Chapter 9 Flashcards
Agriculture
Deliberate modification of Earth’s surface through cultivation of plants and rearing of animals to obtain sustenance or economic gain.
Crop
Any plant cultivated by people.
Agricultural revolution
The time when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering, around the year 8000 B.C.
Subsistence agriculture
Found in developing countries, this is the production of food primarily for consumption by the farmer’s family.
Commercial agriculture
Found in developed countries, this is the production of food primarily for sale off the farm.
Dietary energy consumption
The amount of food that an individual consumes.
Cereal grain
Cereal, which is a grass that yields grain for food.
Grain
The seed from cereal grass.
Food security
Physical, social, and economic access at all times to safe and nutritious food sufficient to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Pastoral nomadism
A form of subsistence agriculture based on the herding of domesticated animals in dry climates, where planting crops is impossible.
Transhumance
Seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pasture areas.
Shifting cultivation
Practiced in much of the world’s tropical climate regions, this involves clearing land through slashing and burning.
Plantation
Involves large-scale cultivation of cash crops and relies on labor-intensive methods and monoculture.
Slash and burn agriculture
Another name for shifting cultivation.
Swidden
The cleared area in shifting cultivation.
Intensive subsistence agriculture
A farming technique that uses a lot of labor on small plots of land to produce food for human consumption.
Double cropping
Obtaining two harvests per year from one field.
Wet rice
Rice planted on dry land in a nursery and then moved as seedlings to a flooded field to promote growth.
Sawah
What the flooded field in wet rice cultivation is called in Indonesia.
Paddy
What the flooded field in wet rice cultivation is commonly called, originates from Malay.
Crop rotation
The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting the soil.
Fishing
The capture of wild fish and other seafood living in the waters.
Aquaculture
The cultivation of seafood under controlled conditions.
Overfishing
Capturing fish faster than they can reproduce.
Agribusiness
The system of commercial farming found in developed countries.
Horticulture
The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
Truck farming
Commercial gardening and fruit farming in the southeastern United States, where a long growing season, humid climate, and accessibility simplifies things.
Mixed crop and livestock farming
The integration of crops and livestock, when most of the crops are fed to animals rather than consumed directly by humans.
Dairy farm
Specializes in the production of milk and other dairy products.
Milkshed
The ring surrounding a city from which milk can be supplied without spoiling.
Prime agricultural land
The most productive farmland.
Desertification
When human actions cause land to deteriorate to a desertlike condition.
Green revolution
The invention and rapid diffusion of more productive agricultural techniques during the 1970s and 1980s, such as fertilizers and higher yield seeds.
No tillage
Leaves all of the soil undisturbed and the entire residue of the previous year’s harvest left untouched on the fields.
Ridge tillage
A system of planting crops on ridge tops.
Genetically modified organism
A living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology.
Ranching
A form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area.
Undernourishment
Dietary energy consumption that is continuously below the minimum requirement fo maintaining a healthy life and carrying out light physical activity.
