Chapter 5 Review
What did hunters and gatherers do in general?
Left little imprint on the land
What did the long-lot survey system do?
divides land into narrow parcels that extend from rivers, roads, or canals. This approach gives more people access to transportation, and has been used in the Canadian Maritimes, Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas.
What has the Green Revolution brought about?
dramatic changes in the world's food production, with consequences that have been both praised and criticized
What have some governments do as a result of that?
placed controversial tariffs on foreign produce in order to protect their own farmers
What is rural land use influenced by for commercial farmers?
Access to markets, competition from other farmers, and government regulations and subsidies
What are the examples of the tertiary sector?
Construction, trade, finance, real estate, private services, government, and transportation
What does farming practices from these agricultural hearths?
Diffused across the surface of Earth
What are several ways subsistence and commercial agriculture may be compared?
Percentage of farmers in the labor force, use of machinery, and farm size
What were migrations as environments changed as often they moved in a pattern over the same extent of land after year?
Permanent
What country was the point of origin for squash and maize, with beans, cotton, and squash domesticated in Peru?
Southern Mexico
Where does seed agriculture diffused from?
Southwest Asia across Europe and through North Africa, with barley and cattle becoming more important father north, as they thrived in cooler and moister climates.
Where does it diffused to from Western India?
Southwest Asia, where people first domesticated wheat and barley, two grains that later fed Europeans and Americans
Animal Grazing
The outermost ring was devoted to livestock grazing, which required lots of space. Beyond this ring, it generally became unprofitable to farm commercially because the transportation costs became too high
Primary Sector (Agriculture)
The part of economy that draws raw materials from the natural environment. The primary sector - agriculture, raising animals, fishing, forestry, and mining - is largest in low-income, pre-industrial nations
What is an example of the Neolithic Revolution?
The people settling along the major rivers in China did not learn to farm because they were in contact with the people in the Indus River area. Instead, people in both areas probably figured out the advantages of settled life on their own, and both served as agricultural hearths. Although the Neolithic Revolution was one of the most significant marker events in world history, it occurred gradually and probably by trial and error.
Round Villages
This most traditional style is found in East Africa and parts of Europe, and it features houses that circle around a central corral for animals, with fields extending outside the ring of houses. Clearly, the style was developed to protect domesticated animals, such as cattle.
What did von Thuen study?
The spatial layout of farming around the town of Rostock in northeast Germany, where he noticed that within the landscape one crop gave away to another without any visible change in the soil, climate, or terrain
Neolithic Revolution
The switch from nomadic lifestyles to a settled agricultural lifestyle is this revolution.
Wattle
The term wattle refers to poles and sticks woven tightly together and then covered with mud. Many African houses are constructed with wattle and a thick thatched roof. Other regions where wattle building is common also have plenty of bamboo, sticks, bark, and leaves for building, such as Southeast Asia and the Amazonian River Basin.
Where were millet and sorghum domesticated in?
Third independent hearth in Ethiopia, which today is ironically an area with widespread starvation
Pastoral Nomadism
This alternative to sedentary agriculture is characterized by following the herds, just as the earlier hunters and gatherers did. A great deal of the earth's surface today is still devoted to pastoral nomadism. However, the herds are domesticated, and consists of sheep, goats, cows, reindeer, camels, and/or horses. Nomadism is dictated by the need for pasture for animals. This lifestyle first developed across the grassy plains of central Eurasia and nearby desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula and the Sudan, and formerly included reindeer herding in northernmost Scandinavia and along the Arctic fringe of Russia, where it is still sometimes practiced. The animals involved must be hardy and mobile, most commonly including sheep, goals, and camels, and sometimes cattle, horses, and yaks. For the herders, the animals provide their primary subsistence with milk, cheese, and meat for food, and hair, wool, and skins for clothing and shelter. Extended stays in one location are neither desirable nor possible because the herds follow seasonal availability of pasture.
Expansion of agricultural land
This is the historical method of increasing food production - clear and plow more land for planting. When the world's population began to increase rapidly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, people migrated to sparsely-inhabited land in western North America, the pampas of Argentina, and central Russia to farm new land. However, this method is not as likely to increase food supplies as it once was. Only about 11 percent of the world's land area is currently cultivated, but most of the remaining land - especially in Europe, Asia, and Africa - is not arable. In fact, some land has been lost to desertification, a deterioration of land to a desertlike condition by over-grazing and over-planting. Irrigation can also ruin land in dry areas because it cannot drain properly from the hard soils. Urbanization also cuts down on available land space, as farms are replaced by homes, roads, and shops.
What did farmers produce for?
not for their own subsistence but for a market that is part of a complex system that includes mining, manufacturing, processing, and service activities.
What is agriculture now characterized by?
specialization
What has commercial agriculture do?
spread to virtually all areas of the world through global trade and exchange markets, and almost all economies have adjusted to it in one way or another
What is the agribusiness is now doing?
spreading to developing countries where small-size farmers are linking with foreign sources for advice, seeds, fertilizers, machinery, and profitable markets at stable prices
What is an example of where were survey methods first used?
the U.S. government used the rectangular survey system to encourage settlers to disperse evenly across interior farmlands. The section lines were drawn in grids, often without reference to the terrain, that determined where people settled. The straight section lines often became the places where roads were built, shaping the landscape into familiar grid-like patterns still found across the U.S. today.
