Unit 5 - Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes Flashcards
What is the process by which humans alter the landscape in order to raise crops and livestock for consumption and trade?
agriculture
A type of agriculture where farmers focus on raising one specific crop to sell for profit.
commercial agriculture
A type of agriculture where farmers focus on raising food they need to live.
subsistence agriculture
Growing crops that people plant, raise, and harvest
plant domestication
Raising and caring for animals by humans for protection or food.
animal domestication
Known as the Neolithic Revolution or the origin of farming; marked by the beginning of domestications of plants and animals.
First Agricultural Revolution
Farmers build a series of steps into the side of a hill, creating a flat surface for crop production.
terrace farming
The process of diverting water from its natural course or location to aid in the production of crops.
irrigation
The number of crops or people that an area can support is known as?
carrying capacity
What type of agriculture practice cuts down and burns all vegetation, where the ash provides some soil nutrients and the land can be farmed for a few years before the soil becomes depleted and the plot is abandoned.
slash-and-burn
The removal of large tracts of forest
deforestation
The transition of land from fertile to desert.
desertification
Enabled British landowners to purchase and encircle land for their own use that had previously been common land used by peasant farmers.
Enclosure Acts
Began in the 1960s; companies control the development, planting, processing, and selling of food products to the consumer.
Third Agricultural Revolution
The development of higher-yielding, disease-resistant, faster-growing varieties of grains. (Primarily rice, corn, and wheat).
Green Revolution
Hybridization process by which humans use engineering techniques to change the DNA of a seed.
GMOs
Who was the chief architect of the Green Revolution?
Norman Borlaug
A form of subsistence agriculture; practiced in arid and semi-arid climates in the developing world where people travel from place to place with their herds or domesticated animals.
pastoral nomadism
A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers, usually in tropical climate regions, move from one field to another.
shifting cultivation
Commercial gardening and fruit farming; found mostly in California and the Southeast in order to take advantage of long growing seasons.
market gardening
Another form of market gardening where products were traditionally driven to urban markets and sold. Fruits and vegetables include lettuce, broccoli, apples, oranges, and tomatoes.
truck farming
The geographic distance that dairy is delivered. This distance increased with improvements in refrigeration and transportation.
milk shed
Herders practice the seasonal herding of animals from higher elevations in the summer to lower elevations and valleys in the winter. (goats and sheep are the principal livestock)
transhumance
A type of agriculture practiced in regions with hot-dry summers, mild winters, narrow valleys, and often some type of irrigation system.
Mediterranean agriculture
Agriculture that uses fewer inputs of capital and paid labor relative to the amount of space being used (includes shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, and ranching).
extensive farming
Agriculture that involves greater input of capital and paid labor relative to the space being used (includes terrace farming, market gardening, and plantations).
intensive farming
A technique that maximizes the output on a small amount of land by planting and harvesting twice per year.
double-cropping
When farmers grow two or more crops simultaneously on the same field (a.k.a. multicropping).
intercropping
Confined spaces in which cattle and hogs have limited movement.
feed lots
The integration of various steps of production in the food-processing industry. This includes large-scale commercial agriculture and also the steps of processing and production, transportation, marketing, retail, and research development. Typically performed by transnational corporations.
agribusiness
A legacy of colonialism; replaced subsistence farming with commercial agriculture in many less developed regions.
Plantation Agriculture
A system of resources, producer transportation, communication, information, and consumers often owned by one corporation.
supply chain
A process used by corporations to gather resources and transform them into goods and then transport them to consumers.
commodity chain
The raising of a single cash crop on large plots of land.
monoculture
A farm where no one lives on the farm and harvesting and planting is performed by farmers who live nearby or by migratory labor.
suitcase farm
Transportation networks that keep food cool throughout a trip.
cool chains
The use of economic, political, and social pressures to control former colonies. One way to describe the current state of global food production.
neocolonialism
An effort to promote higher incomes for producers and for more sustainable farming practices.
fair trade movement
Government provided support to farmers to ensure that consumers have a dependable, low-cost supply of food.
subsidy
When a company owns several smaller businesses involved in different steps in developing a product.
verticle integration
Rural residents; commonly groups of homes located near each other in a “hamlet” or village.
clustered settlements
A pattern in which farmers lived in homes spread throughout the countryside.
dispersed settlements
Plot boundaries, fields, that often had irregular shapes that reflected the location of physical features and traditional patterns of use. (i.e. “from the oak tree, 100 yards north, to the corner of the barn AND using larger features like streams or roads)
metes and bounds
Government organized land; areas six miles long and six miles wide.
township
France developed a farm system, where long thin sections of land ran perpendicular to a river.
French long-lot system
An economic model that suggested a pattern for types of products that farmers would produce at different positions relative to the market where they sold their goods. (a guide for geographers as they study the relative value of land and transportation costs.)
von Thünen Model
A flat and featureless plain.
isotropic
According to the von Thünen Model, this zone is closest to the Market zone and is a type of agriculture that includes market gardening/truck farming and dairying.
horticulture
The starting position for each land use relative to the market as well as where each land-use would end, according to the von Thünuen Model.
bid rent curve/bid price curve
Naturally occurring beneficial conditions that would prompt farmers to plant crops different from those predicted by von Thünen’s Model.
comparative advantage
An area of recreational parks or other undeveloped land, rather than a source of fuel.
greenbelt
The practice of raising and harvesting fish and other forms of food that live in water.
aquaculture
Food produced without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or other unnatural processes.
organic food
Aquaculture has dramatically increased the availability of fish protein to many people, which is now the fastest-growing form of food production on the planet and responsible for approximately 50% of the world’s seafood.
Blue Revolution
If the density of animals is greater than the grasslands can support, animals will damage the grasslands to the extent that the vegetation will not refresh itself even after the animals leave.
overgrazing
Food Desert
Areas with little or no access to healthy and affordable food.
A distinct regional approach to surveying land in Quebec, Louisiana and Texas where land is divided into tall narrow parcels.
long lot
A rural settlement pattern in which buildings are clustered along a road or river.
linear
The commercial grazing of animals confined to a specific area.
ranching
Agriculture characterized by the integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually by large corporations
agribusiness
The interchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world starting in the late 1400s.
Columbian Exchange
A region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East that was known for its bountiful arable land.
Fertile Crescent
A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms.
dispersed
Cultivation in which forests are burnt and cleared for planting
Slash & Burn
The maximum number of people a particular area can support.
carrying capacity
A type of farming using an integrated system where the crops grown are used to feed the livestock on the same farm.
mixed-crop-livestock
