Quiz 10 - Agriculture

adaptive strategies - the unique way in which each culture uses its particular physical environment; those aspects of culture that serve to provide the necessities of life--- food, clothing, shelter, and defense.

agrarian - characteristic of farmers or their way of life

agribusiness - highly mechanized, large-scale farming, usually under corporate ownership.

agricultural landscape - the cultural landscape of agricultural areas.

agriculture location model - deals with both the location - allocation process of land uses by farmers, and the spatial organization of agricultural land uses. The major term in its classical versions is economic rent relating to some form of surplus.  Von Thünen's theory emphasized distance from farm to market as well as transport costs, yield, market prices, and production costs as rent determinants. Modern versions of the theory provided simple models which relate explicitly to transportation costs. The theory has been criticized mainly for its many limiting assumptions.

agriculture - the cultivation of domesticated crops and the raising of domesticated animals

animal domestication - animals kept for some utilitarian purpose whose breeding is controlled by humans and whose survival is dependent on humans; differ genetically and behaviorally from wild animals.

aquaculture - the cultivation of aquatic organisms (as fish or shellfish) especially for food

biotechnology - means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use.

collective farm - regards a system of agricultural organization whereas farm laborers are not compensated via wages. Rather, the workers receive a share of the farm's net productivity.  The Soviet Union undertook the world's first campaign of mass collectivization from 1929-1933.

commercial agriculture - term used to describe large scale farming and ranching operations that employ vast land bases, large mechanized equipment, factory-type labor forces, and the latest technology.

intensive agriculture - expenditure of much labor and capital on a piece of land to increase its productivity.

extensive agriculture - use of little labor and capital to increase agricultural productivity.

crop rotation - the practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.

dairying - a class of agricultural, or more properly, an animal husbandry enterprise, raising female cattle, goats, or certain other lactating livestock for long-term production of milk, which may be either processed onsite or transported to a dairy for processing and eventual retail sale.

debt-for-nature swap - an agreement between a developing nation in debt and one or more of its creditors. Many developing nations are severely limited by huge debts they have accrued. In a debt for nature swap, creditors agree to forgive debts in return for the promise of environmental protection.  First established in the 1980s in the attempt of solving two problems with one agreement: 1) minimize the negative effect debt has on developing nations 2) minimize the environmental destruction that developing nations frequently cause. The environmental promises made in such debt for nature swaps have centered around the promised protection of large areas of land such as tropical rain forests. The first case of this sort of agreement came in 1987 between a conservation group and Bolivia. The conservation group paid some of Bolivia's debt in return for the creation of a large rain forest preserve.

double cropping - a second crop is planted after the first has been harvested

primary activities - the extraction of natural resources, such as agriculture, lumbering, and mining.

secondary activities - the processing of raw materials into finished products; manufacturing.

tertiary activities - associated with the provision of services--- such as transportation, banking, retailing, education, and routine office-based jobs.

quaternary activities - service sector industries concerned with the collection, processing, and manipulation of information and capital. Examples include finance, administration, insurance, and legal services.

quinary activities - service sector industries that require a high level of specialized knowledge or technical skill. Examples include scientific research and high-level management.

environmental modification- changes made to the environment. e.g., the use of pesticides to grow crops and the effects it has on the soil and environment; soil erosion and desertification caused by changes made to the environment.

shifting cultivation (slash and burn) - cultivation of crops in tropical forest clearings in which the forest vegetation has been removed by cutting and burning. the clearings are usually abandoned after a few years in favor of newly cleared forest land. Also known as slash-and-burn agriculture.

milpa - a crop-growing system in the Yucatán peninsula area of Mexico. The word is borrowed from the Aztec, meaning "field". Based on ancient Mayan agricultural methods, it produces maize, beans, lima beans and squash. The cycle calls for 2 years of cultivation and eight years of letting the area lie fallow. Agronomists believe that, at current levels of consumption, the system is self-sustaining.

swidden - a patch of land cleared for planting thorough slashing and burning.

nomadic herding/ pastoralism - the continual movement of livestock in search of forage for  animals.

feedlot - a factory like farm devoted to either livestock fattening or dairying; all feed is imported and no crops are grown on the farm.

first agricultural revolution - Dating back 10,000 years, it achieved plant domestication and animal domestication.

fishing - the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. By extension, the term fishing is applied to pursuing other aquatic animals such as various types of shellfish, squid, octopus, turtles, frogs, and some edible marine invertebrates.

food chain - the feeding relationships between species in a biotic community.

forestry - the art, science, and practice of studying and managing forests and plantations, and related natural resources.