What must they not be for irrigation systems to be sustainable?
use more water from their source than is naturally replenished
What are food supplies?
a crucial component of every economy, and throughout history almost all other accomplishments have rested on the availability of food surpluses
What does areas of extensive agricultural practices demonstrate?
a dispersed settlement pattern, with individual farmhouses lying quite far apart
What is the mix of plants and animals on any given plot of earth often as a result?
a far cry from what existed there naturally
What are farmers in wealthier countries also felt?
concerned that competition from farmers in less developed countries will drive down market prices
What is industrial agriculture as for today?
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 industrial process that begins on the farms and ends on the consumer's table.
What may dispersed settlement patterns also do?
exist in areas where machinery makes intensive cultivation over large areas possible
What are farmers in areas far away from the major markets of Western Europe and North America less likely to do?
grow highly perishable products or crops that are bulky and expensive to transport
When were industrially-produced chemicals for fertilizers, weed killers, and pesticides also introduced in?
20th century
What did the von Thunen model assume?
A flat terrain with uniform soils and no significant barriers to market
Why did the first humans probably emerged in Eastern Africa?
A happy confluence of availability of food, domesticable animals, and favorite climates
Use of Machinery
A key to successful development of ommercial agriculture is the use of machinery to replace work done with hand tools and animal power. In more developed countries, tractors, combines, planters, and other farm machines have largely replaced manual labor. Transportation is also important to commercial farmers, who rely on railroads, highways, and rapid sea and air travel to facilitate their ability to get goods to consumers. Commercial farmers also have scientific advances - such as fertilizers, herbicides, and new breeds of plants and animals - that boost their crop yields and the health of their animals
What are commercial farmers part of?
A large, complex economy in which they are only one element of an integrated commodity chain that includes industrial and service sectors as well
Quaternary Sector
A subset of the tertiary sector and involves service jobs concerned with research and development, management and administration, and processing and disseminating information.
increase in reliable food supplies
Agricultural skills allowed people to control food production and to domesticate animals. Both helped to make agricultural production more efficient and increased the availability of food.
Plantation Farming
Almost all crops are raised for export to high consumption developed countries, and are called cash crops because they are raised to make money for their owners. Plantations are colonial legacies that persist in poorer, primarily tropical, countries along with subsistence farming. Cotton, sugarcane, coffee, rubber, and tobacco are usually grown on plantations in sparsely settled locations where owners import workers and provide them with food and housing. Until the 19th century, slave labor was employed, but today the workers are paid, although their room and board constitutes a large part of their salaries. Plantation agriculture predominated in the Southeastern United States until slavery was outlawed in the 1860s, when the land was subdivided and either sold to individual farmers or worked by tenant farmers. Today manu plantations in former colonies are still owned by Western individuals or corportations
Brick
Although builders in the U.S. define bricks as oven-baked blocks of cement, bricks in other areas of the world are made from different materials. Wet mud mixed with straw is used in the Middle East, northern China, the southwestern United States, and Mexico. This mixture is sun-dried rather than oven-baked. Today brick is a major element of modern construction across the world.
What did major migrations include?
Eastern Africa to Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Asia across the land bridge to the Americas
What may land far from markets in rings three and four?
Be farmed extensively and in larger units
Farm Size
Because commercial farmers have machinery and scientific advances, they can efficiently farm far larger amounts of land than subsistence farmers can. Today commercial agriculture is increasingly dominated by a handful of large farms that can afford the expensive machinery needed to efficiently produce crops. Despite the fact that very few people are farmers, the amount of land devoted to agriculture is still quite significant in most developed countries
What did wealthy landowners do beginning in the early 1700s?
Began to enlarge their farms through enclosure
What did better nutrition do to it?
Boosted England's population, creating the first necessary component for the Industrial Revolution: labor.
What are the skills of hunters and gatherers?
Capturing and killing animals, and gatherers learned in which plants and fruits were editable and nutritious
Presence of chemicals in soils and ground water
Concern about the presence of chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides has sparked a recent trend toward organic agriculture. Crops are grown without fertilizers and pesticides, ensuring that the consumer will not suffer adverse health effects from them. Sales of organic food in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan have soared in recent years, benefiting farmers in those areas, but not those in other parts of the world.
What does the diffusion of both vegetative planting and seed agriculture from their multiple hearths do?
Create a wide variety of food raised and consumed around the world
What does these scientists improve?
Crop rotation methods, which carefully controlled nutrients in the soil
Changes in the organic content of soil
Crops take nutrients from the soil, so they change its organic content, especially if fields are not allowed to remain fallow long enough to restore the nutrients removed, or if crops are not rotated on a regular basis. The more pressure there is on land to be farmed intensely, the more likely it becomes for soil to lose its fertility.
What does transportation and storage of crops also do?
Improve dramatically, especially with the invention of refrigerated railroad cars and ships
What are the ways that land is distributed to individuals and used for production determined by?
Culture, as are the functions of livestock, and the consumption of food from crops and animals
Dairy Farming
Dairy farm abound in the areas outlying large urban areas, where their products feed populations in cities across the United States (most frequently in the Northeast), Western Europe, and Southeast Canada. Dairy farms must be closer to their market than other products because milk spoils quickly, so a ring of milk production called a milkshed surrounds a major city. Today refrigerated rail cars and trucks have extended the reach of the milksheds, so that nearly every farm in the U.S. Northeast and Northwest Europe is within the milkshed of at least one urban area. Dairy farms also produce butter and cheese, with many specializing in one product or another. Since cheese and butter keep fresh longer than milk does, farms further away from urban centers tend to favor these products over milk. For example, New Zealand is the world's largest producer of dairy products, but they only devote a small share of their attention to liquid milk because it is too far away from North America and Western Europe to hold the milk market in those areas. Dairy farmers, like other commercial agriculturalists, usually do not sell their products directly Dairy farmers, like other commercial agriculturalists, usually do not sell their products directly to consumers, but to wholesalers or to butter and cheese manufacturers. A disadvantage of dairy farming is the expense of feeding cows in the winter. In contrast to mixed crop and livestock farmers, dairy farmers must purchase all feed, making it less likely that they will make a profit. Diary farming is also labor intensive, since in addition to managing the care of their animals, cows must be milked regularly twice a day. The number of dairy farms has declined significantly since 1980, with departing farmers citing long work hours and too little profit as reasons. However, despite the decreasing numbers of farms, overall dairy production rose, indicating that the farms that still exist are producing more.
