AGRICULTURE
Origins of Agriculture
• When humans domesticated plants and
animals for their use
• Agriculture - deliberate modification of the
earth’s surface through cultivation of plants
and rearing of animals to obtain sustenance
or economic gain
• Cultivate - “to care for”
• Crop - any plant cultivated by people
Hunter Gatherers
• Today 250,000 people still
survive this way
• .005% of human population
• Small groups in isolated
locations
• Arctic, interior of Africa,
Australia, and South
America
Earliest Plant Cultivation
• According to cultural geographer Carl Sauer
– Vegetative planting - reproduction of plants by
direct cloning from existing plants, such as cutting
stems and dividing roots
– Seed agriculture - (later) - reproduction of plants
through annual planting of seeds that result from
sexual fertilization. Practiced today by most
farmers.
Agricultural Hearths
(vegetative planting)
• Southeast Asia
– Diverse climate & topography encouraged growth
of variety of plants
– More sedentary population because relied on
fishing more than hunting
– Taro, yam, banana, palm
– Diffused north and east to China and Japan and
west to India, southwest Asia, Africa, and
Mediterranean
– Dog, pig, & chicken first domesticated animals
• West Africa - oil palm and yam
• Northwest South America - manioc, sweet
potato, arrowroot
First Seed Agriculture
(Eastern Hemisphere)
• Western India – diffused to Southwest Asia where wheat
and barley were domesticated & where
animals were first intergrated with plant
agriculture. Cattle, sheep & goats plowed
the land & were fed crops.
– Diffused to Mediterranean & Europe
• Northern China
– Millet diffused to Southeast Asia
• Ethiopia
– Millet and sorghum, did not diffuse widely
First Seed Agriculture
Western Hemisphere
• Southern Mexico
– Extended into Guatemala and Honduras
– Squash and maize (corn)
• Northern Peru
– Squash, beans, cotton
– Llama, alpaca, turkey
• Multiple origins of agriculture means that
people have always produced food in
distinctive ways. Based on climate & cultural
preferences
Forms of Agriculture
• Subsistence
• Commercial
– produced for market
(mainly food processors agribusiness - part of the
food production industry)
– Machines & scientific
advances (fertilizer, etc)
– few laborers (less than
1/10 of workers in MDCs
are engaged in farming)
– produced for
consumption
– work by hand
– most people work (more
than 1/2 of workers are
farmers)
• shifting cultivation
• nomadic herding
• intensive subsistence
(rice dominant or not
rice dominant)
• plantation agriculture
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•
•
•
•
•
livestock & ranching
horticulture
dairy farming
mixed crop
grain
Mediterranean
World Agricultural Regions
• Whittlesey’s map from 1936
– Most widely used
– 11 main agricultural regions & 1 where it’s
nonexistent (5 regions in LDCs, 6 regions
in MDCs)
– Sorted practices by climate (2 maps, one
of climate regions & Whittlesey’s are
similar)
– Strong correlation between climate &
agriculture (Much of the West is dry and
also home to ranching)
Agriculture in LDCs
• Shifting cultivation
• Pastoral nomadism
• Intensive subsistence agriculture
• Plantation farming
Shifting Cultivation
• Tropics (high temp, high rainfall)
• Amazon, Central & West Africa, Southeast
Asia
• 250 million people
• Usually small villages that grow food on
surrounding, communal land
• Two Hallmarks of Shifting Cultivation
– Slash and burn agriculture
– Farmers grow crops on a cleared field for only a
few years until soil is depleted, then leave fallow
so soil can recover
•
Process of Shifting
Cultivation
Cut down
trees & brush
• Remainder is
burned &
ashes add
nutrients to
soil
• Swidden
(cleared area)
• Land is hoed
and planted
• crops grow for 3 years, then
nutrients are depleted and fields are
left fallow for 6-20 years.
Shifting Cultivation
• Main Crops
–
–
–
–
SE Asia - rice
S America - maize, manioc
Africa - millet, sorghum
Also: yams, sugarcane,
plantains
– Families grow for their own
needs, so one swidden may
contain many crops & look
chaotic
• Land Ownership
– Traditionally, village owns land &
allocates parts to families, but
changing
– 1/4 world’s land area, but less
than 5% of people
Future of Shifting Cultivation
• Declining in the tropics at 30K sq. mi/yr
– Replaced by logging, ranching & cash crops
– Critics: “inefficient way to feed many”
– Defenders: “most environmental kind of
agriculture”
• No fertilizer or pesticides
• Allow native plants to grow back in fallow years
• Protects against erosion, soil damage &
unbalanced ecosystems
– Loss of shifting cultivation could harm
diversity of cultures (agriculture connected to
social, religious, and political customs
Pastoral Nomadism
• Subsistence ag. based on herding animals
– Depend on herds for life, but eat mostly grain
• Dry climates, crops impossible
• N. Africa, Middle East, central Asia
– (Bedouins of Saudi Arabia, Masai of East Africa)
• 15m people, on 20% of world’s land area
• Declining - gov’ts forcing
Nomads to settle because
want access to lands for
irrigation, mining, oil
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
• Most of Ag in LDCs (needed in densely
populated areas)
• Small farms, fragmented
• Ag density is high (lots
of farmers per unit of
land) - land must be
very productive
• Most done by hand
• Waste no land (roads
kept narrow to maximize
farmland)
• Asia divided: wet rice dom. & not dom.
Intensive Subsistence Ag. Wet Rice Dominant
• “wet rice” - practice of planting rice on dry land in nursery
& then moving to flooded field to promote growth
• Small % of Asia’s agricultural land, but largest
source of food for region
• Southeast China, East India, Southeast Asia
• “sawah” - flooded rice field
• Rice harvested by hand. To separate husks (“chaff”)
from seeds, the heads are “threshed”- beaten or stomped on.
Lighter chaff is “winnowed” - allowed to be blown away by
wind. To be eaten, outer “hull” must be removed with mortar
and pestle.
• Grown on flat land: river valleys and deltas
• Population pressure has forced up hillsides: terracing
• Double cropping - 2 harvests per year (only in warm
climates & alternate with a crop that can be grown in
drier months, like wheat.)
Intensive Subsistence Not Rice
• Same characteristics as wet rice dom., just
different crops (human power, work land
intensively, no land wasted)
• Low precipitation & harsh winters (can’t grow
rice)
• Interior India, NE China
• Wheat, barley, millet, oats, corn, soy & cash
crops like cotton, tobacco, flax
• Crop rotation - can get more than one
harvest per year by putting different crops in
fields
Plantation Farming
• Commercial Agriculture (MDCs) found in LDCs,
tropics of Africa, Asia, Latin Am.
• Large farm specializing in 1 or 2 crops
– Cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, bananas, tea
• Remote locations
– Workers imported & provided with housing, food,
social services
– Try to spread out work throughout year to make use
of labor force.
– Many goods processed on plantation (tobacco) easier to ship