5.

1 Introduction to Agriculture

Agriculture affected by climate

- Mediterranean: always coastal (not all coastal areas are Mediterranean).
- Tropical: rainy and very sunny (soil is very poor). Shifting cultivation
(temporary)
- Temperate: very changeable (all 4 seasons)
- Semi-Arid/Arid: dry

Intensive Agriculture
- Need a lot of resources, investment, effort, labor, etc.
- Market gardening
- Plantation agriculture
- Mixed crop/livestock

Extensive Agriculture
- Not as much labor and resources needed
- Nomadic herding
- Ranching
- Shifting cultivation

5.2: Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods

Clustered
- It is more common in Europe, Asia, & Africa
- Fosters a strong sense of community
- People travel to their farm field
- Shared services like schools & churches
- Bc people didn’t own the land that they worked on
Dispersed
- More common in the U.S. and Canada
- As a part of a national expansion effort, farmers were granted 160 acres of
land that they had to improve or cultivate.
- Villages are scarce in this region
- People own their land

Linear
- Is comprised of buildings along a road, river, dike, or seacoast
- Excluding the mountainous zones, the agricultural land is extended behind the
buildings
- Caused by the establishment of permanent roads.

French Long-lot system

- Found in former French-controlled regions of North America like Louisiana &
Quebec
- Gave farmers access to water
- The lots were long and thin perpendicular to a river

5.3 Agricultural Origins & Diffusions ~ 10,000 BCE

The 1st Agricultural Revolution

- The 1st plant & animal domestication (completely changes everything)
- Began in Southwest Asia & Central Asia
- Spread outward from their hearths
- Called the “Neolithic Revolution”
- Gradually adopted: bc it would change the entire life way from foragers to
sedentary
- Led to the development of civilization (created governments, economics, etc.)
Agricultural Origins & diffusions

- Animal domestication: Most likely emerged first in Central Asia with the
domestication of dogs
- Plant domestication: Vegetative planting began first in Southwest Asia (Fertile
Crescent and then diffused to North Africa, Southeastern Europe, and Central
Asia

Columbian Exchange
- Major global diffusion of plants and animals as a result of the Americas being
brought into the global trade system after 1492
5.4: The Second Agricultural Revolution

The 2nd Agricultural Revolution 1700s CE

- Jethro Tull: In 1701, Tull developed a horse-drawn mechanical seed drill. The drill
incorporated a rotating cylinder in which grooves were cut to allow seed to
pass from a hopper above to a funnel below.
- Used advances from the burgeoning Industrial Revolution to increase food
supplies and led to significant population growth, and longer life expectancies.
- Involved mechanization, improved knowledge of fertilizers, field rotation,
selective breeding for both plants and animals

5.5 The Green Revolution

The Third Agricultural Revolution 1960s CE (India)

- Population bomb: overpopulation and food shortage concerns
- Introduction of new and high yielding variety of seeds and Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMOs)
- Increased use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and weedicides to reduce
agricultural losses.
- Agribusiness
- Control of development, planting, processing, and selling of food
- Efficient global supply chains

Pro’s Con’s

- Positive effects 160% overall - Environmental damage

increase in crop production - Double cropping led to soil
- Lower food prices around the erosion
world - Fertilizers and pesticides
- Successful in Latin America, made their way into
South Asia, East Asia, and groundwater, rivers, lakes,
 Southeast Asia and eventually the oceans
- Reduced the probability of famine - Greater reliance on fossil
and starvation fuels for running
- 80% of the world’s population had machinery
access to adequate food - Lack of sustained investment
- Encouraged high rates of global - When profit margins
investment in agricultural began to decrease,
research and development corporations abandoned
- Financially benefited universities their investments in
and corporations researching and agricultural technology
developing new agricultural - Impact on Gender Roles and Local
innovations Traditions
- Women lost their
economic power when
mechanization was
introduced because men
for the most part
controlled the machinery.

5.6: Agricultural Production Regions

Subsistance agriculture
- Only feeds the family that grows it
- Shifting cultivation- Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which
plots of land are cultivated temporarily, and then abandoned while post-
disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to grow freely while the cultivator
moves on to another plot.
- Nomadic herding- Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which
livestock are herded to seek fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads
follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance,
where seasonal pastures are fixed.
Commercial agriculture
- Farming to achieve profit and gain
- Mixed crop and livestock
- Ranching (extensive)
- Truck Farming
- Market Gardening
- Plantation Agriculture
- Dairy Farming
5.8: Von Thünen Model

Johann von Thünen

- 1826 German farmer, Johann von Thünen created an economic model that
suggested a pattern for the types of products that farmers would produce
relative to the distance to a marketplace where they sold their goods.
- Farmers were in business to make a profit. The cost of transportation was
considered
- He took into account bid-rent and the distance decay of cost from the center.
- Perishability was a factor in his model.
- Regions of specialty farming do not always conform to the model.

Economic Influences over Agricultural Land Use: Bid-Rent Theory

- Costs of Land, labor, and capital (investments in machinery, etc…)
- If land is plentiful and less expensive, then farmers use it extensively.
(closer to the market)
- If land is scarce and expensive, farmers use the land intensively
(farther from the market)

-
5:10/5.12: Consequences of Agricultural Practices/ Women in
Agriculture

Consequences of agricultural practices

- Pollution in water, air, and land
- Fertilizers and pesticides are not organic, they are chemical - so the fertilizers
can also pollute the soil, water, and land.
- Farm field runoff - pollution can get into our drinking water and food. It also
affects most to all other organisms on earth
- Pollution can create the butterfly effect

Desertification/draining wetlands
- Resulted from overgrazing
- Creates lots of erosion and loss of nutrients
- Also creates the butterfly effect
- Wetlands used to be viewed as problems
- When draining wetlands you get rid of a lot of biodiversity

Women roles changing

- In the 1800’s most people were farming
- Both men and women had their jobs involving agriculture
- Women were in charge of food preparation
- In the 1900’s more people lived in urban areas
- Women still were in charge of food preparation and caring for the
family
- In the 1970’s most people lived in cities or urban areas
- Women left the home and worked
- They did not need to spend as long on food preparation
- In the 2000 most people work
- Both men and women can be in charge of food preparation
- People also don't need as much food preparation