Untitled

• Agriculture and rural land use patterns and processes are covered
• Includes settlement patterns and the origins and development of agriculture

Unit Overview

• About 12,000 years ago, people in Southwest Asia started deliberately growing crops and raising animals
• Agriculture diffused worldwide from its origins in Southwest Asia
• Four revolutions have propelled the evolution of agriculture and societies
• Agricultural productivity has risen dramatically since 1750 due to mechanization, chemicals, and research
• Increased productivity has enabled more people to work outside of agriculture
• These advancements have increased stress on the environment
• What people grow is shaped by climate, soils, and landforms
• Market proximity heavily influences the types of agricultural goods farmers produce
• Farmers have reshaped the landscape through deforestation, wetland drainage, and more
• Technology improvements have shifted agriculture towards larger enterprises and greater interdependence
• Technology and societal shifts influence food production and consumption patterns

Introduction to Agriculture

• Agriculture alters the landscape to raise crops and livestock for consumption and trade
• Physical geography and climate shape agriculture
• Warm climates with hillsides for coffee production
• Mediterranean soil and climate for olives, grapes, and figs
• Staple foods are impacted by climate and soil for people in a region
• Economic factors decide what farmers will yield
• Animals and crops need water
• Cattle herders in the Sahel need nearby water to the Sahara's edge
• Nutrient levels in the soil shape what people can grow
• Cotton needs nutrient-rich soil, while sorghum can grow in nutrient-poor environments
• Landforms influence agricultural activity, flat land provides excellent landscapes
• Humans have altered the physical environment to increase agricultural production
• These include irrigation, terrace farming, deforestation, desertification, and wetland drainage
• Climate determines the types of crops grown and animals raised by farmers
• Most of the earth's land surface supports some type of agricultural activity other than extreme
• Technology overcomes climatic obstacles
• Farmers in Iceland and Greenland can grow crops in greenhouses
• Food preferences shape agricultural activity, like raising other animals than hogs

Economic Factors and Agriculture

• Economic factors influence production
• Who consume the foods they produce differentiates economic factors
• Subsistence Agriculture's primary goal is to grow enough food or raise livestock to meet ones needs
• A secondary goal is to sell or trade any surplus for income or goods for income
• Most farmers live in less-developed regions of the world and have small farms of fewer than two acres
• Commercial Agriculture's primary goal is to grow enough crops or raise enough livestock to sell for profit
• It is becoming increasingly common in semiperiphery countries,
• Commercial farmers often purchase more land, equipment, and technology to increase yields
• Climate and economic variables interaction influence agriculture
• Animal herding takes place in drier climates from North Africa, US, and Canada as an example
• Intensive agricultural practices
• Farmers or ranchers use large amounts of energy, fertilizers, labor, or machines, to maximize yields
• Extensive agricultural practices
• Use fewer amounts of the inputs and typically result in less yields
• Heavy labor and capital investments are used which often results in high yields and profits in intensive practices
• Capital is the money invested in land, equipment, and machines
• This farming is often labor and animal intensive, like in rice paddies in Southeast Asia in Intensive Subsistent Agriculture
• Most of the farming is performed using low-paid human labor rather than machines
• Harvesting process, laborers cut the crops and take the outer husks off to expose the rice grains
• In Extensive Commercial Agriculture this type of farming uses low inputs of resources
• Goal of selling the product for profit in Ranching the common found in the western regions
• Few inputs are used in Extensive Subsistent Agriculture
• Often practiced in areas that have climatic such as tropical, semi-arid, or arid regions

Types of Agriculture

• Climate, development level, and purpose of the product influence agricultural practices
• There are classifications and regions
• Derwent Whittlesey, an American geographer identified the 11 main agricultural regions in 1936
• Drylands practice pastoral nomadism
• Tropical areas practice shifting cultivation
• Tropics/Sub-Tropical areas practice Plantation
• Cold and Warm Mid-Latitude areas practice Grain Mixture and Livestock
• Warm Mid-Latitude areas practice commercial gardening
• Cold to Warm Mid-Latitude areas practice Dairy
• Warm Mid-Latitude areas practice Mediterranean
• Dryland climates practice livestock ranching
• Warm Mid-Latitude area practice Intensive Subsistence
• Pastoral Nomadism is extensive agriculture in arid and semi-arid climates
• Nomads rely on animals, such as cattle, meat, material etc
• Shifting Cultivation is where farmers grow crops for a year or two in subsistent extensive farming
• Slash-and-burn agriculture, or swidden agriculture, clears land
• Maize (corn) in South America, and millet and sorghum in Sub-Saharan Africa
• A plantation is a commercial farm that specializes in one crop
• Located in low latitudes with hot, humid climates and substantial rainfall
• Coffee, cocoa, rubber, sugarcane, bananas, tobacco, tea, and cotton are common planation crops

Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods

• Rural settlement patterns are arranged in rural agricultural environments
• Population density differs
• Patterns of settlement are linked to the way humans interact
• Clustered, or nucleated settlements have groups of homes located near each other in a village
• Fostering a strong sense of place occurs
• North American farmers created dispersed settlements, where farmers live in homes spread throughout the countryside
• Governments promoted expansion and settlement to settle westward in the US and Canada
• Linear settlement: buildings and human activities near water body or transportation
• Rural land use has evolved as agricultural practices changed and adapted new technologies
• The British enclosure movement divided common land that farmers shared into individual plots
• The Green Revolution altered rural land use
• In England, fields often had irregular shapes, boundaries use the metes and bounds system
• Boundaries were short distances and referred to features of specific points
• In US, the Public Land Survey System created rectangular plots of a consistent size
• Government organized land into townships, areas six miles long and six miles wide
• French settlers in North America emphasized the value of access to water
• Developed the French long-lot system

Agricultural Origins and Diffusions

• Humans learning agriculture allowed to develop other non-agricultural technologies
• The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution was the origin of farming
• It was marked by the domestication of plants and animals and simple tools
• The First Agricultural Revolution began in five centers, or hearths
• Southwest Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Africa, and the Americas were the hearths.
• Geographer Carl Sauer claimed first hearths had high biodiversity on the edge of forests
• Humans had existed as hunters and gatherers who lived approximation in low population density regions
• Hunters in Central Asia were the first people to domesticate animals
• Horses transported goods as food sources as well as protection.
• Southwest Asians was the next to breed cattle, goats etc, and also breed cats horses
• People first used vegetative planting, planting stems of pre existing plants
• Trade of crops, animals, and innovations occurred later through a more advanced technological system
• Rivers, such as the Nile, the Chang Jiang, and the Indus had fertile soil from their repeated overflows
• Allowed farmers to support more intensive land practices an and freed those who didn't farm to better building

Diffusion of the First Agricultural Revolution

• The first major hearth of agriculture is the Fertile Crescent in Southwest Asia, extending from countries bordering the eastern coast of Mediterranean
• The arc contains Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf
• Major hearths existed along large river valleys like the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) and Nile
• People raised crops and domesticated animals
• There is independent innovation which include the domestication of the wheat/ pig in Asia and North America
• The unique hearth in America domesticated core products like maize (corn), sweet potatoes, and tomatoes
• First settlements grew into powerful states as civilization spread throughout the world
• Societies specialized labor, and technologies flourished
• Agricultural spread widely
• Trade flourished in areas like Africa via the Silk Road and connected East Asia to the Middle East

Columbian Exchange

• The Columbian Exchange occurred after Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492
• Afro-Eurasia plants and animals exchanged with those in the Americas
• Temperate climate crops such as potatoes and maize are still extensively grown in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas
• Domesticated animals from the Eastern Hemisphere, smallpox, influenza, malaria, and measles were diffused

Modern Agriculture and Economic History

• Technological diffusion continues to improve agriculture
• The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain marked the Second Agricultural one, coupling machines
• The Green Revolution had scientists create the conditions necessary to grow crops in climatically restrictive reasons

The Second Agricultural Revolution

• Technology aided farmers yields from tools from The Industrial Revolution (1700s and 1800s)
• Technology and selective breeding improved fertilization from animals as well
• The Green Revolution increased control of development from food products (1960s)
• The Enclosure Acts were British laws in Europe to enable landowners more efficiently to farm
• Mid-19th to early-20th century advances in tech improved food production, increased population, and generated factory job

