Origins of Settlement: 800-1500 BC

Origins of Settlement

• In 800 BC, the world's population lived in small hunter-gatherer groups, primarily in subtropical areas at a subsistence level.
• These people were typically migratory.
• The Neolithic revolution saw the transition from migratory hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers.
• Domestication of animals (sheep, goats, cattle) occurred.
• Cereals (wheat, rice, and maize) were cultivated.
• Food surpluses allowed some community members to specialize in non-farming tasks.
• Three river basins (Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, and Indus) shared similar natural characteristics.
• Hills provided pasture for domestic animals.
• Flat floodplains were located near large rivers.
• Fertile silt was deposited during times of flooding.
• A relatively dry climate maintained soil fertility and enabled the use of mud for building.
• A warm subtropical climate prevailed.
• Rivers provided a permanent water supply for domestic use and irrigation as farming developed.
• By 1500 BC, larger towns and urban centers had emerged.
• There were administrators to organize crop collection and food supply distribution.
• Traders were present.
• Engineers developed irrigation systems.
• A ruling elite collected taxes to support the military, priesthood, and other non-productive members like artists, philosophers, and astronomers.

Settlement Location Factors

• Water supply is a crucial factor.
• Building materials are necessary for construction.
• Arable land is needed for crop cultivation.
• Grazing land is required for animals.
• Ease of communication is important.
• Natural hazards, such as flooding, should be avoided.
• Defense from flooding via shelter from gales.
• Defense capabilities are a consideration.
• Fuel supply is essential.

Situation and Site of Early Settlements

• Site refers to the characteristics of the specific location of a settlement, which was vital for its initial establishment and growth.
• Situation describes a place's location in relation to its surroundings like neighboring settlements, rivers, and uplands.
• This situation determines if a settlement remained small or grew into a larger town or city.
• Early settlements were rural economies focused on self-sufficiency.
• Transport systems were limited.

Site Factors

• Access to a water supply is essential year-round.

• Rivers needed to be clean and safe.

• In areas with limited rainfall, settlements were established where the water table was close to the surface, creating wet-point sites.

• Flood avoidance was crucial.

• Villages were built on mounds or river terraces in English Fenlands and coastal marshes.

• Being above flood level resulted in dry-point sites.

• Building materials were necessary.

• Materials were heavy to transport and transport was poor.

• Settlements needed to be near sources of stone, wood, or clay.

• Food supply was important.

• Ideal locations supported both animal rearing and crop cultivation.

• Climate, soil fertility, and type influenced the quality, quantity, and range of farm produce.

• Relief factors must be considered.

• Flat, low-lying land was easier to build on (e.g., North German Plain).

• The need for defense sometimes superseded this consideration.

• Defense was essential against surrounding tribes.

• Some sites were surrounded on 3 sides by water (e.g., Durham).

• Others were built on high ground with commanding views (e.g., Edinburgh).

• Nodal points, where valleys meet, were often occupied by settlements that became route centers.

• Confluence towns are found where rivers join.

• Khartoum is located at the junction of the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

• Gap towns are settlements or sites that controlled routes through hills or mountains, such as Dorking and Carcassonne.

• Fuel supply was needed for cooking and warmth.

• Firewood was the main source of fuel.

• Firewood is still is used in many of the least economically developed areas, such as the Sahel.

• Settlements have tended to grow where routes cross rivers, creating bridging points.

• For trade and transport, the lowest bridging point before a river entered the sea (e.g., Newcastle Upon Tyne) was significant.

• Harbors with sheltered sea inlets and river estuaries were suitable for establishing coastal fishing ports.

• Later, deep harbors were required as ships became larger.

• Shelter aspect is important.

• North-facing slopes offered favored settlement sites.

• These sites are protected from cold, southerly winds and receive maximum insolation, opposite in the Northern Hemisphere.

• Resources influenced settlement locations.

• Settlements grew in places with access to specific local resources (e.g., salt, iron ore).

• Choice of site today is likely to be political, social, and economic.

• Roberts developed a model using intrinsic qualities (site) and extrinsic qualities (situations).

