Unit 5:Agriculture:Primary Economic Activities

Agribusiness or Corporate Agriculture - answer-Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.Ex:This ______ is now spreading to developing countries where small-size farmers are linking with foreign sources for advice, seeds, fertilizers, machinery, and profitable markets at stable prices. Contract farming in poorer countries has been criticized as exploitative of small farmers who receive too little money for their products. Farmers in wealthier countries are also concerned that competition from farmers in less developed countries will drive down market prices. As a result, some governments have placed controversial tariffs on foreign produce in order to protect their own farmers. Agricultural Hearths - answer-Areas of settlement during the neolithic period, especially along major rivers, from where farming and cultivation of livestock originated.Ex: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 ___________ _____________. Agriculture - answer-Is the deliberate tending of crops and livestock in order to produce food and fiber. Ex: The ways that land is distributed to individuals and used for food production are determined by culture, as are the functions of livestock,and the consumption of food from crops and animals. For example, 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. Biotechnology - answer-The use of genetically altered crops in agriculture and DNA manipulation in livestock in order to increase production.Ex: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. Cereal Grains - answer-A grass that yields corn, wheat, rice,other grasses,millet, barley,and rye.Ex:For example, one cycle might focus on cereal grains, such as oats, wheat, rye, 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 Columbian Exchange - answer-The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages.Ex:This 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. Commercial Agriculture - answer-Is the production of food surpluses, with most crops destined for sale to people outside the farmer's family.Ex:Practiced mainly in more developed countries, farmers in commercial agriculture generally do not sell produce directly to consumers but to food-processing companies. Big companies sign contracts with commercial farmers to buy their grain, cattle, pigs, chickens, and other products that they in turn package to sell through food outlets (such as grocery stores) to consumers. The system of commercial farming found in more developed countries is called agribusiness, because farming is integrated into a large food-production industry. Desertification - answer-A deterioration of land to a desertlike condition by overgrazing and over-planting.Ex: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. Dispersed Settlement Pattern - answer-Areas of extensive agricultural practices demonstrate a _______ _____ _____, with individual farmhouses lying quite far apart._____ ___ _____ may also exist in areas where machinery makes intensive cultivation over large areas possible.Ex: Most farms across the Midwestern U.S. are large, houses are spaced far apart, and land is farmed fairly intensively by machines. Enclosure - answer-One of the fenced-in or hedged-in fields created by wealthy British landowners on land that was formerly worked by village farmers.Ex:Images Erosion - answer-The process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents.Ex: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. Extensive Agriculture - answer-An agricultural system characterized by low of labor per unit land area.Harvested crops are exchanged for currency, goods, or credit.EX:Images Extensive Subsistence Agriculture - answer-Consists of any agricultural economy in which the crops and/or animals are used nearly exclusively for local or family consumption on large areas of land and minimal labor input per acre.Ex:Both shifting cultivation and pastoral nomadism are referred to as _____ ____ _______ because they involve large areas of land and minimal labor per land unit. Both product per land unit and population densities are low. Green Revolution - answer-Agricultural revolution that increased production through improved seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation.Ex: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 ___ ____ has resulted in agricultural production outpacing population growth by the late 20th century. Hamlets or Villages - answer-Houses are grouped together in _______, or small clusters of buildings, or in slightly larger settlements called __________.Ex: 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. 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 _____ 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. Horticulture - answer-The art or practice of garden cultivation and management.Growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers - and tree crops.Ex: In the areas around the Mediterranean Sea, the most important cash crops are olives and grapes, with two-thirds of the world's wine produced there. Olives are an important source of cooking oil. California also produces grapes (and wine), and provides much of the citrus fruits and tree nuts for the United States market. California produces a wider variety of crops than other Mediterranean climate areas because of the extensive use of irrigation. Hunters and Gatherers - answer-_________ gained skills in capturing and killing animals, and _______learned which plants and fruits were edible and nutritious.EX:The first humans probably emerged in eastern Africa, due to a happy confluence of availability of food, domesticable animals, and favorable climate. Industrial Agriculture - answer-A form of agriculture that uses large scale mechanization and fossil fuel combustion, enabling farmers to replace horses and oxen with faster and more powerful methods of farming.Ex: Methods of ______ ______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.These methods are widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced using these methods of ____ ____. Intensive Agriculture - answer-This labor intensive agriculture employs large numbers of people and requires relatively little money to produce food.This also focuses on a small plot of land.Ex:Images Intensive Subsistence Agriculture - answer-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.Ex:____ ___ ___ is found in the large population concentrations of East and South Asia, with wet, or lowland, rice dominant in many areas. Irrigation - answer-The process of supplying water to areas of land to make them suitable for growing crops.Ex:Images Job Specialization - answer-:Other occupations than farming developed, since fewer people were needed to produce food. Some early specialized jobs include priests, traders, and builders.Ex:Images