How did people first learned farm by?
Deliberating dividing and transplanting plants already growing wild
What did a German farmer, Johann Heinrich von Thunen, do?
Develop a famous mode for rural land use in the early 19th century
What did the inhabitants also do in Southwest Asia?
Domesticate herd animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats
What is commercial agriculture is generally?
Dominant in more developed countries, and may be divided into intensive types (dairy farming and truck farming) and extensive types (large grain farms and livestock farms).
What did he discovered as he mapped his pattern?
Each town was a market center surrounded by a set of roughly concentric rings that featured different crops
What were techniques developed for?
Efficient gathering and storage of food
How did farmers pushed out of their jobs?
Enclosure either became tenants or they moved to cities
What are other problems of the environmental impacts of modern agriculture include?
Erosion, changes in the organic content of soil, depletion of natural vegetation, and presence of chemicals in soils and ground water
What are several strategies are used to ensure and improve the production and distribution of adequate food products around the world today?
Expansion of agriculture land, increase in land productivity, identification of new food sources, and improved distribution of food
Why it's agribusiness?
Farming is integrated into a large food-production industry
What is an example of the origin and the spread of agriculture?
Hindus do not eat beef, and Muslims do not eat pork, and so the two religions greatly impact the nature of agriculture in lands where they have many adherents.
What did humans had done by 8000 B.C.E.?
Humans had migrated to many other areas, probably following the herds and other available resources
How large may a village be?
In Canada, the official definition limits a village to 1000 people; in the United States villages may have up to 2500 people. The numbers go way up in densely-populated areas, such as Japan and India. Another way to define a village is by the occupations of its inhabitants. In a village, most people work in the primary economic sector as farmers, herders, or fishers, and relatively few people have narrow, specialized jobs. Some villagers provide services to those who farm, herd, or fish, but the social organization is relatively simple.
What is the difference between some areas and other areas?
In some areas, sufficient rainfall is available for crop growth, but many other areas require irrigation.
Forest
In von Thunen's day, towns were still surrounded by belts of forest that provided wood for fuel and construction. Closeness to market is important because trees are bulky and heavy to transport
What are the changes resulted include?
Increase in reliable food supplies, rapid increase in total human population, job specialization, widening of gender differences, and development of distinction between settled and nomads
What did some innovations include?
Increased use of fertilizers and improved collars for draft animals to pull heavier plows
What did subsistence farmers do according to economist Ester Boserup?
Intensify production by leaving land fallow for shorter periods and adopting new farming methods
What are the subregions of subsistence farming?
Intensive substance, shifting cultivation, and pastoral nomadism
What were some early innovations?
Irrigation, plowing to loosen and turn the soil, fencing to keep animals out of fields, building terraces to provide level fields on hillsides, fertilizing with plant and animal waste, and weeding to support desirable crops
When, how, and why did people give up their wandering and settle to live in one place?
It happened in different parts of the world at different times, but settled communities had developed in many places by 8000 B.C.E.
What is one of the most important influences on land settlement patterns?
Land ownership
Erosion
Lands cleared for agriculture almost immediately begins to erode away, usually by wind or running water. The surface material removed is transported by rivers, and changes valley contours, extending areas subject to flooding, and clogging irrigation and drainage channels.
Percentage of Farmers in the Labor Force
Logically, in countries that practice subsistence farming a high percentage of people engaged in farming. With no surplus to sell, all people must produce their own food in order to survive. In contrast, well-developed commercial agriculture allows people to pursue other activities, so a smaller percentage of people are farmers. For example, less than 2% of all workers in the United States and Canada (countries with a great deal of commercial agriculture) are farmers. In contrast, many countries in Africa have more than 60% of their citizens engaged in agriculture
Development of distinction between settled people and nomads
Many people did not settle into communities but remained as hunters and gatherers. As more settled communities developed, the distinction between agriculturalists and hunters and gatherers grew, with settled people generally considering their way of life to be superior.
Identification of new food sources
Many things in the world that are edible are not chosen as food for a number of reasons. Oceans and seas have provided only a small percentage of world food supply historically, and many plants and creatures live in these waters. In recent years, fish catches have increased significantly, causing over-fishing in some areas. With improved access to ocean food away from shore, more food sources almost certainly may be found there. Many people avoid food for social reasons. Americans prefer hamburgers and hotdogs to tofu, sprouts, and other soybean products, but that preference doesn't make the soybean products any less nutritious. New food sources are also discouraged by the fact that they are not connected to the established commodity chains that instead favor more established sources
What may rural land be put to as the variety of agricultural regions reflects?
Many uses, including both subsistence and commercial farming
What are the four rings that surrounded market centers?
Market gardening and dairy, forest, field crops, and animal grazing
What are seven types of commercial agriculture?