• Extrinsic factors change over time, making settlements dynamic.

Functions of Settlements

• Rural settlements may function as market agriculture centers, route centers/transport hubs, small service towns, defensive locations, or dormitory/overspill/satellite communities.
• Urban settlements in developed countries often function as mining centers, manufacturing/industrial hubs, or route centers/transport hubs.
• Other urban functions include retail/wholesale, religious/cultural activities, trade/commerce/finance administration, resort/recreation, residential areas or new towns.
• In developing countries, urban centers may serve as administration hubs, route centers/ports, marketing/agriculture centers, mining locations, commercial areas, religious sites, or residential zones.

Economic Base Theory

• Settlements perform two broad categories of economic activity.
• Basic economic activity produces goods or services for export, generating economic growth.
• Non-basic economic activity produces goods or services within the settlement, contributing little to economic growth.

Differences Between Urban and Rural Settlement

• There is wide range of views on the minimum population required for a settlement to be termed a town.
• Less than 25% of the population engaged in agriculture is a typical dividing point between urban and rural.
• Rural settlements are associated with primary activities.
• In urban areas, most of the workforce are employed in secondary and tertiary industries.
• Rural areas have recently become commuter or dormitory settlements for people working in adjacent urban areas.
• This includes locations for smaller, footloose and also in high-tech industries.
• Services, such as schools, hospitals, shops, public transport, and banks, are usually limited in rural areas.
• In rural areas, settlements are widely spaced, consisting of individual farms, residential areas, and small-scale industry.
• In urban areas, settlements are closely packed, with greater land use for residential, industrial, service, and open-space provision.
• Rural settlements tend to have more inhabitants over 65 years old.
• Urban settlements have a higher economic activity and/or secondary school age population.
• Urban areas have spread outwards into the rural fringe.

Rural-Urban Continuum

• In highly urbanized countries like Japan and the UK, there are no longer clear-cut divisions between town and country.
• Transition Zones are present
• Extreme rural areas
• An index of rurality using variables include people +65.
• Intermediate rural areas
• Proportion employed in primary, secondary, tertiary sectors
• Intermediate non-rural areas
• Population density, mobility
• Extreme non-rural areas
• Proportion commuting
• Distance from a larger town

Rural Settlements Pattern and Morphology

• The patterns and shapes of settlements come in various forms.
• Isolated settlements are individual buildings in areas of extreme physical difficulty where the natural resources are insufficient to maintain more than a few inhabitants.
• Example of isolated settlement type: The Amazon rainforests, planned pioneer areas (Canadian prairies)
• Dispersed settlements are a scattering of individual farms and houses across an area, forming a hamlet, that are often separated by 2-3km of farmland.
• Nucleated settlements are common in rural areas where buildings have been grouped closely together for economic, social, or defensive purposes.
• Nucleated settlements come in several forms such as
• Regular grid
• Regular radial
• Irregular grid
• Irregular agglomerated.
• Loose-knit settlements are similar to nucleated settlements except the buildings are more spread out.
• The space is taken up by individual farms, which are still found within the village itself.
• Linear or Ribbon settlements are where buildings are strung out along a main line of communication or along a confined river valley.
• Street Villages: Planned linear villages
• Can be regular or irregular
• Rings and Green Villages are found in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Amazon.
• Houses are built around a central area, which was left open for tribal meetings and communal life.
• Planned settlements. -Dispersed and Nucleated Rural Settlements depend on local physical and economic conditions, time and distance factors, and social factors.
• Conditions of hardship create dispersed settlements.
• Natural resource limit dispersion
• A lack of transport also limits settlement
• Forms of land tenure
• Civil unrest

Causes of Dispersion

• Increased incidence of dispersed settlement:
• Growth of large estates.
• Extension of farming into hilly areas.

Causes of Nucleation

• Majority of humans have preferred to live in groups.
• Either a limited or excess water supply.
• The need to group together for defense and protection
• Feudal open-field system of farming encouraged nucleation

Urbanisation

• Urbanisation is defined as the process by which an increasing proportion of the total population lives in towns and cities.
• Rapid urbanisation has occurred twice in time and space.

