Ch 5: Agricultural and Rural Land Use Patterns and Processes Vocab Flashcards
Agribusiness
The set of economic and political relationships that organize food production for commercial purposes. It includes activities ranging from seed production, to retailing, to consumption of agricultural products.
Agriculture
The art and science of producing food from the land and tending livestock for the purpose of human consumption.
Animal Husbandry
An agricultural activity associated with the raising of domesticated animals, such as cattle, horses, sheep, and goats.
Aquaculture
The cultivation or farming (in controlled conditions) of aquatic species, such as fish. In contrast to commercial fishing, which involves catching wild fish.
Biotechnology
A form of technology that uses living organisms, usually genes, to modify products, to make or modify plants and animals, or to develop other microorganisms for specific purposes.
Capital-Intensive Agriculture
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.
Commercial Agricultural Economy
All agricultural activity generated for the purpose of selling, not necessarily for local consumption.
Commodity Chains
A linked system of processes that gather resources, convert them into goods, package them for distribution, disperse them, and sell them on the market.
Dairying
An agricultural activity involving the raising of livestock, most commonly cows and goats, for dairy products such as milk, cheese and butter.
Desertification
The process by which formerly fertile lands become increasingly arid, unproductive, and desert-like.
Domestication
The conscious manipulation of plant and animal species by humans in order to sustain themselves.
Extensive Agriculture
An agricultural system characterized by low inputs of labor per unit land area.
Feed Lots
Places where livestock are concentrated in a very small area and raised on hormones and hearty grains that prepare them for slaughter at a much more rapid rate than grazing; often referred to as factory farms.
Fertile Crescent
Area located in the crescent shaped zone near the southeastern Mediterranean coast (including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey), which was once a lush environment and one of the first hearths of domestication and thus agricultural activity.
Food Security
People’s ability to access sufficient safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.
Genetically Modified Foods
Foods that are mostly products of organisms that have had their genes altered in a laboratory for specific purposes, such as disease, resistance, increased productivity, or nutritional value, allowing growers greater control, predictability, and efficiency.
Green Revolution
The development of higher-yield and fast-growing crops through increased technology, pesticides, and fertilizers transferred from the developed to developing world to alleviate the problem of food supply in those regions of the globe.
Horizontal Integration
A form of corporate organization in which several branches of a company or several commonly owned companies work together to sell their products in different markets.
Hunting and Gathering
The killing of wild animals and fish as well as the gathering of fruits, roots, nuts, and other plants for sustenance.
Industrial Revolution
The rapid economic changes that occurred in agriculture and manufacturing in England in the late 18th century and that rapidly spread to other parts of the developed world.
Intensive Cultivation
Any kind of agricultural activity that involves effective and efficient use of labor on small plots of land to maximize crop yield.
labor-Intensive Agriculture
Type of agriculture that requires large levels or manual labor to be successful.
Livestock Ranching
An extensive commercial agricultural activity that involves the raising of livestock over vast geographic spaces typically located in semiarid climates like the American West.
Mechanization
In agriculture, the replacement of human labor with technology or machines.
Mediterranean Agriculture
An agricultural system practiced in the Mediterranean-style climates of Western Europe, California, and portions of Chile and Australia, in which diverse specialty of crops such as grapes, avocados, olives, and a host of nuts, fruits, and vegetables make up profitable agricultural operations.
Organic Agriculture
The use of crop rotation, natural fertilizers such as manure, and biological pest control–as opposed to artificial fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, additives, and genetically modified organisms—to promote healthy, vigorous crops.
Pastoralism
A type of agricultural activity based on nomadic animal husbandry or the raising of livestock to provide food, clothing, and shelter.
Pesticides
Chemicals used on plants that do not harm the plants, but kill pests and have negative repercussions on other species that ingest the chemicals.
Planned Agricultural Economy
An agricultural economy found in communist nations in which the government controls both agricultural production and distribution.
Plantation
A large, frequently foreign owned piece of agricultural land devoted to the production of a single export crop.
Salinization
Process that occurs when soils in arid areas are brought under cultivation through irrigation. In arid climates, waer evaporates quickly off the ground surface, leaving salty residues that render the soil infertile.
Shifting Cultivation
The use of tropical forest clearings for crop production until their fertility is lost. Plots are then abandoned, and farmers move on to new sites.
Slash and Burn Agriculture
System of cultivation that usually exists in tropical areas, where vegetation is cut close to the ground and then ignited. The fire introduces nutrients into the soil, thereby making it productive for a relatively short period of time.
Specialty Crops
Crops, including items like peanuts and pineapples, that are produced, usually in developing countries for export.
Subsistence Agricultural Economy
Any farm economy in which most crops are grown for nearly exclusive family or local consumption.
Sustainability
A set of policies or practices by which societies can ensure that the people of the future have the same access to resources and thus the same economic and environmental opportunities as people living today.
Swidden
Land that is prepared for agriculture by using the slash and burn method.
Topsoil Loss
When the top fertile layer of soil is depleted through erosion. It is a tremendous problem in areas with fragile soils, steep slopes, or torrential seasonal rains.
Transhumance
The movements of livestock according to seasonal patterns, generally lowland areas in the winter and highland areas in the summer.
Urban Sprawl
The process of urban areas expanding outward, usually in the form of suburbs, and developing over fertile agricultural land.
Vertical Integration
A form of corporate organization in which one firm controls multiple aspects or phases of a commodity chain.
Von Thunen Model
An agricultural model that spatially describes agricultural activity in terms of rent. Activities that require intensive cultivation and cannot be transported over great distances pay higher rent to be close to the market. Conversely, activities that are more extensive, with goods that are easy to transport, are located farther from the market where rent is less.
