Agriculture Overview Quiz

Agriculture

• Agriculture: The purposeful tending of crops and livestock to produce food and fiber.
• Commercial Agriculture: Farming primarily to sell products off the farm.
• Subsistence Agriculture: Farming enough food to feed one's family.
• Plant Domestication: Altering plants' behaviors, size, and genetics to benefit humans.
• Animal Domestication: Altering animals' behaviors, size, and genetics to benefit humans.
• First Agricultural Revolution: Around 10,000 years ago, humans began domesticating crops and animals.
• Terrace Farming: Creating "steps" into mountainsides to increase farmable land.
• Irrigation: Supplying dry land with water (ditches, pipes, streams).
• Carrying Capacity: The maximum population an environment can sustain.
• Slash-and-Burn: Clearing land by cutting and burning trees; fertilizing the soil.
• Swidden: Land prepared for agriculture using the slash-and-burn method.
• Deforestation: Loss of forests, often for farming or logging.
• Desertification: Loss of land productivity due to overfarming, overgrazing, drought, and climate change.
• Second Agricultural Revolution: Introduction of technology in agriculture, increasing yields.
• Enclosure Act: Laws closing off common lands for small farmers.
• Barbed Wire: Used for fencing to keep livestock from trampling crops.
• Third Agricultural Revolution (Green Revolution): 20th century agricultural technology (tractors, monoculture, irrigation, petroleum, GMOs, Agro-Biotechnology).
• GMOs: Genetically modified organisms; crops with new traits inserted through genetic engineering.
• Pastoral Nomadism: Subsistence farming based on herding domesticated animals.
• Ranching: Extensive commercial agriculture, allowing livestock to graze over large areas.
• Shifting Cultivation: Rotating fields to maintain soil fertility.
• Plantation: Estate farming of cash crops (especially in tropical areas).
• Market Gardening/Truck Farming: Commercial gardening and fruit farming.
• Milk Shed: Area around a dairy farm where milk products can be sold without spoiling.
• Winter Wheat: Planted in the fall, sprouting roots to survive winter.
• Spring Wheat: Planted in the spring, harvested later.
• Transhumance: Seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowlands.
• Mediterranean Agriculture: Specialized farming for dry-summer climates.
• Dairy Farming: Relating to milk and milk products.
• Extensive Farming: Farming with small capital and labor investment per area of land.
• Intensive Farming: Farming requiring large amounts of labor.
• Double-Cropping/Intercropping: Planting and harvesting on the same land twice or more per year.
• Feedlots: Areas where cattle are raised to gain weight.
• Agribusiness: Mechanized, large-scale farming, often corporate-owned.
• Supply Chain: Sequence of activities in delivering a product.
• Commodity Chain: Stages an item passes through, from producer to consumer.
• Monoculture: Farming Strategy of planting one high-yield crop each year.
• Suitcase Farm: Crops-only farm where owner may not live on or near the farm.
• Cool Chains: Refrigeration and transport methods for perishables.
• Luxury Crops: Non-subsistence plants like tea, cacao, coffee, tobacco.
• Neocolonialism: Continued exploitation of former colonies without direct political control.
• Fair Trade: Fair prices for producers in developing countries.
• Subsidy: Government payment to businesses or markets.
• Infrastructure: Basic facilities for society (roads, buildings, power, railroads).
• Clustered Settlement: Houses grouped together.
• Dispersed Settlement: Isolated farms.
• Metes and Bounds System: Using natural features to mark property lines.
• Township and Range System: Grid-patterned property lines.
• French Long-Lot System: Linear settlements along a river or road.
• Von Thunen Model: Agricultural model based on rent and transportation costs from the market
• Horticulture: Gardening, cultivation of crops with simple tools to subsistence level.
• Bid Rent Theory: Land price and demand change toward a central market area.
• Comparative Advantage: Ability to produce something at a lower opportunity cost.
• Organic Food: Food produced without pesticides, bioengineering, or high-energy radiation.
• Aquaculture: Raising marine and freshwater fish.
• Blue Revolution: Modern aquaculture that produces fish, shellfish, other aquatic products.
• Biodiversity: Diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat or the world.
• Overgrazing: Depletion of vegetation due to excessive animal feeding.
• Economies of Scale: Lowering average costs as output increases.
• Columbian Exchange: Exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world after Columbus.

Test your knowledge on various aspects of agriculture, including types of farming, plant and animal domestication, and agricultural techniques. This quiz covers key concepts from the first agricultural revolution to modern methods like irrigation and terrace farming.