1. During 19th Century: In economically more developed countries

• Industrialisation led to a huge demand for labour in mining and manufacturing centers.
• Urbanisation was a consequence of economic development

2. Since the 1950's: In economically less developed countries

• Migration from rural areas and the high rate of natural increase in population has resulted in uncontrolled growth in many cities.

• Urbanisation is developing countries as a consequence of population movement and growth is not an integral part of development

• The use of different criteria by countries to define city size, collecting accurate census data or accurately estimating natural changes made annually between each 10-year census, and obtaining accurate migration figures. Population data is not given due to these problems.

  • Especially where refugees and illegal immigrants are involved

• Noticeable trends in the growth of so called' million cities' since the mid 1980's

• Most large cities are in South-East Asia and Latin America

• Most fast growing cities are in South-East Asia although in-migration is usually more significant than natural increase

• Although the rate of growth slowed in many developed countries in the 2nd half of 20th century

  • It has increased again, mainly due to immigration, in this century

• In China, with the largest cities, it is those nearest to rural areas that are growing due to rural-urban migration

Models of Urban Structures

• Geographers and sociologists tried to identify and explain variations in spatial patterns.
• Patterns show differences and similarities in land use, and/or social groupings within the city.
• Reflect how urban areas evolved economically and socially in response to changing conditions over a period of time.
• Urban models have limitations and have always been open to criticism.
• Only by understanding the early structure of an urban area that we can appreciate the changing processes that are shaping our physical and social cities today.

Burgess, 1924

• Attempted to identify areas within Chicago based on the outwards expansion of the city and the socioeconomic groupings of its inhabitants.

Basic assumptions:

• The city was built on flat land which gave equal advantages in all directions
• Morphological features such as river valleys were removed.
• Transport systems were of limited significance being equally easy, rapid, and cheap in every direction.
• Land values are highest in the center of the city and declined rapidly outwards to give a zoning of urban functions and land use.
• The oldest buildings were in, or close to, the city center.
• Buildings became progressively newer towards the city boundary.
• Cities contained a variety of well-defined socio-economic and ethnic areas
• The poorer classes had to live near the city center place of work
• Couldn't afford transport/expensive housing
• There were no concentrations of heavy industry

Burgess' concentric zones:

1. The central business district (CBD): Contains major shops and offices, center for commerce and entertainment, focus for transport routes.
2. Transition/Twilight Zone: Where oldest housing is either deteriorating into slum property or being 'invaded' by light industry. Inhabitants are poorer social groups and first-generation immigrants
3. Low-class housing: Occupied by people who escaped Zone 2 or by 2nd generation immigrants who work in nearby factories
4. Medium-class housing: Higher quality housing and council estates
5. High-class housing: Occupied by people who can afford the expensive properties and the high cost of commuting.

Hoyt, 1934

• Based on the mapping of eight housing variabilities. Tried to account for changes in the distribution of residential patterns

Basic assumptions:

• Wealthy people who could afford the highest rates, chose the best sites
• Resolved land use conflicts
• Wealthy residents could afford private cars or public transport so lived further from industry and nearer to main roads.
• Similar land use attracted other similar land uses, concentrating a function in a particular area and repelling others
• Led to sector development

Hoyt's sector model:

• Areas of highest rent tend to be alongside main lines of communication and that the city grow in wedges
• Once an area developed a land use, it retained that land use

Mann, 1969

• Combines the ideas of Burgess's zones and Hoyt's sectors
• The twilight zone was not concentric to the CBD but lay to one side of the city which allowed, elsewhere, wealthier residential areas
• Heavy industry was found in sectors along main lines of communication
• Low-class housing should be called zone of older housing
• Higher-class/modern housing was usually found away from industry smoke
• Local governments played a role in slum clearance and gratification
• Led to large council estates which took the working class/low incomes to the city edge

Ullman and Harris, 1949

• Produced a more realistic model but consequently ended with a more complex model
• Modern cities have more complex structures than that suggested by Burgess and Hoyt
• Cities do not grow from one CBD, but from several independent nuclei
• Each nucleus acts as a growth point
• In time, there will be an outward growth from each nucleus until they merge as one large urban center
• If a city becomes too large and congested, some functions may be dispersed to new nuclei