Labor Intensive Agriculture - answer-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.Ex:____ ___ ___ is found in the large population concentrations of East and South Asia, with wet, or lowland, rice dominant in many areas. Location Theory - answer-A logical attempt to explain the locational pattern of economic activities & the manner in which its producing areas are interrelated.Ex:Images Long-Lot Survey System - answer-Divides land into narrow parcels that extend from rivers, roads, or canals.Ex:This approach gives more people access to transportation,and has been used in the Canadian Maritimes, Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas. Mediterranean Agriculture - answer-This type of agriculture exists not only in the lands that border the Mediterranean Sea, but also in California, central Chile, the southwestern part of South Africa, and southwestern Australia.These areas share a similar physical environment: they border seas, and are on the west coasts of continents, with moisture provided by prevailing sea winds and moderate winter temperatures. Summers are hot and dry, with hilly lands and mountains that plunge directly to the sea, leaving narrow strips of flat land along the coast.Some livestock is raised, but most effort is put into crop production for human consumption rather than for animal feed.Horticulture - the growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers - and tree crops form the commercial base of Mediterranean farming.Major crop are olives, grapes, fruits, and vegetables.The hilly landscape encourages farmers to plant a variety of crops within one farming area.In the areas around the Mediterranean Sea, the most important cash crops are olives and grapes, with two-thirds of the world's wine produced there. Olives are an important source of cooking oil. California also produces grapes (and wine), and provides much of the citrus fruits and tree nuts for the United States market. California produces a wider variety of crops than other Mediterranean climate areas because of the extensive use of irrigation. During the winter months, many fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States are imported from Chile. Mercantilism - answer-Private companies under charter from the governments carrying out the trade.The main goal of mercantilism was to benefit the mother country by trading goods to accumulate precious metals to enrich the country.Ex:Major products included cotton grown in Egypt, Sudan, and India; tobacco and cotton in the American colonies; and sugar from plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil.These goods were marketed mainly in Europe, but sometimes they were manufactured in European factories and sold back to the colonists. Metes and Bounds - answer-A method of land`s natural features are used to mark irregular parcels of land.Ex:This approach has been used along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Milkshed - answer-Dairy farms must be closer to their market than other products because milk spoils quickly, so a ring of milk production called a _____ surrounds a major city.Ex:Today refrigerated rail cars and trucks have extended the reach of the _______, so that nearly every farm in the U.S. Northeast and Northwest Europe is within the milkshed of at least one urban area. Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming - answer-- 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, with most of the crops fed to animals rather than to people. Most income comes from the sale of 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 yearlong attention, but unlike crop produce, livestock produce can be sold in the wintertime, too. Most farmers practice crop rotation, where each field is planted on a planned cycle. 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 all 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, rye, 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. Neolithic Revolution - answer-(10,000 - 8,000 BCE) The development of agriculture and the domestication of animals as a food source.This led to the development of permanent settlements and the start of civilization. First of all, it happened in different parts of the world at different times, but settled communities had developed in many places by 8000 B.C.E. These drastic changes in human life are known collectively as the____ ___ that almost certainly happened independently in different places over a large span of time (independent invention).Ex: Images Nomadism - answer-The practice of moving frequently from one place to the other, is dictated by the need for pasture for the animals.Ex: This life style 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. Nucleated Settlement Pattern - answer-Villages located quite close together with relatively small surrounding fields.Land use is intense, but people and animals do the work. ____ ___ is the most common worldwide pattern of agricultural settlement.Ex:Rural areas in Indonesia. Organic Agriculture - answer-Crops are grown without fertilizers and pesticides, ensuring that the consumer will not suffer adverse health effects from them.EX: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. Pampas - answer-Grassy, treeless plains of southern South America.Ex:In South America, large portion of the ________ (prairie)of Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay are devoted to grazing cattle and sheep. Pastoral Nomadism - answer-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, or the practice of moving frequently from one place to the other, is dictated by the need for pasture for the animals.This life style 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.Ex:Images Patriarchal System - answer-System in which men hold power in the family, economy, and government.Ex: Images Plantation Farming - answer-A plantation is a large farm that specializes in one or two crops, and is found today in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. 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 many plantations in former colonies are still owned by Western individuals or corporations. Post-Industrial Societies - answer-Countries where most people are no longer employed in industry.Ex:___ ____exists in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and the U.S. was the first country with more than 50 percent of its workers employed in service sector jobs. Primary Sector - answer-The ____ ____ (agriculture) is the part of the economy that draws raw materials from the natural environment. The ____ ____ - agriculture, raising animals, fishing, forestry, and mining - is largest in low-income, pre-industrial nations.Ex:Images Primogeniture - answer-All land passes to the eldest son, resulting in large land parcels that are tended individually.Ex:This form of property distribution is found in northern Europe, the Americas, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Quaternary Sector - answer-The ____ ____ is often seen as a subset of the tertiary sector. It includes service jobs concerned with research and development, management and administration, and processing and disseminating information.Ex:Images Rectangular Survey System - answer-A system used to divide public domain lands in the United States in which land is divided into 6-mile square townships and subdivided into sections, portions of sections, or irregular lots. Also referred to as Public Land Survey System.