Mixed crop and livestock farming, dairy farming, grain farming, livestock ranching, Mediterranean agriculture, commercial gardening and fruit farming, and plantation farming
What food did animals also provide?
Milk, meat, and skins
Where did commercial agriculture practiced mainly in?
More developed countries, farmers in commercial agriculture generally do not sell produce directly to consumers but to food-processing companies
What does the increase in population provides?
More people for weeding and digging ditches, so yield per acre increases, and land may be left fallow for shorter periods of time
What did farming methods become once the Industrial Revolution began?
Much more efficient with the use of tractors for plowing soil, reapers for cutting crops, threshers for separating grain from stalks, and motors for pumping water to do the work of people and animals
Stone
Natural stone has long been used in home construction. A distinctive feature of buildings in the Andes Mountains is that many have no mortar, but are stacked in puzzle-like pieces that have stood in some cases for centuries. More typically, houses of natural stone are built with cement mortar, usually in areas where building stone is plentiful.
Shifting Cultivation
Often referred to as "slash and burn" or swidden agriculture, this farming method exist primarily in rain forest zones of Central and South America, West Africa, eastern and central Asia, and much of southern China and Southeast Asia. The obvious destruction to the environment is worsened by the frequency of the farmers' movements. As an extensive type of subsistence farming, by its very nature shifting cultivation agriculture still consumes a large percentage of arable land on the planet. At first, the soil in the burnt areas is very fertile, but when soil nutrients are depleted, farmers move on to slash and burn another piece of jungle. People who practice shifting cultivation generally live in small villages and grow food on the surrounding land, which the village controls. Intertillage is common. The village chief or council assigns a plot of land to each family and allows them to keep what they raise. Farming is done almost exclusively by hand, and plows and animals are not generally used. The main fertilizer is potash from burning the debris when the site is cleared. When the nutrients are depleted after a few years, the villagers identify another site and began clearing it. They allow the old site to return to its natural vegetation, although they don't entirely abandon it because they will return after a few years to resume their farming
What is an example of global patterns of rural land use?
On a regional level, fresh organic chicken served in a New York City restaurant would most likely have a more limited area of profitability than chicken that is non-organic.
Where does agriculture diffused to?
Other areas, although it was not widespread over the hemisphere until the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th century. Only then were wheat, oats, and barley introduced to the Western Hemisphere, and maize and beans to the Eastern Hemisphere
Job Specialization
Other occupations from farming developed, since fewer people were needed to produce food. Some early specialized jobs include priests, traders, and builders
What does the processes that produce, distribute, and determine the consumption of food do?
Play crucial roles
What were cattle used to?
Plow the land before planting seeds, and were fed part of the harvested crop
What were the plantings in West Africa and South America?
Possibly palm trees and yams, in South America, manioc, sweet potatoes, and arrowroot
What did the agricultural revolution do?
Preceded the Industrial Revolution, making it possible to feed the rapidly growing cities
What were the first domesticated animals?
Probably dogs, pigs, and chickens
What did farmers in LDCs and MDCs usually do?
Produce food through subsistence agriculture, and farmers in more developed countries usually practice commercial agriculture
What does the patterns of rings do?
Reflect the need to apply intensive agriculture methods for high-value and perishable crops in the first ring, where land is subdivided into relatively small units
What have many countries have as is evident in the chart on the previous page?
Relatively small percentages of their population in agriculture
rapid increase in total human population
Reliable food supplies meant that people were less likely to starve to death. Once people settled down, they were able to store their food for times of scarcity. With increasing life spans came increasing reproduction, and more children meant that there were more people to tend the land and animals.
What is an example of seed agriculture?
Rice became the mainstay of diets in Southern China and much of Southeast Asia, while grains were basic to farming in northern China. Though increased trade and other types of interactions, people in both areas were able to share diets, but variations in climate and topography continued to reinforce the original crops and diets. Food in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres was almost completely different until the Columbian Exchange began in the late 15th and 16th centuries, when products were carried both ways across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In some cases a crop grown in one area, like the potato that originated in the Andes Mountain areas of South America, became a mainstay in another area (Ireland). However, beans, squash, and corn are still more commonly consumed in the Americas, and rice is still more basic to Asian cultures than to other areas of the world.
What plants does the first plants domesticated in Southeast Asia?
Roots such as the taro and yam, and tree crops such as the banana and palm
What did village forms include?
Round villages, walled villages, grid villages, linear villages, and cluster villages
What did farmers and ranchers do in pure commercial agriculture?
Sell all of their output for money and buy their families' food at stores
What does intensive vs. extensive agriculture techniques determine?
Settlement patterns, with dairy and truck farmers seeking smaller plots of relatively expensive land relatively close to cities, and grain farmers and ranchers settling on larger, less expensive land farther away from urban areas
What were stones as?
Shaped as tools and weapons
What did organic products have without added preservatives?
Shorter freshness span, so von Thunen's model comes in to play in assessing rural use for organic foods
What did big companies do?
Sign contracts with commercial farmers to buy their grain, cattle, pigs, chickens, and other products that they turn package to sell through food outlets (such as grocery stores) to consumers
Where does vegetative planting diffused from?
Southeast Asian hearth northward and eastward to China and Japan, and westward through India, Southwest Asia, tropical Africa, and the area around the Mediterranean Sea
What may some surplus be doing?
Sold to the government or to companies, but the surplus is not the farmer's primary purpose
Where does the practice diffused from?
South America to Central America and eastern areas of America
Where does millet diffused to from the northern China hearth?