The Land Value Model/Bid-Rent Theory

• Based upon locational rent
• In a free market the highest bidder will obtain the use of the land
• Highest bidder is likely to be the one who can obtain the maximum profit from that site so can pay the highest rent
• The most expensive sites in most cities are the CBD
• Peak land value intersection - the most valuable site within the CBD
• Due to accessibility and the shortage of space

Functional Zones within the City

• Different parts of the city have their own specific function

The Age of the Area:

• Buildings usually get older towards the city center except that most CBD's and many old inner-city areas have been redeveloped and modernised
• Land values: These increase rapidly from the city boundary in towards the CBD
• Accessibility: Some functions are more dependent on transport than others

The Central Business District

• The CBD is regarded as the center for retailing, office location and service activities
• Contains principal commercial streets and main public buildings
• Other types of city-center land use
• Government and public buildings, churches, educational establishments
• Non-CBD functional elements

The Delimitation of the CBD

1. Formulate one or more hypothesis before you begin your field work
2. Collect, as a group, the relevant data
3. Determine how you will record that data
4. Discuss findings

The Main Characteristics of the CBD

• Contains major retailing outlets
• Requires largest threshold population
• Retail outlets compete for the prime sites
• Contains high proportion of the city's main offices
• Contains the tallest buildings (competition for land)
• Greatest number and concentration of pedestrians
• Greatest volume and concentration of traffic
• Greatest accessibility
• Meeting point of major lines
• Highest land value in the city
• Constantly undergoing change
• Shops are department stores, specialists' shops
• Multi-story car parks
• Cultural/historical museums and castles

Retailing

• Traditional Shopping patterns
• Hierarchy contains two main types of shops:
• Those selling convenience/low-order goods, bought frequently (daily)
• Not sufficiently high in value (small chain stores)
• Those selling comparison/high-order goods
• Bought less frequently but need a higher threshold of population
• Town centers
• Go through constant change either to attract new customers or to restrict losses of existing shoppers to the regional shopping centers or to internet shopping
• Out of town shopping centers
• Shopping outlets began location on the edge of towns and cities to take advantage of economic of scale, lower rents, and more pleasant and planned environment
• Allows for future expansion, essential larger car parking areas
• Developments have included the following:
• Supermarkets
• Retail parks
• Regional shopping centers

Financial Zone

• Including banking, insurance, accountancy
• New technology has allowed the easier transfer of data and had reduced the need for face-to-face contact

Industrial Zones

• Traditional industries closed down or moved to edge-of-city sites
• Replacement industries are often on a small scale and compete for space with warehouses and DIY shops
• Most industries are 'footloose' and include high-tech, electronics, IT software houses, media/news companies
• Food processing and distribution firms and those providing services (waste recycling)

Residential Zone

• Some inner-city areas have undergone a process known as gentrification
• Old, sub-standard housing is bought, modernised, and occupied by more wealthy families

Functional Zones in Developing Cities

• Inner Zone
• Historical, wealthy part
• Often in high-security, modern, high-rise apartments
• Sometimes well-guarded, detached houses
• Middle Zone
• Middle class
• Self-constructed houses
• Authorities may have added some basic infrastructure and amenities
• Running water, sewerage, electricity
• Outer Zone
• Migrants (informal dwellings/shanty towns)
• Quality of housing decreases rapidly with distance from city center
• Industry
• Planned within inner zone or grown spontaneously along main lines of communication

Problems

• Housing
• Authorities unable to provide adequate shelter and services for rapidly growing urban population
• People sleep on pavement
• People rent single rooms
• People build own shelter on and which they do not own and which they have no permission to build

Services

• Lack electricity, running water, and sewerage removal
• Hinders industrial growth and affects the material standard of living in homes
• Shortage of schools, teachers, hospitals, police and ambulance services are unreliable

