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