South Asia and Southeast Asia
Widening of Gender Differences
Status distinctions between men and women increased, as men took over most agricultural cultivation and domestication of animals. Women were responsible for raising children, cooking food, and keeping the house, but in virtually all of the early civilizations men became dominant. Since men controlled agricultural production, patriarchal systems commonly developed, with men holding power in the family, the economy, and the government.
What was the ability to settle based on almost entirely?
Successful cultivation of crops and domestication of animals
What did technological inventions generally do?
Supported the fulfillment of these basic activities
What did humans do for thousands of years and as a result?
Sustained themselves as hunters and gatherers, and they were quite dependent on the abundance of food
Increase in land productivity
The Green Revolution has made this alternative for increasing food supply a viable one. Land produces more crops and supports more animals as new hybrids are introduced and nutrients are added to soil through fertilizer. Farming methods also have made land more productive, and many anticipate that higher-yielding fields will be developed in the future.
What did many innovations increase over the years?
The chances of success for seed agricultural practices
What did intensive subsistence agriculture involves in contrast?
The cultivation of small land plots through great amount of labor, and yields per unit and area and population densities are both high
What is an example of Third Agricultural Revolution?
The experiments began with hybrid rice initiatives in the U.S. Midwest in the 1930s, eventually leading to the development of "IR8," a cross developed in the Philippines between a dwarf Chinese variety of rice and an Indonesian variety. This led to other hybrids, so that by the 1980s "IR36" was developed, with the qualities of larger grains, a shorter growing cycle, and more resistance to pests. By the early 1990s IR36 was the most widely grown crop on earth. Meanwhile, a "miracle wheat seed" was developed that was shorter and stiffer, hardier, and faster-maturing than traditional varieties. More recently, scientists have developed new high-yield variations of corn. By the 1970s the collection of new agricultural techniques was called the Green Revolution, which involved two important practices: the use of new higher-yield seeds and the expanded use of fertilizers. New miracle seeds diffused rapidly around the world, with many countries recording dramatic productivity increases. Biotechnologists don't just cross two varieties of plants or animals, hoping for the best. Instead, they identify the particular genes on the DNA molecules that produce the desirable characteristic and splice the gene directly into the chromosomes of the other plant or animal. During the 19th century scientists identified the critical elements in natural fertilizers (manure, bones, and ashes) as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Today these three elements form the basis for fertilizers that have boosted crop productivity even further. The Green Revolution has resulted in agricultural production outpacing population growth by the late 20th century.
Concentric Model
The first location theory Concentric model - six assumptions: There is only one market available, self-sufficient with no outside influence. All farmers are market-oriented, producing goods for sale. The physical environment is uniform; there are no rivers or mountains All points at equal distances from the market have equal access to the market. All farmers act to maximize profits. The dietary preferences of the population are those of Germanic Europeans. Central city 1. Intensive farming and dairying 2. Forest 3. Increasing extensive field crops 4. Ranching, animal products The main concept is land rent or value, which will decrease as one gets farther away from central markets. Bid-Rent Theory: Rent is highest in the closest proximity to urban markets. Thus, agricultural products that have intensive land use, have high transportation costs and were in great demand would be located close to urban markets. Distance from city Preservation of food Amount of space Dairying and gardening of fruits and vegetables would be closer to the urban market while... Timber and firewood for fuel and building materials would be in the second zone. Mixed farming, commercial grains and orchards, and Extensive cattle ranching would be located farther away. Transportation is cheap: the animals can walk to the city for butchering. Some products spoiled more quickly, needed more sensitive transportation, or generate higher prices at market. These products mean the farmer can afford higher land rent.
Field Crops
The next ring was used for crops that were less perishable, such as wheat and other grains. Usually the crops were rotated from one year to the next.
Grain Farming
The most important areas are the winter wheat area in KS, CO, and OK; the spring wheat area in SD, ND and MT; and the Palouse area of WA State. Other grain-producing countries are Canada, Australia, Argentina, France, and the United Kingdom. Large scale grain production, like other forms of commercial agriculture, is heavily mechanized on large farms. The labor required for grain farming is concentrated during planting and harvesting reasons, although some farmers (depending on their locations) may combine winter and spring wheat to even out their work load over the year. Although much grain is sold to companies that eventually sell to consumers within the country, much wheat finds its way into the international market, where it serves as the world's leading export crop. As a result, the prairies of North America are often referred as the "world's breadbasket."
What did their migrations depended on?
The movement of game and the seasonal growth of plants
Why is total agricultural production in the world is at an all-time high?
The nature of farming has changed with mechanization and farm consolidation, particularly in industrial and post-industrial countries
What is a major issue for subsistence farmers today?
The need to intensify farming because of rapidly growing populations
What are three types of sectors?
The primary sector (agriculture), the secondary sector (industry), and the tertiary sector (services)
What did von Thunen applied his model to?
The relatively small land space around 19th century German towns, but his basic concern with the interplay of market location, transportation costs, and land use may be applied on different scales
Wood
The use of wood in houses is still linked to the distribution of forests, but wood is now shipped to most corners of the globe. The log house probably originated in northern Europe where forests were plentiful, and its use spread to North America when Europeans first settled there. In those areas today wood is not usually the primary building material, but still is used for framing and trimming. Houses made primarily of wood are still found in a zone that extends eastward from Scandinavia through Russia to the Pacific coast.
What is the crucial influence on the organization of earth's surface?
The way people make a living
What are six assumptions of the von Thunen model?