Pollution and Health

• Drinking water is often contaminated with sewage which gives rise to outbreaks (cholera, typhoid, and dysentery)
• Uncollected rubbish is a breeding ground for diseases

Unemployment and Underemployment

• New arrivals into the city outnumber the number of jobs available
• Majority of people who do work are in the informal sector
• Street trading, food processing, services, local crafts

Transport

• Road network is likely to be unable to deal with large volume of traffic
• Severe air pollution and high accident rate

Farming and Food Supply

• Environmental factors exert a major influence in determining the type of farming practiced in any area
• The environment is seen to be an input converted into monetary terms
• The optimum location is where total cost of production per unit output is minimised for that crop/livestock
• The profitability of producing the crop/rearing animals is reduced when increased inputs cease to give proportionate increases in output (law of diminishing returns)

Temperature

• Critical for plant growth
• The growing season is the number of days between the last severe frost of Spring and the first of Autumn.
• Synonymous with the number of frost-free days that are required for plant growth
• Frost is more likely to occur in hollows and valleys
• Beneficial effect as it breaks up the soil and kills pests in winter
• But also damages plants and destroys fruit blossom in spring

Precipitation and Water Supply

• The mean annual rainfall for an area determines whether its farming is likely to be based upon tree crops, grass/cereals, or irrigation
• Depends on temperature and rate of evapotranspiration
• Type of precipitation is also vital:
• Long steady periods of rain lead to infiltration into soil
• Short, heavy downpours lead to surface runoff and erosion
• Hail is damaging to crops
• Snow is beneficial as it insulates ground from extreme cold in winter and provides moisture on melting

Wind

• Strong winds increase evapotranspiration rates
  • Allow soils to dry and become vulnerable to erosion
  • Hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes can destroy crops
• Other winds are beneficial to agriculture
  • Melting snow on Alps, increasing length of growing season
  • The föhn and chinook winds help melt snow in mountain areas

Altitude

• The growth of various crops is controlled by decrease in temperature with height
• As height increases, so too does exposure to wind and the amounts of cloud, snow and rain, while growing season decreases
• Soil takes longer to develop at higher altitudes
• Fewer mixing agents present

Angle of Slope (gradient)

• Slope affects the depth of soil
• Influences erosion and limits the use of machinery
• Many slopes in Southeast Asia have been terraced to increase the area of cultivation

Aspect

• Important part of microclimate
• Adret slopes:
  • In Southern hemisphere, slopes that face North
  • Higher temperatures, drier soils
  • Receive maximum incoming radiation and sunshine leading to better conditions for crops and trees
• Ubac slopes:
  • In southern hemisphere, slopes that face South
  • Lower temperatures, moister soils
  • May be permanently in the shade

Soils (edaphic factors)

• Farming depends upon the depth, stoniness, water-retention capacity, aeration, texture, structure, pH, leaching and mineral content of the soil

1. Clay soils:

• Heavy, acidic, poorly drained, cold
• Give higher economic returns under permanent grass

2. Sandy soils:

• Lighter, less acidic, too well-drained, warmer
• More suited to vegetables and fruit

3. Lime soils (chalk):

• Light in texture, alkaline
• Give high cereal yields

Global Warming

• Greenhouse effect will not only lead to an increase in temperature but also to changes in rainfall patterns
• Some places become wetter and stormier, while others become drier

Cultural (Human) Factors Affecting Farming

• Land Tenure
• Farmers may be owner-occupiers, tenants, landless laborers, or state employees on the land which they farm
• The Latifundia system:
  • Land is organised into large, centrally managed estates worked by peasants who are semi-serfs
• Land is worked by the landless laborers among the peasantry who sell their labor
• Some peasant farmers in Latin America have some land of their own held under insecure tenure arrangements
• Cash-tenancy: when farmers have to give as much as 80% of their income or a fixed pre-arranged rent to landowner
  • Short-term lease: overcrop and cannot afford fertiliser/maintain farm buildings
  • Long-term lease: farmer may try to invest but this may lead to serious debt
• Share-cropping: Farmers have to pay, as a form of rent for occupying the land, part of their crop or animal produce to the landowner
• Plantation: variant form of the large estate system in that it is usually operated commercially, producing crops for the world market rather than local use as in latifundia
  • Laborers are landless and are given a fixed wage