Early Advances in Modern Agriculture

• Iron/Steel Plow (the 1819): Reduced human labor and broke through harder to soils with great yield per acre and size
• Mechanized Seed Drilling (around the 18th century): Planted seeds quickly to increase yeild and output
• McCormick Reaper/Harvester (the 1831): Reduced manual Labour in the area for better harvest management
• Grain Elevator (the 1849): Spaced out for to the storage and food supply from the environment
• Barbed Wire (1870s): Protected and kept livestock in areas inexpensive fences
• Mixed Nitrogen and Nitric Acid: (1903): Fertilizer increases the crop yields in a number of acrs
• Rotation of crops, crop-rotation, and techniques produce high productivity to put nutrients back in the soil Irrigation- applying the ammount of water correctly These things and a better infrastructure and transportation infrastructure from domestic production all helped growth
• This all was shifted by more trade

The Green Revolution

• In agriculture tech that affects farming is increasing production, jobs, and the environment
• The Third Agricultural Revolution (mid-20th century) science, research, and technology, is occurring
• Improved varieties of grain most evident, facilitated by crossbreeding seedlings in laboratories

Green Revolution

• With more diseases, fertilizer, yield, and quicker results of grains this will improve the planet
• Borlaug's Hybrid allowed for quick growing in Mexico and India, while scientists increase production
• Seed Hybridization is used from two different plants
• Mechanical Tech increase farming of seeds and tilling

GMOs' Impact

• GMOs reduce chemicals, and resistance of disease, and withstanding for chemicals
• Positives: Food increases during the global revolution, also new mech tools, harvest, led to reduce of hunger
• Negatives: Depleted native products, while farmers depend increasingly in humans

World Regions Yield Change

• Yield increased by 208% in wheat; 157% in corn 109% in rice, and 78% in potatos from 1960-2000
• Business investments have increased because government found seed hybridization fertilizer was worth it
• Wealth increased by 1/5 but it has become worse to pollute fertilizers, which does some long-term damages
• Gender Inequality increases which means much of the population are doing all of production
• It is hard for small regions in Africa because of harsh environments, large investment size, and some diseases

The World in the African Region after Green Revolution

• A private company has helped the growth
• Global food companies increase food production
• Introduction tech tools and irrigation help reduce starvation
• The lack of proper infrastructure has some bad yields

Von Thünen Model

• The model explains and impacts the rural land and economic stability
• Theory components of geography are economic
• Model for agriculture where farmers produce crops to their market
• Farms made up several agriculture parts
• In 1836 model assumed economics, farming, markets etc. are all factors for their own
• Decisions based on factors such transport and produce
• Perishability can determine how products can survive

Agricultural Zones Around the River

• The model zone made clear that farmers should use market gardening and dairt farming
• Second zone used to include forrests
• Other markets are in water
• Large areas lead the amount of ring
• Distant market change made these adjustments
• Demand products led changed of oil
• Farmers need to pay market is most valuable

World Economy

• Farms need to be large increase in technology
• Value of land increased by location of agriculture
• For long periods farmers need to find new revenue such a water distribution
• Farms that has 70% are to use fresh water and can damage because of leak and pollution and bad infrastructure
• Reduce overgraze of plants
• Farmers reduce chemicals the help of the new tech, the earth will rebalance and produce crops

The global system in agriculture

• Agriculture has been firmly entrenched
• Agricultural production must meet all customer needs for large production to the rest of the world
• Ghana exports to the United States agricultural products
• Developing countries and their farmers might afford their own

The Colonial Effect

• As most plantation agriculture of luxury items, cocoa is produced in the periphery but consumed primarily in the core
• The colonial effect creates poverty for the native products and helps them rely on imports to survive
• These can hurt because of environment such as political unbalances
• There is no support from world organizations can save time but at the expensive of native farmers
• Coffee could be used to help the world but are the most used to neocolonialism to help and supply the market

Fair Trade Impact

• Help consumers that were more aware of their products and have more stable incomes, while the local have their home
• In effect more farmers trade their products because this causes many problems
• Many lack fair work conditions
• The fair world helps those at the bottom of the production chain

Governmental Help

• Subsidies can help the farm and keep stability in their income but also in order those on the top of the supply chain
• Many products are sold through the continent
• As much as the people have had over the wealth in they local city they never needed local business to survive

Women in Agriculture

• Roles of women in agricultural production and consumption
• The way women live has changed now that more opportunities have appeared
• Many people feel they will work outside and to have them the support, a good government might help the process

Economic Development

• If the world can create new farms these can have support
• Many can go into the area
• Farm help because can increase product
• Food safety is major impact in society
• If more wealth are create on area that the need in food, a well planed market place Those products will never give money
• Many can go into the cities and not be able to feed their families Therefore will create problems