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.Ex:Images Second Agricultural Revolution - answer-Began in Western Europe during the 1600s, which intensified agriculture by promoting higher yields per acre and per farmer. This agricultural revolution preceded the Industrial Revolution, making it possible to feed the rapidly growing cities. Some innovations included increased use of fertilizers and improved collars for draft animals to pull heavier plows.Ex:Images Secondary Sector - answer-The ___ ____ (industry) is the part of the economy that transforms raw materials into manufactured goods. This sector grows quickly as societies industrialize, and includes such operations as refining petroleum into gasoline and turning metals into tools and automobiles.Ex:Images Seed Agriculture - answer-The production of plants through annual planting of seeds.Ex:Most farmers today practice seed agriculture. Seed Drill (Jethro Tull) - answer-Machine that sowed seeds in rows and covered up the seeds in rows and a new invention that improved the way seeds were planted from scattering it on top of the ground to a machine that sowed seeds in well-spaced rows at specific depths. This allowed the seeds to take root producing a larger crop. Shifting Cultivation (Swidden Agriculture) - answer-Often referred to as "slash and burn" or swidden agriculture, this farming method exists 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 ___ ____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 ___ ____ generally live in small villages and grow food on the surrounding land, which the village controls. Intertillage - or the growing of various types of crops - 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 begin 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. Specialization - answer-The growing of specialized crops because they seem to be the most profitable. Farmers must weigh in costs of production - such as machinery, fuel,fertilizer, and labor - and deal with unpredictable weather and/or disease. Also, market conditions may change by the time the crops are harvested, contributing to the risks.Ex:To minimize their risks, farmers in the 1950s in the United States began 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. Subsistence Agriculture - answer-Most prevalent in LDCs, is the production of only enough food to feed the farmer's family, with no surpluses to sell. Some surplus may be sold to the government or to companies,but the surplus is not the farmer's primary purpose.- Logically, in countries that practice subsistence farming a high percentage of people are engaged in farming. With no surplus to sell, all people must produce their own food in order to survive.Ex: Images Sustainable Agriculture - answer-Attempts to integrate plant and animal production practices that will protect the ecosystem over the long term. It promotes the idea that human needs can be met without sacrificing environmental quality and depleting natural resources.____ _____ emphasizes human intervention in terms of soil quality and water.Ex: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 long term crop rotations that return to natural cycles that annually flood cultivated lands. Tertiary Sector - answer-The _____ ____(services) is the part of the economy that involves services rather than goods. The ____ ____ grows with industrialization and comes to dominate post-industrial societies, or countries where most people are no longer employed in industry. EX:Of ____ jobs include construction, trade, finance, real estate, private services, government, and transportation. Third Agricultural Revolution - answer-The Third Agricultural Revolution began in the mid20th 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.It is based on new, higher-yielding varieties of crops developed in laboratories and plant nurseries through biotechnology, the use of genetically altered crops in agriculture and DNA manipulation in livestock in order to increase production. Truck Farming - answer-This type of agriculture predominates in the U.S. Southeast, a region with a long growing season and humid climate and accessibility to the large markets of the Northeast. It is often referred to as ___ _____, because "_____" originally meant "bartering" 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.____ ____ usually rely heavily on machinery and fertilizers, and labor costs are controlled by hiring migrant farm workers who work for very low wages. Vegetative Planting - answer-Which new plants are produced by direct cloning from existing plants, such as cutting stems and dividing roots. Ex: People first learned to farm by deliberately dividing and transplanting plants already growing wild. Von Thunen Model - answer--Von Thünen's model assumed a flat terrain with uniform soils and no significant barriers to transportation to market. He did acknowledge that the spatial arrangement could vary according to topography. For example, towns located on rivers or on hilly terrain had to arrange their rings accordingly. Von Thünen 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 Thünen 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. -A German farmer, Johann Heinrich von Thünen, developed a famous model for rural land use in the early 19th century. Von Thünen studied the spatial layout of farming around the town of Rostock in northeast Germany, where he noticed that within the landscape one crop gave way to another without any visible change in the soil, climate, or terrain. As he mapped this pattern, he discovered that each town was a market center surrounded by a set of roughly concentric rings that featured different crops. • 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 reach the market quickly because they spoil rather quickly, so it makes sense that these farmers needed to choose locations close to town. • Forest - In von Thünen'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 transpo Wattle - answer-The term _____ refers to poles and sticks woven tightly together and then covered with mud. Ex: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. Wet (Lowland)Rice - answer-_____ ____ is planted on dry land in a nursery and then moved as se