Inheritance Laws and the Fragmentation of Holdings

• On the death of a farmer:
• The land is divided equally between all his sons
• Dowry customs may include the giving of land with a daughter on marriage
• Led to sub-division of farms into numerous scattered small fields
• Fragmentation results in time being wasted in moving from one distant field to another
• Benefits as it can enable a wider range of crops to be grown on land of different qualities

Farm Size

• Inheritance laws tend to reduce the size of individual farms and result in subsistence level
• Large farms:
• Extensive on more marginal land
• Commercial in the EU and North America
• Animal grazing (sheep, cattle ranching); plantations and temperate cereals (wheat)
• Further from larger cities
• Areas of low population density and/or under populated
• Increasing in size and efficiency due to amalgamation and mechanisation
• Small farms:
• Intensive on flat, fertile land
• Subsistence in Asia, Latin America and Africa
• Tropical crops (rice) and market gardening
• Nearer larger cities
• Areas of high population densities or overpopulated
• Decreasing in size and efficiency due to fragmentation and hand labor

Economic Factors Affecting Farming

• Transport
• Time taken and cost of moving raw materials to farm and produce to the market
• Perishable commodities need speedy transport to the market, demanding an efficient transport network
• Items should ideally be grown as near to their market as possible
• Market
• Closely linked with transport
• Market demands depends upon the size and affluence of the market population, its religious and cultural beliefs
• Preferred diet
• Changes in taste and fashion over time and health scares influence demand
• Capital
• Most economically developed countries (supporting bank systems, private investment, government subsidies) have large reserves of readily available finance
• Has been used to build up capital-intensive types of farming such as Dairying, market gardening and mechanised cereal growing
• Increase in inputs ceases to give a corresponding increase in output
• Farmers in developing countries lack support from financial institutions and have limited capital resources
• Must resort to labor-intensive methods of farming
• Technology
• Technological developments include: New strains of seed, crossbreeding of animals, improved machinery and irrigation
• May extend the area of optimal conditions and the limits of production

The Farming System

• The farming system operates as follows:
• INPUTS
• Physical inputs: Temperature, precipitation, wind, altitude, slope, aspect, soils
• Cultural inputs: Tenure, inheritance, farm size
• Economic inputs: Transport, markets, capital, technology, governments, buildings
• Behavioral elements: Age, ambition, perception, knowledge, experience
• PROCESS
• Decision-making processes by:

1. Individual farmers
2. Groups of farmers
3. The state

• OUTPUTS
• Patterns of land use, animal production, and crop production
• RESULTS
• Outputs exceed inputs = Profit and wealth
• Income from outputs equals cost of inputs = Stability
• Outputs less than inputs = Loss and poverty
• FEEDBACK MECHANISMS
• Negative feedback: Equilibrium is maintained through reinvestment and innovation returned to system
• Positive feedback: Disequilibrium increases, leading to stagnation and decline
• System can experience losses from natural hazards such as drought, hail, and disease
• Practical, cultural, economic and behavioral factors form the inputs
• Where farming is less developed, physical factors are usually more important but as human inputs increase, physical controls become less significant
• Can be applied to all types of farming, regardless of scale and location

Types of Agricultural Economy

1. Arable, Pastoral, and Mixed Farming

• Arable farming:
• Growing of crops, usually on flatter land where soils are of a higher quality
• Pastoral farming:
• Raising of animals, usually on land which is less favorable to arable farming
• Colder, wetter, steeper, and higher land
• If carrying capacity is exceeded, the quality of the soil and grass is not maintained and then erosion and desertification may result
• Mixed farming:
• Growing of crops and the rearing of animals together
• Practiced on commercial scale in developed countries
• Reduces risk of relying on monoculture and food shortage

2. Subsistence and Commercial Farming

• Subsistence farming:
• Provision of food by farmers only for their own family/the local community
• No surplus
• Self-survival = growing/rearing a wide range of crops/animals
• Lacks capital and technology
• Most vulnerable to food shortages
• Commercial farming:
• Large profit-making scale
• Farmers seek to maximize yields per hectare