Green Revolution - the recent introduction of high-yield hybrid crops and chemical fertilizers and pesticides into traditional Asian agricultural systems, most notably paddy rice farming, with attendant increases in production and ecological damage.

growing season - the period of each year when crops can be grown. It is usually determined by climate and crop selection. Depending on the location, temperature, daylight hours (photo period), and rainfall, may all be critical environmental factors.

hunting and gathering - the killing of wild game and the harvesting of wild plants to provide food in traditional cultures.

intensive subsistence agriculture - farming to supply the minimum food and materials necessary to survive.

livestock ranching - a commercial type of agriculture that produces fattened cattle and hogs for meat.

market gardening - the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. It is distinguishable from other types of farming by the diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically, from under one acre (4,000 m?) to a few acres, or sometimes in greenhouses.

Mediterranean agriculture - accounts for virtually all olive oil produced worldwide, 60% of wine production, 45% of grape production, 25% of dried nuts (mostly almonds, chestnuts, and walnuts), 20% of citrus production, and about 12% of total cereal production.

mineral fuels - Fossil Fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals.

mining - the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein, or (coal) seam. Materials recovered by mining include bauxite, coal, copper, gold, silver, diamonds, iron, precious metals, lead, limestone, nickel, phosphate, oil shale, rock salt, tin, uranium, and molybdenum. Any material that cannot be grown from agricultural processes, or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined. Mining in a wider sense can also include extraction of petroleum, natural gas, and even water.

paddy rice farming - the cultivation of rice on a paddy, or small flooded field enclosed by mud dikes, practiced in the humid areas of the Far East.

planned economy -  economic system in which a single agency makes all decisions about the production and allocation of goods and services; the state or government controls the factors of production and makes all decisions about their use and about the distribution of income, also known as a command economy.

plant domestication - deliberately planted and tended by humans that is genetically distinct from its wild ancestors as a result of selective breeding.

plantation agriculture - a system of monoculture for producing export crops requiring relatively large amounts of land and capital; originally dependent on slave labor.

nonrenewable - a resource that must be depleted to be used, such as petroleum

rural settlements:

dispersed - a type of settlement form where people live relatively distant from each other.

nucleated - a relatively dense settlement form.

Carl Sauer - conducted pioneering research on the origins and dispersal of plant and animal domestication, was one of the first t propose that the process of domestication was independently invented at many different times and locations. He believed that domestication did not develop in response to hunger. He maintained that necessity was not the mother of agricultural invention, because starving people must spend every waking hour searching for food and have no time to devote to the centuries of leisurely experimentation required to domesticate plants.

Second agricultural revolution - Dovetailing with and benefiting from the Industrial Revolution, it witnessed improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, and storage of farm produce.

suitcase farm - In American commercial grain agriculture, a farm on which no one lives; planting and harvesting is done by hired migratory crews.

survey patterns:

longlots - Distinct regional approach to land surveying found in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, and canals.

metes and bounds - a system of land surveying east of the Appalachian Mountains. It is a system that relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features such as streams or trees. Because of the imprecise nature of this surveying, the U.S. Land Office Survey abandoned the technique in favor of the rectangular survey system.

township-and-range - a rectangular land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior, also called rectangular survey system

Third agricultural revolution (mechanization, chemical farming, food manufacturing) - Currently in progress, it has as its principal orientation the development of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

“Tragedy of the commons” -  class of social trap that involve a conflict over resources between individual interests and the common good. The term derives originally from a parable published by William Forster Lloyd in his 1833 book on population.

Transhumance - a seasonal periodic movement of pastoralists and their livestock between highland and lowland pastures.

Truck farm - commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because the word was a Middle English word meaning bartering or the exchange of commodities.

Von Thünen, Johann Heinrich - German scholar-farmer who developed the core-periphery model in the nineteenth century (economic determinism). In his model he proposed an “isolated state” that had no trade connections with the outside world; possessed only one market, located centrally in the state; and had uniform soil, climate, and level terrain throughout. He created this model to study the influence of distance from market and the concurrent transport costs on the type and intensity of agriculture.