There is only one market available, self-sufficient with no outside influence. All farmers are market-oriented, producing goods for sale. The physical environment is uniform; there are no rivers or mountains All points at equal distances from the market have equal access to the market. All farmers act to maximize profits. The dietary preferences of the population are those of Germanic Europeans.
Linear Villages
These modern settlements follow major roads, often one single thoroughfare lined with houses, businesses, and public buildings.
Grid Villages
These more modern villages are laid out in straight street patterns that run in parallel and perpendicular lines. Grids are also used in cities, and work best in areas with flat land.
Cluster Villages
These settlements may have more than one major road that they build along, and they also may have housing that clusters around large public buildings, such as churches, temples, mosques, livestock corrals, or grain bins.
What may agriculture be divided broadly into then?
These two types of agriculture, and then subdivided according to varying practices, types of crops, and climates
What did they do?
They bred better livestock, and invented new machines, such as Jethro Tull's seed drill that more effectively planted seeds
Why did both shifting cultivation and pastoral nomadism are referred as extensive subsistence agriculture?
They involve large areas of land and minimal labor per land unit. Both product per land unit and population densities are low.
Depletion of natural vegetation
This problem is especially acute when commercial agriculture expands into marginal environments. For example, when livestock herding moves into arid or semi-arid areas, the natural vegetation in these areas cannot always sustain the herds. This can lead to ecological damage and, in some areas, to desertification.
Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming
This type of agriculture predominates in the US Southeast, a region with long growing season and humid climate and accessibility to the large markets of the Northeast.It is often referred to as truck farming, because "truck" originally meant "batering" in the English language. Products include apples, asparagus, cherries, lettuce, mushrooms, and tomatoes, with some sold fresh to consumers, but most sold to large processors for canning or freezing. Truck farms usually rely heavily on machinery and fertilizers, and labor costs are controlled by hiring migrant farm workers who work for very low wages.
Intensive Subsistence
This type of agriculture yields a large amount of output per acre through concentrated farming, but still only provides a subsistence living for farmers. Sometimes they may sell a little to others, but usually they raise crops for their own consumption. Intensive subsistence farming is found in the large population concentrations of East and South Asia, with wet lands, rice dominant in many areas. Wet rice is planted on dry land in a nursery and then moved as seedlings to a flooded field to promote growth. The crop requires a great deal of time and attention, but under ideal conditions it can provide large amounts of food per unit of land. Other products include wheat (grown in Northern China), maize, millet, peas, and beans. A little less than half of the people of the world are engaged in this type of farming. This labor intensive agriculture employs large numbers of people and requires relatively little capital to produce food. Most work is done by hand, and although the crops the farmers raise form the basis of their diets, they often link to other regions for specialized products. Today production of food for sale in rapidly growing urban markets is increasingly important, a trend that is leading these areas away from strict "subsistence" farming.
Walled villages
This type of village developed in ancient days in order to protect villagers from attack. In Europe the villages were often surrounded by moats as well. Today remnants of these walls still exist, and in some cases walls are still intact.
What did Carl Sauer identified?
Three hearths for seed agriculture in the Eastern Hemisphere: western India, northern China, and Ethiopia
What do many foods needed even with fast transportation available?
To reach market within a short amount of time, especially with the growth in popularity of organic foods
improved distribution of food
Today the top three export grains are wheat, corn, and rice, and most of those grains come from the United States. About half of global corn exports and a quarter of all wheat exports come from the United States. Other major exporters of wheat are Argentina, Australia, France, and Canada. Thailand has replaced the United States as the leading exporter of rice, and now other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, India, and China, also export rice. In countries that export, food sometimes goes to waste, either because markets are not coordinated properly or because the government subsidizes crops. Meanwhile, countries that need food cannot buy it, either from lack of resources or poor coordination of markets.
What is an example of the von Thunen model?
Towns located on rivers or on hilly terrain had to arrange their rings accordingly. Von Thunen published his model in 1826 in a book called The Isolated State, the first effort to analyze the spatial character of economic activity. Despite the fact that soil quality, terrain, and climate changes may alter the model significantly, von Thunen identified the interplay of transportation costs and value of the products on rural land use, a formula that is still at the heart of location theory, the general but logical attempt to explain how an economic activity is related to the land space where goods are produced.
What does the agriculture done for thousands of years as the main economic activity of most people on earth, until the Industrial Revolution?
Transformed economies first in Europe and North America, and eventually influenced most countries in the world
What are the groups doing?
Traveled frequently, establishing new home bases or camps
What is an example of post-industrial society?
United Kingdom, with only 1.4 of its population engaged in agriculture and 80.4% in services. The United States is another industrial country, with 0.7% in agriculture, and 79% in services. Russia appears to have moved into post-industrialism as well. Likewise, Mexico has moved away from agriculture (13.7%) toward services (62.9%), as has Iran to a lesser extent. Despite its recent economic boom, 38% of China's population is still employed in agriculture, and Nigeria has the largest percentage of its people (70%) employed in the primary sector.
Where is the cultural hearth of rice at?
Unknown, but it probably was Southeast Asia
What must plows be in order to farm land more efficiency?
Used, more weeding must take place, and more ditches for irrigation must be dug
What was the earliest form of plant cultivation according to cultural geographer Carl Sauer?
Vegetable planting, in which new plants are produced by direct cloning from existing plants, such as stems and dividing roots
What does Carl Sauer believe?
Vegetative planting probably originated in the diverse climates and topography of Southeast Asia, where a variety of plants existed that where a wide variety of plants existed that were suitable for dividing and transplanting.
