Module 3: Crop Production Flashcards
What cash crops were traded during colonization?
coffee, sugar, cotton, tobacco
where did industrialized farming originate from in history?
colonialism, slavery >:(
what is migrant labor?
brought in migrants from other countries to fill in jobs on farms to make sure supply of food was not disrupted during WW2
What is price support?
common globally, prevent price from falling below a certain level; help to stabilize price; enforced by government
what is comparative advantage? Give an example
discourage crop diversity- focuses on monoculture cropping
eg. prairies specialize in wheat and can do it large scale
Who benefits from industrialization?
consumers->convenience, big companies like McDonalds-> buying other subcomponents of food value chain, distribution company, etc.
What challenges are faced by Canadian farmers?
decreasing young farmers, losing farm land, low net income, unrestrained power of big corporations, high debts
what causes the gap between net income and what is earned for farmers?
gap is the money used to pay off all the loans from machinery, seeds, etc. from big corporations
System is viable only for massive operations
How does globalization impact farmers?
more competitive for farmers, less competitive for corporations and maximize profits for shareholders
What is the anthropological fix?
fewer negative environmental impacts
What is the technological fix?
What are the benefits of agroecology?
preserve natural resources and biodiversity, boost nutrition and health, integrate diff types of knowledge, produce more with fewer resources
What is the first agricultural revolution?
enabled emergence of first city- states.
Common farming practices included the use of slash-and-burn to clear land for planting, the use of animals and crops, rotations that guaranteed soil fertility, and human labor.
What is the second agricultural revolution?
fear of hunger lead to increase adoption of new implements in agriculture (eg. machinery replacing human labor/ horsepower), plus intensification of irrigation systems.
What is the Malthusian catastrophe?
human populations were growing exponentially, while food production was growing only arithmetically, and that difference would lead to future hunger
What is the third agricultural revolution/green revolution?
introduction of chemical fertilizers, synthetic herbicides and pesticides, and high-yield crops, including hybrids; discovery of a new process to synthetize nitrogen
Who is the father of the green revolution?
Norman Borlaug
How was large scale monoculture enabled?
by specific production methods, government support, and favorable commodity prices, among other reasons.
Define production methods
associated with the utilization of large-scale machinery and irrigation systems;
strategies and techniques used to intensify food production (chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; delinked system of production; intensive irrigation; adoption of plant breeding techniques, from hybrid seeds to transgenic seeds
What is the impact of high transaction costs?
small - midsized farms are disappearing due to large corporations
What is one strategy used by small to midsized farms to handle these challenging circumstances?
aggregation of production into cooperatives that market their produce collectively and therefore take advantage of economies of scale