3. Shifting and Sedentary Farming

• Shifting cultivation:
• Seasonal movement of animals in search of pasture or moving to new agricultural plots
• Now limited to a few places where there are low population densities and a limited demand for food
• Where soils are poor and become exhausted after 3-4 years of cultivation
• Sedentary:
• Farmers remain in one place to look after their crops or to rear animals

4. Extensive and Intensive Farming

• Extensive: Carried out on a large scale
• Amounts of labor and capital are small in relation to the area being farmed
• Yields per hectare and the output per farmer are both low
• Amount of labor is still limited but the input of capital may be high
• Yields per hectare are often low but the output per farmer is high
• Intensive: Relatively small scale
• Amount of labor is high, even if the input of capital is low in relation to area farmed
• Yields per hectare may be high although the output per farmer is often low
• Amount of capital is high, but the input of labor is low
• Both the yields per hectare and the output per farmer are high

World Distribution of Farming Types

• Boundaries between farming types, as drawn on a map, are usually very arbitrary
• One type of farming merges gradually with a neighboring type; there are few rigid boundaries
• Several types of farming may occur within broad area (e.g. in West Africa)
• Sedentary cultivators live alongside nomadic herdsmen
• A specialized crop may be grown locally
• A plantation crop in an area otherwise used by subsistence farmers
• Types of farming alter over time with changes in economics, rainfall, soil characteristics, behavioral patterns, and politics
• Demonstrates a close relationship between farming types and the physical environment/pattern of biomes
• It also disguises the important human-economic factor that operates at a more local level

Hunters and Gatherers

• Considered to be archaic way of life
• The original lifestyle is now largely/totally destroyed by contact with outside world
• Does not constitute a true farming type
• No animals or crop production involved
• All early societies had to rely on hunting birds and animals, catching fish, collecting berries, nuts and fruit in order to survive
• The Bushman of the Kalahari, the pygmies of Central Africa, several Amerindian tribes in the Brazilian rainforest and the Australian Aborigines
• Have varied diet resulting from their intimate knowledge of the environment
• Each group needs an extensive area from which to obtain their basic needs

Nomadic Herding

• Occurs where the climate is too extreme to support permanent settled agriculture
• Farmers become nomadic pastoralists
• Live in inhospitable environments where vegetation is sparse and climate is arid or cold
• Movement is determined by the seasonal nature of rainfall and the need to find new sources of grass for their animals.
• The Bedouin and Tuareg in the Sahara, the Rendille and Maasai in Kenya
• The indigenous Sami of Northern Scandinavia have to move when their pastures become snow covered in winter
• Fulani in West Africa may migrate to avoid tsetse fly
• Total nomadism: where the nomad has no permanent home
• Semi-nomads: may live seasonally in a village
• No ownership of land
• The animals are the source of life such as milk, meat, blood, wool, skins, dung, transport, barter

Northern Kenya: Nomadic Herders

• Rendille have learned to survive in extreme conditions
• All they need are their animals such as camels, goats, and a few cattle
• Tribe is constantly on the lookout for rain
• Way of life is changing due to land becoming overpopulated and resources overstretched because of increases in both humans and animals along with a scarecity of water and vegetation

Shifting Cultivation (Extensive Subsistence Agriculture)

• Subsistence farming was the traditional type of agriculture in most tropical countries before the arrival of the Europeans
• Still practiced by the milpa of Latin America and ladang of South-East Asia
• Areas covered are becoming smaller due to rainforest clearance
• Most energy efficient of all farming systems, operating in close harmony with the environment

Amazon Basin: Shifting Cultivation

• With the help of stone axes and machetes, the Amerindians clear small areas of 1 ha in the forest
• Main crop, manioc is planted along with yams, pumpkins, beans, tobacco, and cocoa
• The Amerindian diet is supplemented by hunting, mainly for tapirs and monkeys, fishing and collecting fruit
• No long-term adverse effect upon the environment as nutrients and organic matter can build up sufficiently to allow the land to be re-used within 25 years
• Traditional Amerindian way of life is being threatened by the destruction of the rainforest
• Also known as slash and burn agriculture

