Transcript Chapter 10 Overview

Chapter 10: Agriculture
The Cultural Landscape:
An Introduction to Human Geography
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Where Did Agriculture Originate?
** ½ of people in LDCs are farmers vs. 2% in the U.S.
LDCs are home to 97% of the world’s farmers
• Origins of agriculture= uncertain b/c before recorded history
– Hunting & gathering first and still practiced today
– Agriculture = deliberate modification of Earth’s surface
through the cultivation of plants and/or rearing of animals
to obtain sustenance or economic gain
– Cultivate = “to care for”
– Crop = any plant cultivated by people
– Agriculture originated in multiple hearths!
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Where Did Agriculture Originate?
• Hunter-gatherers (250,000 remaining today)
• Invention of agriculture
– When it began = unclear (but probably started by accident
and through experimentation)
– Diffused from many hearths
– Southwest Asia= wheat, barley, lentils, and olive10,000 years ago
– East Asia= rice-10,000 years ago
– Central Africa= sorghum- 8,000 years ago
– Latin America= beans, cotton, potatoes, CORN5,000 years ago
– Americas (Mexico & U.S.)= squash & CORN
* Southwest Asia= first to cultivate herd animals (cattle, sheep,
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goats) for farming
Crop Hearths
Figure 10-2
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Animal Hearths
Figure 10-3
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Where Did Agriculture Originate?
• Commercial and subsistence agriculture
– Subsistence = produced mainly for the farm
family’s survival
• Most common in LDCs
– Commercial = produced mainly for sale off the
farm
• Most common in MDCs
– Within LDCs and MDCs, agriculture varies
based on dry lands vs. the tropics
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Agriculture and Climate
Figure 10-4
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Where Did Agriculture Originate?
• Commercial vs. subsistence agriculture
– Five characteristics distinguish commercial
from subsistence agriculture:
• Purpose of farming (selling for profit vs. consumption)
• Percentage of farmers in the labor force (MDCs = 5%
vs. 50% in LDCs)
• Use of machinery (machinery vs. using people &
animals)
• Farm size (large farms vs. small family plots)
• Relationship of farming to other businesses
(agribusiness= part of food-production industry vs.
family only farming)
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Agricultural Workers
Figure 10-5
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Area of Farmland Per Tractor
Figure 10-6
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Where are Agricultural Regions in LDCs?
What are the types of farming??
• 1) Shifting cultivation
– Most prevalent in humid low-latitude, A-type
climates (lots of rain and high temperatures)
– Two features:
• Land is cleared by slashing and burning debris
– Slash-and-burn agriculture
• Land is tended for only a few years at a time
– Types of crops grown vary regionally
– Traditionally, land is not owned individually but by
the village
– ¼ of the world’s© 2011
land
area but less than 5% do
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Where are Agricultural Regions in LDCs?
• 2) Pastoral nomadism (herding domesticated animals)
– Found primarily in arid and semiarid B-type climates
(SW Asia & North Africa)
– Animals are seldom eaten (used for milk,
carrying stuff, skins if one dies)
• The size of the herd indicates power and prestige
– Type of animal depends on the region
• For example, camels are favored in North Africa and
Southwest Asia
– Transhumance practiced by some pastoral
nomads (seasonal migration of livestock between
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mountains and lowland
areas)
Where are Agricultural Regions in LDCs?
• 3) Intensive subsistence agriculture
– Form that feeds most people in LDCs
– Found in areas with high population and
agricultural densities
• Especially in East, South, and Southeast Asia
• To maximize production, little to no land is wasted
• Mostly by hand or use animals to help
– Intensive with wet rice dominant
– Intensive with wet rice not dominant (wheat &
barley)
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Rice Production
Figure 10-12
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Where are Agricultural Regions in LDCs?
• 4) Plantation farming
– Found in tropics and subtropics- Latin America,
Africa, and Asia
– Products are grown in LDCs but typically are
sold to MDCs (and often owned or operated by
MDCs)
– Plantations specialize in one or two cash crops
• Important crops = coffee, sugarcane, cotton, rubber,
and tobacco
– A large labor force is usually needed in sparsely
settled regions (and often have to import workers)
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Where are Agricultural Regions in MDCs?
• 1) Mixed crop and livestock farming
– Most common form in U.S. (Cornbelt) and Europe
– Most land = devoted to crops (corn & soybeans) fed
to the animals
– Most profits = derive from the livestock (beef, milk,
eggs)
– Use crop rotation!
• 2) Dairy farming
– Most important practiced on farms near urban areas (the
milkshed); India # 1 now!
– Two primary challenges:
• Labor-intensive
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• Expense of winter
feed (b/c can’t eat grass)
Corn (Maize) Production
Figure 10-15
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Milk Production
Figure 10-17
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Where are Agricultural Regions in MDCs?
• 3) Grain farming (seed from grasses like wheat)
– The largest commercial producer of grain = the U.S.
– For consumption by HUMANS
• 4) Livestock ranching (cattle ranching)
– Practiced in marginal environments (dry, poor soil)
– Being overtaken by crop growing
– Now just part of the meat-processing industry
• 5) Mediterranean agriculture (olives & grapes)
– Based on horticulture (fruits, veggies, flowers)
– For human consumption (and the healthiest!)
• 6) Commercial gardening and fruit farming
– Truck farms -> Southeast
workers!)
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Wheat Production
Figure 10-19
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Meat Production
Figure 10-21
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Why Do Farmers Face $$Difficulties?
Challenges for commercial farmers:
Access to markets is important (Where to plant what crops??)
The von Thünen model (1826):
The choice of crop to grow is related to the proximity to
the market (customers/consumers)
Figure 10-24
• Compares:
– Cost of land vs. cost of
transporting products to
consumers
- Criticisms of his model:
1) assumes all areas
look the same
2) Ignores social customs
and govt. policies
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Why Do Farmers Face $$ Difficulties?
• Challenges for commercial farmers in MDCs:
– Overproduction (although LDCs don’t have enough!)
• Agricultural efficiencies have resulted in
overproduction (too much surplus!)
• Demand has remained relatively constant
– As a consequence, incomes for farmers are low
– Govt. policies: 1) avoid producing certain crops; 2)
pays farmers when certain commodity prices are low;
3) buy surplus to sell or donate to foreign govt.
– Alternative :Sustainable agriculture (organic farming)1) Sensitive land management (ridge tillage- Iowa); 2)
limited use of chemicals; 3) Integrated crop and livestock
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Ridge Tillage
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Why Do Farmers Face $$ Difficulties?
• Challenges for subsistence farmers in LDCs:
– Population growth
• Growing population in LDCs requires more food for
their people, but need to sell food to other countries
1) Must use more modern farming methods
(requiring more labor since don’t have machines)
2) Land is left fallow for shorter periods
– International trade
• Must sell some of their crops to buy higher-yield
seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and machinery
• Irony: Feeding the MDCs to feed their own people.
– Drug crops (export crop chosen by some LDCs,
especially in Latin America and Asia)
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Drug Trade
Figure 10-27
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Why Do Farmers Face $$ Difficulties?
• Strategies to increase the world’s food supply:
– Expanding agricultural land (in LDCs)
• Desertification (human actions causing semiarid land
degradation); overgrazing, water-logging of land
– Increasing productivity
• The green revolution (invention & rapid diffusion of
more productive agricultural techniques during the
1970s and 1980s)- higher-yield seeds & fertilizer
– Identifying new food sources
• Cultivating oceans, developing higher-protein
cereals, and improving palatability of foods
(soybeans & krill)
– Increasing trade (between MDC & LDC)
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Agricultural Land and Population
Figure 10-28
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Grain Imports and Exports
Figure 10-32
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The End.
Up next: Industry
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