Agriculture Geography

• These study notes cover key concepts in agriculture and its relationship with geography, settlement patterns, and economic forces.

Agriculture and Physical Geography

• Focus is on the connection between physical geography and agricultural practices.
• Physical Environment in Farming: The natural surroundings influence farming methods.
• Shifting Agriculture: A method where land is cleared and cultivated for a short period, then abandoned.
• Pastoral Nomadism: A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.
• Ranch Farming: Commercial grazing of livestock over an extensive area.
• Dairying: An agricultural activity focused on the raising of livestock for milk production.
• Plantation: A large-scale farm that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually in LDCs.
• Intensive Agriculture: Agriculture that involves effective and efficient use of labor on small plots of land to maximize crop yield.
• Extensive Agriculture: Characterized by low inputs of labor per unit land area.
• Commercial Market Gardening: The small scale production of fruits, vegetables, and flowers as cash crops sold directly to local consumers.
• Commercial Grain Farming: Agriculture involving the mass planting of grain crops such as wheat, barley, and millet.
• Truck Farming: Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because truck was a Middle English word meaning bartering or the exchange of commodities.
• Aquaculture: The cultivation of seafood under controlled conditions.
• Mediterranean Agriculture: An agricultural system practiced in the Mediterranean style climates of Europe, California, and portions of Chile and Australia, in which diverse specialty crops such as grapes, avocados, olives, and a host of nuts, fruits, and vegetables comprise profitable agricultural operations.
• Mixed Crop & Agriculture: Farming using both crops and livestock.
• Subsistence Farming: Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer’s family
• Commercial Farming: Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm.
• Hunting and Gathering: The killing of wild animals and fish and the gathering of fruits, roots, nuts, and other plants for sustenance.
• Tropical Climate: Hot and humid climate that produces certain foods and crops.
• Mid-latitude Climate: Moderate climate with distinct seasons, suited for specific crops.
• Dryland Climate: Arid climate that impact type of possible agriculture.
• Capital Intensive Agriculture: Agriculture in which machinery is put to use more than manual labor.
• Universalizing Crop: Crops that can be widely grown globally.
• Organic Farming: A form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control.
• Slash and Burn: A farming method involving the cutting of trees, then burning them to provide ash-enriched soil for the planting of crops.
• Crop Rotation: The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.
• Horticulture: The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
• Monoculture: The cultivation of a single crop in a given area.
• Feedlot: A plot of land on which livestock are fattened for market.
• Intertillage: The practice of planting taller, stronger crops to shelter lower crops from tropical downpours.
• Environmental Possibilism: The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives

Rural Survey Methods and Settlement Patterns

• Focus is on rural settlement patterns and methods of surveying rural settlements.
• Types of Rural Survey Methods: Various methods used to divide and allocate land.
• Metes and Bounds: A system of land surveying east of the Appalachian Mountains that relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features such as streams or trees.
• Long Lot: Distinct regional approach to land surveying found in the Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals.
• Township & Range: A rectangular land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior.
• Homestead System: Method of land distribution where people could apply to own land.
• Settlement Patterns: The spatial distribution of where people inhabit an area
• Clustered/Nucleated Settlement: A rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other and fields surround the settlement.
• Linear Settlement: A community or group of buildings that is formed in a long line.
• Dispersed Settlement: A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.
• Sequent Occupancy: The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.

Agricultural Hearths and Diffusion

• Focus is on major centers of domestication as well as the consequences of the Green Revolution.
• Hearth: The region from which innovative ideas originate.
• Independent Invention: The term for a trait with many cultural hearths that developed independent of each other.
• Domestication: The conscious manipulation of plant and animal species by humans in order to sustain themselves.
• Agricultural Hearths: Centers of origin for plant and animal domestication.
  • Fertile Crescent: A geographical area of fertile land in the Middle East stretching in a broad semicircle from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates.
  • Southeast Asia: Area where domestication began independently. Agriculture originated in this area around 4000 years ago.
  • East Asia: Region in China where rice was first domesticated.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: Area where domestication began independently.
  • Mesoamerica: Area where domestication began independently.
• Diffusion of Agriculture: The spread of agricultural practices and crops.
  • Contagious Diffusion: The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population
  • Immigration & Migration: The movement of people contributing to agricultural practices.
  • Trade Routes: Pathways for exchanging agricultural knowledge and goods.
  • The Columbian Exchange: The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.
• Modern Diffusion of Agriculture: Recent advancements impacting agriculture's spread.
  • Green Revolution: Rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers.
  • Demand for Meat: Increased meat consumption driving agricultural changes.

Agricultural Revolutions

• Focus is on explaining the advances and impacts of the first, second, and third agricultural revolutions.
• First Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Age): The transformation of human societies from hunting and gathering to agriculture, enabling the development of more complex social structures
• Second Agricultural Revolution (Industrial Revolution): Technological innovations and increased crop outputs during the Industrial Revolution.
• Third Agricultural Revolution (Green Revolution): Development and spread of higher-yielding crop varieties, particularly wheat and rice, since the 1960s.
• Neolithic Age: The period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolutions
• Industrial Revolution: The rapid development of industry that occurred in Britain in the late 18th and 19th centuries, brought about by the introduction of machinery; use of steam power, the growth of factories, and the mass production of manufactured goods.
• Enclosure Movement: The process of consolidating small landholdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.
• Urbanization: Movement of people from rural areas to cities

Green Revolution

• Focus is on explaining the consequences of the Green Revolution on food supply and the environment in the developing world.
• Green Revolution: Introduction of high-yield crops and modern agricultural techniques in developing countries
• Norman Borlaug: The "father of the Green Revolution" and Nobel laureate, bred disease-resistant, high-yield wheat.
• Double Cropping: Harvesting twice a year from the same field.

Economic Forces and Agriculture

• Focus is on explaining how economic forces influence agricultural practice.
• Subsistence Agriculture: Farming primarily for consumption by the farmer and their family
• Commercial Agriculture: Farming primarily for sale off the farm.
• Monocropping: Specializing in one crop, especially in less developed countries.
• Agribusiness: Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.
• Economies of Scale: Cost advantages reaped by companies when production becomes efficient.
• Commodity Chains: Series of links connecting the many places of production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged on the world market
• Bid-Rent Theory: Geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand on real estate changes as the distance towards the Central Business District (CBD) increases.
• Technology: Machinery helping improve agriculture production

Von Thünen Model

• Focus is on how the von Thünen model is used to explain patterns of agricultural production at various scales.
• Von Thünen Model: An agricultural model that explains and predicts agricultural land use patterns.
• Isotropic Plane: Flat and uniform land surface in the von Thünen model.
• Market/Urban Center: Focus of the model, where goods are sold.
• Dairy Farming & Market Gardening: Closest zone to the market due to perishability.
• Forest: Provided wood for fuel and construction in the original model.
• Grain and Cereal Crop: Less perishable items, located further from the market.
• Livestock Ranching: Requires extensive land, located in the outermost ring.
• Wilderness: Area beyond agricultural and economic use in the model
• Global Supply Chain: System of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer.
• Specialty Farming: Farming with the intention of selling produce to the people in the surrounding community.

Questions about agricultural practices, rural survey methods, diffusion in agriculture, types of farming systems, consequences of the Green Revolution.