Where were other early hearths in?
West Africa and northwestern South America
When does the second agricultural revolution begin in?
Western Europe during the 1600s, which intensified agriculture by promoting higher yields per acre and per farmer
Where does two independent seed agriculture hearths originated in?
Western Hemisphere: southern Mexico and northern Peru
What did the land and climate largely determine for subsistence farmers?
What crops may be grown as well as how they are cultivated
What is an example of the impact of the Green Revolution?
Whereas the Green Revolution appears to be contributing to the good health of many people around the world, it has failed to provide famine relief for people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seriously affected countries include Somalia, Ethiopian, Sudan, Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad. Part of the problem is lack of resources to buy seed, fertilizer, and machinery, but the situation is worsened by rapid population growth. Traditionally, this region supported limited agriculture, with pastoral nomadism prevailing. The land has now been overgrazed by animals, and soils have been exhausted from overplanting. These practices have led to an alarming rate of desertification, with the Sahara Desert continuing to claim more and more land space. Soil erosion has become a problem, with the limited number of trees cut for wood and charcoal for urban cooking and heating. Government policies have traditionally favored urban populations by keeping food prices low, giving farmers little incentive to increase their productivity. In recent years international aid for agriculture has dropped drastically, while aid for health and primary education has surged. However, in its 2007 annual report, the World Bank put agriculture and the productivity of small farmers - particularly in Africa - at the heart of its global agenda to reduce poverty. The African Union and the United Nations have also advocated major investments to increase the productivity of poor farmers in Africa, although a great deal of disagreement remains regarding the role that African government should play in spurring farm productivity.
What did different building materials include?
Wood, brick, stone, and wattle
Where does agricultural practices vary?
Widely across the globe, but the most basic distinctions may be made between agriculture in less developed countries (LDCs) and more developed countries
What have some called the depletion of farmlands?
a "quiet crisis" that threatens to undermine the foundations of civilization today
What must they do?
act within the constraints of the market that set prices based on supplies and demands of the global economy, and not on their own immediate needs.
What does farming continues to do?
alter the earth's landscape, leaving the human imprint deeply ingrained on the land
When did the First Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution began?
began about 10,000 years ago when people changed from hunting and gathering to farming in several different areas of the world
What have forests been?
cleared for agriculture, terraces built into hillsides, and natural vegetation removed in order to make room for desirable crops
Post Industrial societies
countries where most people are no longer employed in industry
What has contract farming in poorer countries been?
criticized as exploitative of small farmers who receive too little money for their products
What often rules about property inheritance do?
determine land distribution
Where has been this approach used along?
eastern seaboard of the United States
More land has been cleared, and the land is...
farmed more intensely
Enclosure
fencing or hedging large blocks of land for experiments with new techniques of farming
How many people are employed in agriculture in more developed countries?
fewer people are farmers, but many are employed in the food business, including processing plants, supermarkets, restaurants, and food wholesalers.
What theme does sustainable agriculture emphasizes?
human intervention in terms of soil quality and water
What is an example of the influence of land ownership and survey techniques?
in areas where primogeniture is practiced, all land passes to the eldest son, resulting in large land parcels that are tended individually. This form of property distribution is found in northern Europe, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In other areas, such as much of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, land is divided among heirs, resulting in smaller plots of land with scattered ownership.
Where were survey methods first used?
in areas where settlement was regulated by law, such as European surveys of the Americas as settlers moved westward from the eastern coastline
What has geography always do?
influenced the types of houses that people build for shelter
What did methods of industrial agriculture include?
innovation in agricultural machinery and methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, and global trade
What does sustainable agriculture attempt to do?
integrate plant and animal production practices that will protect the ecosystem over the long term
What are parcels of land divided by?
lines that clearly separate one person's land from another's
What is an example of other factors that affect rural land use?
many poor countries today still grow commercial crops, such as coffee and bananas, on soil that otherwise might be used for food for their own consumption. The historical roots of this practice are in colonialism, where entrepreneurs form powerful European countries and/or the United States established plantations for commercial agriculture.
What are other survey systems that have shaped the rural landscape?
metes and bounds approach where natural features are used to mark irregular parcels of land
What is the example of patterns of settlement?
most farms across the Midwestern U.S. are large, houses are spaced far apart, and land is farmed fairly intensively by machines. In contrast, many rural areas in Indonesia are characterized by a nucleated settlement pattern, with villages located quite close together with relatively small surrounding fields. Land use is intense, but people and animals do the work. Nucleated settlement is the most common worldwide pattern of agricultural settlement. Houses are grouped together in hamlets, or small clusters of buildings, or in slightly larger settlements called villages. These arrangements reflect the historical need to band together for protection, but even though this need has changed in modern day, the patterns were established long ago and still persist.
Market gardening and dairy
nearest the town, farmers raised perishable products, such as garden vegetables and milk. These products are expensive to deliver and must each the market quickly because they spoil rather quickly, so it makes sense that these farmers needed to choose location close to town
What is this based on?
new, higher-yielding varieties of crops developed in laboratories and plant nurseries through biotechnology
What is an example of housing styles and geography?
people in flood-prone areas learned how to build houses on stilts, and people in areas with lots of snow learned to build steep-sided roofs. Lifestyles also determine housing styles, such as the light-weight, transportable materials used by nomadic people for shelter. Until relatively recently, people were limited by their physical environments in their building materials for housing. For example, early settlers in the Midwestern United States built sod houses because trees were not readily available. Today migrations have carried housing styles far away from their origins, and building materials are shipped for long distances, so many areas have mixed housing styles. Housing styles in rural areas tend to be more traditional than those in urban areas, especially if the areas are remote from or resistant to outside influences. Villages all over the world have mixtures of traditional and modified housing, with traditional styles ranging from sod-covered roofs in Scandinavia to hand-cut stone houses in the Andes Mountains to mud-walled houses in China.
