CH 11: Agriculture Flashcards
Hunting, Gathering, Fishing
- hunting & gathering (HG) clans vary based on climate, seasonal shifts, and resource availability
- track migration cycles of fish and animals
- tools and fire
- Native Americans in Pacific Northwest, Japan Ainu and coast East Asia, western Europe salmon
- migrate to take advantage of cyclical movements of animals, avoid eating all plants in area
- perfecting tools, control fires, adapting to environment
Agriculture
- purposefully growing crops and raising livestock to produce food, feed, and fiber
First Agricultural Revolution (AR1)
- transformation from HG to farming
- domesticating plants and animals
- idea developed independently in diff. hearths
- develop out of necessity or luxury?
- increased food security, changing civilizations
- settle permanently, create villages and towns, people could do other jobs
Plant Domestication - AR1
- seed crops need: selectrion, watering, well-timed harvests
- first developed in the Fertile Crescent
- land between Tigris and Euphrates river (present day Iraq, west to Syria)
- grew wheat and barley - plants evolved, from that figure out where and when grown
Animal Domestication - AR1
- began around 10,000 years ago, also Fertile Crescent
- first goats in Zagros Mountains (Iran) 8000 BCE
- next sheep in Anatolia (Turkey) 7500 BCE
- next pigs and cattle
- round same time chickens in Southeast Asia, pigs, water buff. some waterfowl
- South Asia, cattle
- Central Asia, yaks, horse,s goats, and sheeps
- Andean highlands, llama and alpaca
- used small animals for milk, eggs, meat, hides
- large for meat or milk
- only around 40 species have been domesticated, most a long time ago
- look at 4 traits: diet, temperament, growth rate, and size
Subsistence Agriculture
Types: Shifting, Intensive (wet rice dom.), intensive (wet rice not dom.), pastoral nomadism
- growing only enough food to survive, norm
- shared surplus with community, sometimes through traditions and festivals
- growing personal wealth restricted
- declined with European colonization
- used treaties + force to steal their land
- individuals own land
- making a comeback in some places
Shifting Cultivation (swidden, slash-and-burn)
- type of subsistence agriculture
- in tropical climates with lots of vegetation, sun, and rain
- process of clearing and burning plot of land, farming for 2 to 10 years and then moving to new field to leave old one to recover
- sustainable where sparse pop. and land abundant
- avoid monoculture, which is harder on soil and hard for nutritious diet
Second Agricultural Revolution (AR2)
Mechanization
- move from subsistence to generating necessary surplus for factory workers
- series of innovations, improvements, and techniques in diff. hearths at diff. times
- 1700s, British and Dutch create seed drill
- improve livestock breeding methods, consolidated land into larger farms, began using new crop rotation systems, not waste seeds, plant in rows
- Britain’s Enclosure Act, consolidate fields into single-owner
- 1830s mechanical reaper, Cyrus McCormick, Lexington Virginia
- railroads move agriculture to new regions
Breeding - AR2
- 1830s, Euro farmers using new fertilizers on crop and fiving artificial feeds to livestock
- feed larger populations, secondary (manufacturing) sector grow
- want good milk or good beef
- common cattle in NA trace back to AR2 in Europe
- bred to adapt to diff. climates and topography
Columbian Exchange
- movement of goods, people, and disease between Europe, Africa, and Americas across Atlantic Ocean
- began with Spanish and Portuguese exploration in late 15th century
- triangular trade network, brought new seeds and livestock to each continent
- also brought slaves and diseases
- foundation of unequal exchange
Rise of States on Agriculture
- states and territories w/ defined borders
- impact HGs and subsistence farmers
- encourage HGs to settle
- modernize by end subsistence farming
- take land and implement tax
- force to grow cash crops
Third Agricultural Revolution (AR3)
Green
- world pop. grew in 1900s, agricultural companies, researchers, and farmers designed new ways to feed pop.
- increase productivity through biotech
- disease-resistent, grow fast, high yield, fertilizers, pesticides
- stable crops way up (rice, corn, wheat)
Origins - AR3
- NA, 1930s, Midwest scientists try to increase yield
- 1940s, American philanthropists see which hybrid seeds grow best
- Norman Borlaug made wheat grain resistant to type of fungi
- IR8 rice in India
Outcomes - AR3
- fed more people
- chemicals can cause reduced organic matter n soil and groundwater pollution
- bad for small scale farms
- India Vandana Shiva says its a failure
- less genetic diversity, more pest vulnerability, soil erosion, water shortage, reduced soil fertility, soil contamination, etc etc
GMOS
- splicing genes to make new plants
- found in 75% of all processed foods in US
- unsure of environmental health or socioeconomic consequences
Cadastral System/Survey
- method of land survey through which land ownership and property lines were defined
- adopted in places where settlements are regulated by law
- imposes uniformity across land
Types of Systems
Township and Range System:
- farms spaced by sections, half sections, or quarters
- used in US, Canada has similar
-adopted after American Revolution
- checkerboard pattern on land
Metes-and-bounds:
- adopted long the east coast
- uses natural features like rivers and trees to mark irregular sections of land
Long-lot:
- Canadian Maritimes, Quebec, Louisiana, Texas
- divides land into narrow sections stretching back from rivers, roads, or canas
- spread from France through relocation diffusion
Johann von Thünen
- 1800s, during AR2, Rostock Germany
- studied spatial patterns of land use around his town and sim. towns
- moving away from town, commodity/crop changed
- without change in soil, terrain, and climate
- closest to town is perishable and expensive, dairy and strawberries etc
- surrounded by belt of trees for wood
- then ring of bulkier crops, wheat, grain, etc
- next livestock
- first effort to analyze spatial character of economic activity
Agricultural Villages and Types
- half the world still lives in villages and rural areas
- disappearing in core regions
- Types: Linear, cluster, round, walled, grid, all nucleated (have central pt)
Commercial Farming
- the agriculture of large-scale grain producers and cattle ranches, mechanized equipment, and factory-type labor forces
- spatial expansion began 18th and 19th centuries
Cold Chain
- system of harvesting produce that is not ripe and ripening it by controlling temp from fields -> store
Monoculture
- dependence on single agricultural commodity
Climates
pg. 349:
Equatorial - hot, humid, wet and dry seasons, monsoons
Arid - true deserts, almost no rain
Warm temperate - humid subtrops. moist, gen. warm,
Snow - closer to poles, humid continental and subarctic
Polar - tundra and icecaps, high elevations, cold all year
Plantation Agriculture
- cash crops grown on large estates
- colonial legacies persisting in the peripheral with subsistence
- outlasted decolonization
- provide specialty crops to cores
Drug Agriculture
- growing crops for illegal drug trade
- profitable for periphery countries
- poppy (Afghanistan and Myanmar), coca (Columbia, Peru, Bolivia), marijuana
- Mexico cartels
- Marijuana legalization
Bid Rent Theory
- price and demand of land goes up closer to central city, and agriculture, retail, manufacturing, and residential competes for it
Intensive vs Extensive Agricultural Practices
Intensive:
- applying fertilizers, pesticides, high-costs inputs for highest yields
- occurs closer to city where land price is high
- indoor vertical farms (plant factories), grow hydroponically, w/o soil
- use lots of capital
Extensive:
- use less capital and more land
- grows what is traditionally less yield
- grown further from city
- grains and tubers
Organic Agriculture
- production of crops w/o use of synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers
- sold at highest rates in some countries
- in 3/4 grocery stores
- rapidly growing market
- some environmental benefits
Fuels
Ethanol
- renewable fuel made from biomass
- added to round 98% of gasolines
- used in colder climates (doesn’t freeze)
- Brazil (sugar) and US (corn) produce 85%
- US Corn Belt
Biodiesel:
- made from veg oils, animal fats, and recycled grease
- used in warmer climates
- overall consumes energy to produce
Fair Trade
do later
Agribuisness
- businesses that provide an array of goods and services to support the agricultural industry
DO 11.5
