten cattle for slaughter or to feed dairy cows. The animals’ manure is, in turn, used to help fertilize crops.

Question 16

Grain Farming

Answer 16

In regions too dry for mixed crop agriculture, farmers often raise wheat.

Question 17

Commercial Gardening

Answer 17

Gardening on a larger scale to produce food in bulk.

Question 18

Market Gardening

Answer 18

When fruits and vegetables are grown near an urban market and sold to local suppliers, stores, and/or restaurants.

Question 19

Dairy Farming

Answer 19

Traditionally, dairies were local farms that supplied products to customers in a small geographic area. Because of improvements in refrigeration and transportation, large corporate diary operations replaced smaller family-owned farms in more-developed regions of the world, which resulted in fewer farms but more production.

Question 20

Milk Shed

Answer 20

The geographic distance that milk is delivered.

Question 21

Mediterranean Agriculture

Answer 21

Practiced in regions with hot, dry summers, mild winters, narrow valleys, and often some irrigation. Common crops include figs, dates, olives, and grapes. Transhumance is often practiced, and goats and sheep are the principal livestock.

Question 22

Transhumance

Answer 22

The seasonal herding of animals from higher elevations in the summer to lower elevations and valleys in the winter.

Question 23

Livestock Ranching

Answer 23

The commercial grazing of animals confined to a specific area.

Question 24

Clustered (Nucleated) Settlements

Answer 24

Settlements that have groups of homes located near each other in a village and foster a strong sense of place and often share services, such as schools.

Question 25

Dispersed Settlements

Answer 25

Patterns in which farmers live in homes spread throughout the countryside.

Question 26

Linear Settlement

Answer 26

Buildings and human activities are organized close to a body of water or along a transportation route.

Question 27

Metes and Bounds

Answer 27

Plot boundaries were described using this system. Metes were used for short distances and often referred to features of specific points. Bounds covered larger areas and were based on larger features, such as streams or roads.

Question 28

Public Land Survey System/Township and Range System

Answer 28

Created rectangular plots of consistent size. The government organized land into townships. Each square mile, or section, consisted of 640 acres, and it could be divided into smaller lots, such as half sections or quarter sections.

Question 29

Townships

Answer 29

Areas six miles long and six miles wide.

Question 30

Section

Answer 30

A square mile of a township.

Question 31

French Long-Lot System

Answer 31

Farms were long, thin sections of land that ran perpendicular to a river. This was developed so that many farmers could have some river frontage.

Question 32

First (Neolithic) Agricultural Revolution

Answer 32

The origin of farming, marked by the domestication of plants and animals.

Question 33

Animal Domestication

Answer 33

The process whereby a population of animals, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control.

Question 34

Plant Domestication

Answer 34

The process by which wild plants are cultivated into productive crops, often with more desirable traits.

Question 35

Fertile Crescent

Answer 35

The first major hearth of agriculture.

Question 36

Independent Innovation

Answer 36

Crops and animals are domesticated in multiple regions with seemingly no interaction among people.

Question 37

Columbian Exchange

Answer 37

The global movement of plants and animals between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas.

Question 38

Second Agricultural Revolution

Answer 38

Used the advances of the Industrial Revolution to increase food supplies and support population growth. This began in the 1700s.

Question 39

Enclosure Acts

Answer 39

A series of laws enacted by the British government that enabled landowners to purchase and enclose land for their own use.

Question 40

Crop Rotation

Answer 40

The technique of planting different crops in a specific sequence on the same plot of land in order to restore nutrients back into the soil.

Question 41

Irrigation

Answer 41

The process of applying controlled amounts of water to crops using canals, pipes, sprinkler systems, or other human-made devices, rather than to rely on just rainfall.

Question 42

Third Agricultural Revolution

Answer 42

Born out of science, research, and technology, and it continues today. This revolution expanded mechanization of farming, developed new global agricultural systems, and used scientific and information technologies to further previous advances in agricultural production.

Question 43

Green Revolution

Answer 43

The advances in plant biology of the mid-20th century.

Question 44

Hybridization

Answer 44

The process of breeding two seeds that have desirable characteristics to produce a single seed with both characteristics.

Question 45

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)

Answer 45

A process by which humans use engineering techniques to change the DNA of a seed.

Question 46

Bid-Rent Theory

Answer 46

The closer the land is to an urban center, the more valuable it is. The farmer willing to pay the highest price will gain possession of the land. Consequently, the farmer must use intensive agricultural practices to turn a profit on the land closest to market.

Question 47

Capital Intensive

Answer 47

Form of agriculture that uses mechanical goods, such as machinery, tools, vehicles, and facilities, to produce large amounts of agricultural goods—a process requiring very little human labor.

Question 48

Labor Intensive

Answer 48

An industry for which labor costs comprise a high percentage of total expenses.

Question 49

Factory Farming

Answer 49

A capital-intensive livestock operation in which many animals are kept in close quarters, and bred and fed in a controlled environment.

Question 50

Aquaculture (Aquafarming)

Answer 50

A type of intensive farming. Rather than raising typical farm animals in close quarters with a controlled environment, fish, shellfish, or water plants are raised in netted areas in the sea, tanks, or other bodies of water.

Question 51

Double Cropping

Answer 51

Planting and harvesting a crop two times per year on the same piece of land.

Question 52

Intercropping (Multicropping)

Answer 52

When farmers grow two or more crops simultaneously on the same field.

Question 53

Monoculture

Answer 53

Only one crop is grown or one type of animal is raised per season on a piece of land.

Question 54

Monocropping

Answer 54

Also known as continuous monoculture, this is only growing one type of crop or raising one type of animal year after year.

Question 55

Feedlots

Answer 55

Confined spaces in which cattle and hogs have limited movement, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).