Livestock Ranching
ranching is the commercial grazing of livestock over an extensive area, and is often practiced in arid or semi-arid regions where climate conditions make crop production impractical. Cattle ranching extends over much of the western United States, where the patterns of life associated with it have shaped the popular image of the West through stories of cowboys, round-ups, and trail-herding. In the early days, cattle roamed freely across vast extents of land, and were rounded up in the spring and then driven across land to railroad termini, such as Kansas City and St. Louis. However, by the late 19th century, cattle ranching became more sedentary as more and more railroads covered the landscape and farmers claimed more western lands. Today most cattle grazing is on land leased from the U.S. government. Although much land in the U.S. has been converted from ranching to crop production today, large ranches still exist, although some are now owned by meat-processes companies. In South America, large portion of pampas of Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay are devoted to grazing cattle and sheep. Ranches in Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and South Africa are more likely to raise sheep than land to crops, with the remaining ranches experimenting with new methods of breeding, feeding, and watering in order to stay profitable. When livestock raised in the U.S. is sold primarily in the domestic market, livestock raised in other areas is more likely to be exported to high consumption developed countries
What are suggested techniques for soil conservation include?
recycling crop waste and livestock manure, growing peanuts, or alfalfa to enrich soil with nitrogen, and producing nitrogen artificially. Another option is longterm crop rotations that return to natural cycles that annually flood cultivated lands.
What did farmers in the 1950 in the United States began to do to minimize their risks?
signing agreements with buyer-processors, who specified exact times and weights of products to be delivered, including chickens, cattle, wheat, potatoes, and other basic foods.
What has the industrialization and commercialization of agriculture done?
strengthened agriculture's impact on the environment
Where are other structures found in?
such as places for religious gatherings, barns, markets, and government buildings, are commonly found in villages.
What does several steps support?
support drought-resistant farming systems include improving water conservation and storage measures, providing incentives for selection of drought-tolerant crop species, using reduced volume irrigation systems, and managing crops to reduce water loss
What did the intensity of crop cultivation affects clearly?
the density of housing in rural area
Specialization
the growing of specialized crops because they seem to be the most profitable
What idea does sustainable agriculture promote?
the idea that human needs can be met without sacrificing environmental quality and depleting natural resources
When did the Second Agricultural Revolution occurred in?
the late 18th century as improved equipment and better farming methods greatly increased the productivity of European farms
What is farming still despite increasing urbanization and globalization in today's world?
the major occupation of people in less developed countries
When did the Third Agricultural Revolution began?
the mid 20th century and is still going on today in the form of industrial agriculture, modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops
Tertiary Sector (Services)
the part of the economy that involves services rather than goods. The tertiary sector grows with industrialization and comes to dominate post-industrial societies.
Secondary Sector (Industry)
the part of the economy that transforms raw materials into manufactured goods. This sector grows quickly as societies industrialize, and includes each operation as refining petroleum into gasoline and turning materials into tools and automobiles.
Nomadism
the practice of moving frequently from one place to the other
Seed Agriculture
the production of plants through annual planting of seeds
The larger the farms and the better...
the production the fewer farmers were needed
How may market conditions change?
the time the crops are harvested, contributing to the risks.
mixed crop and livestock farming
this is the most common form of commercial agriculture in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains and in much of Europe from France to Russia. As the name implies, farmers grow crops and raise livestock on the same land spread, animal products, such as beef, milk, and eggs. Mixed crop and livestock farming permits farmers to distribute the workload more evenly through the year, with fields requiring attention in the spring when crops are planted, and in the fall, when they are harvested. Livestock require year-long attention, but unlike crop produce, livestock produce can be sold in the wintertime, too. Most farmers practice crop rotation. Different crops take different nutrients from the soil, but commercial farmers make more intensive use of their soil that shifting agriculturalists do, with the latter leaving fields fallow for long intervals. At any given time, commercial agriculturalists will have almost of their fields planted, but with different crops from those of previous years. For example, one cycle might focus on cereal grains, such as oats, wheat, or barley; a second cycle might feature a root crop, such as turnips; a third cycle would be a "rest" crop, such as clover, that helps to restore the field, but may be eaten by cattle. Then the farmer can start over with a cereal grain. In the United States today, corn is most commonly raised, with soybeans (used as an ingredient in processed food) the second most important crop in mixed commercial farming regions.
What has agriculture done from its very beginnings?
transformed the natural landscape
What is von Thunen's model useful for on a global scale?
understanding broad patterns of rural land use
What are most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in supermarkets produced by?
using these methods of industrial agriculture
What did the definition of village do?
varies across the world, but it usually describes a small number of people who live in a cluster of houses in a rural area
What things did other factors that affect rural land use include?
varying climate and soil conditions, farming methods, technology, and even historical influences
What must farmers do?
weigh in costs of production - such as machinery, fuel, fertilizer, and labor - and deal with unpredictable weather and/or disease
What did improvement in water lead to?
well drilling technology and submersible pumps combined with the development of drip irrigation and low pressure pivots have made it possible to regularly achieve high crop yields. However, in that in many areas where these practices have been applied, the water is being used at a greater rate than its rate of recharge.
What are these methods?
widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide
