Ethel Wood Unit 5: Agriculture
Winter wheat area
Area in which grain is planted in autumn, survives the winter, and ripens the following summer (Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma)
Spring wheat area
Area in which winters are too severe for winter wheat (Montana, North/South Dakota)
Wet (lowland) rice
Specific type of rice planted on dry land in a nursery and then moved as seedlings to a flooded field to promote growth
Primary Sector
The part of the economy draws raw materials from the natural environment
Tertiary Sector
The part of the economy that involves services rather than goods
Secondary Sector
The part of the economy that transforms raw materials into manufactured goods.
Subsistence Agriculture
The production of only enough food to feed the farmers family, with no surpluses to sell, most prevalent in LDCs
Seed Agriculture
The production of plants through the annual planting of seeds
Desertification
A deterioration of land condition, especially in semiarid areas, due to over-grazing and over-planting
Long-lot Survey System
A distinct regional approach to land surveying whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals
Metes and Bounds
A system of land surveying that used natural features t mark irregular parcels of land
Intensive Agriculture
A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.
Cereal Grains
A grass yielding grain for food such as oats and wheat
Location Theory
A logical attempt to explain the locational pattern of economic activities & the manner in which its producing areas are interrelated
Green Revolution
A part of the third agricultural revolution that began in the 1970s and involved the expanded use of higher yielding seeds and fertilizers
Primogeniture
A property inheritance tradition in which all land passes to the eldest son
Milkshed
A ring of milk production surrounding a major city
Villages
A small number of people who live in a cluster of houses in a rural area, slightly larger than a hamlet
Quaternary Sector
A subset of the service sector that includes service jobs concerned with research and development, managements and administration, and processing information
Rectangular Survey System
A system in which settlers are encourage to disperse evenly across the interior farmlands through the gridding of land
Plantation Farming
Agriculture practived on a large estate owned by an individual or group organized to sell one or two cash crops
Commercial Agriculture
Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm
Extensive Agriculture
An agricultural system characterized by low of labor per unit land area
Agribusiness
Commercial agriculture characterized by the integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through large corporations
Truck Farming
Commercial gardening an d fruit farming, so named because it meant bartering, or the exchange of commodities
Post-Industrial Societies
Countries where most people are no longer employed in industry
Cash Crops
Crops raised for sale to profit their owners
Shifting Cultivation
Cultivation of crops in tropical forest clearings in which the forest vegetation has been removed by cutting and burning (Swidden Agriculture)
Mercantilism
Economic system that involves private companies under charter from the government to carry out trading
Labor Intensive Agriculture
Employs large numbers of people and requires little capital to produce food
Patriarchal System
System in which men hold power in the family, economy, and government
Organic Agriculture
Form of cultivation in which crops are grown without fertilizers and pesticides
Sustainable Agriculture
Form of cultivation that attempts to integrate plant and animal production practices that will protect the ecosystem over the long term
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
Involves the cultivation of small land plots through great amounts of labor
Seed Drill
Machine that sowed seeds in rows and covered up the seeds in rows
Third Agricultural Revolution
Mid 20th century transformation of agriculture based on new, high-yielding strains of grains and other crops developed in laboratories using modern techniques of genetic engineering
Von Thunen's Model
Model of rural land use that that explains the location of various agricultural activities; organized in rings around a central market city
Nucleated Settlement Pattern
Pattern of housing in which villages are located quite close together with relatively small surrounding fields
Dispersed Settlement Patterns
Pattern of housing seen in rural areas, in which small farm houses lie quite far apart
Hunters and Gatherers
People who sustained themselves by hunting animals and picking their own food
Agricultural Hearths
Places from which farming practices began and diffused across the surface of the earth
Vegetative Planting
Plant cultivation in which new plants are produced by direct cloning from existing plants
Wattle
Poles and sticks woven tightly together and then covered in mud, used to construct housing in places such as parts of Africa
Pampas
Prairie areas, the fertile plains found in South America
Hamlets
Small clusters of buildings
Mediterranean Agriculture
The an agricultural system practiced in which diverse specialty crops such as grapes, avocados, olives, and a host of nuts, fruits, and vegetables comprise profitable agricultural operations.
Second Agricultural Revolution
The change in farming during the 1600's in W. Europe that intensified agriculture by promoting higher yields per acre per farmer, it coincided with the industrial revolution to provide food for city workers
Irrigation
The channeling of water to fields
Neolithic Revolution
The collective drastic changes in human life around 8000 b.c. when people moved from hunter gatherer life styles to the cultivation of crops and domestication of animals
Industrial Agriculture
The current stage of commercial agriculture resulting from the shift of the farm as the center of production to a position as just one step in a multiphase process that begins on farms and ends on the consumer's table
Specialization
The growing of certain crops because they seem to be the most profitable
Enclosure
The fencing or hedging of large blocks of land that specifically began in the 1700s in England when landowners did this to enlarge their farms
Horticulture
The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers
Erosion
The loss of nutrient rich top soil due to water or wind
Intertillage
The growing of various types of crops
Pastoral nomadism
The herding of animals to different places to graze
Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming
The most common form of commercial agriculture involving both animal and crops farmed in the same area, it's helpful because farmers could distribute the workload more evenly through the year
Colombian Exchange
The movement of products carried both ways across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans during the 15th and 16th centuries that led to the spread of crops to different areas across the world
Nomadism
The practice of moving frequently from one place to another, dictated by need for pastures for animals to graze
Crop Rotation
The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.
Job Specialization
The process by which a division of labor occurs as different workers specialize in different tasks over time
Agriculture
The purposeful tending of crops and livestock in order to produce food, feed, fiber, and fuel
Biotechnology
The use of living organisms such as genetically altered crops and DNA manipulated livestock to increase production
Extensive Subsistence Agriculture
a form of subsistence agriculture that involves large areas of land with minimal labor