Intensive Subsistence Farming

• Involves maximum use of land with neither fallow nor any wasted land
• Yields in South-East Asia are high enough to support a high population density
• Highest-yielding crop is rice, which is grown thickly on river floodplains and river deltas
• Rice is grown on terraces cut into steep hillsides where soils have formed from weathered volcanic rock located in Indonesia and the Philippines
• The farms are often as small as 1 hectare, due to population pressure and inheritance laws
• Rice growing is labor intensive
• Construct embankments, build irrigation channels, prepare fields, plant, weed and harvest

The Ganges Valley: Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

• Rice, with high nutritional value, can form up to 40% of total diet in Northern India and Western Bangladesh
• Rice is planted as soon as the monsoon rains have flooded paddy fields
• Harvested in October when rains have stopped, land is dried out
• Where water is available for longer periods, a second rice crop may be grown

Tropical Commercial (Plantation) Agriculture

• Plantations are developed in tropical areas where rainfall is sufficient for trees to be the natural vegetation
• Monoculture approach to farming
• Cash-crops grown for export, not used or consumed locally
• Need high capital input to clear, drain and irrigate land
• Need much manual labor
• Examples: rubber, coffee, tea, palm oil, bananas, sugar cane and tobacco

Advantages:

• Higher standards of living for the local workforce
• Capital for machines, fertilizer and transport provided initially by colonial power, now the transnational corporations
• Use of fertilizers and pesticides improves output
• Increases local employment
• Housing, schools, health services and transport provided, also often electricity and water supply

Disadvantages:

• Exploitation of local workforce, minimal wage
• Cash crops grown instead of food crops leading to local population have to import foodstuffs
• Most produce is sent to Europe and North America
• Dangers of relying on monoculture resulting in fluctuations in world prices and demand
• Over use of land has led in places to soil exhaustion and erosion

Malaysia: Tropical Commercial (Plantation) Agriculture

• Estate exceeding 40 ha in size
• First plantations were coffee, but were replaced at the end of the 19th century by rubber
• Rubber is indigenous to the Amazon Basin, but some seeds were smuggled out of Brazil in 1877, and brought to Kew Gardens in London
• Trees thrive in hot, wet climates, growing best on the gentle lower slopes of the mountains forming the spine of the Malay Peninsula
• Set up in 1970's was the Federal Land Development Authority
• Clears areas of forest, divides the land into small plots, plants young rubber trees
• Provided fertilizer and pesticides, later bought and marketed the crop
• The Malaysian plantation industry is now heavily dependent on just one crop: oil palm
• Higher yields, higher prices, lower production costs and less intensive use of labor

Extensive Commercial Pastoralism (Livestock Ranching)

• Returns the lowest net profit per hectare of any commercial type farming
• Found in areas of low population density, aims to give the maximum output from minimum inputs
• Commercial sheep farming
• Central Australia, Canterbury Plains in New Zealand, Patagonia, Upland Britain
• Commercial cattle ranching
• Pampas, American Midwest, Northern Australia, Amazonia and Central America
• Cause of deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and global warming
• Takes more water and feed to produce 1kg of beef than the equivalent amount of any other food or animal product

The Pampas, South America: Extensive Commercial Pastoralism

• Areas receive 500-1200 mm rainfall a year, enough to support a temperate grassland vegetation
• During warmer months the water supply has to be supplemented from underground sources
• Grasses help to maintain fertility by providing humus when they die back
• Many improvements have been made: moisture-retaining crop grown to feed the cattle when the natural grasses die in winter
• Pedigree bulls were brought from Europe to improve the local breeds, later British Hereford cattle were crossed with Asian bulls to give a beef cow capable of living in warm, drier conditions

Extensive Commercial Grain Farming

• Cereals utilize the land use zone closer to the urban market than commercial ranching
• Grain grown commercially in American prairies, the Russian Steppes, parts of Australia, Argentina and Northwest Europe
• Productivity per hectare is low but