Sample Agriculture FRQ
Name: _________________________
Discuss the advances that each of the agricultural revolutions had on farming.
A. What agricultural products were affected by each revolution?
B. What impact did the agricultural revolutions have on world population?
C. Where did each revolution begin and diffuse to?
Sample Answer:
The three agricultural revolutions have affected the world's population more than any other factor in human history and
are still modifying the agricultural landscape today.
A. Worth 3 points The 1st Agricultural Revolution introduced the use of seed agriculture and vegetative planting. Prior
to the 1st Agricultural Revolution, the primary form of food acquisition was hunting and gathering. This process occurred
up to 10,000 years ago and took many years to develop.
The 2nd Agricultural Revolution saw advancement in the production of wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice over 200 years
ago. The 2nd Agricultural Revolution coincided with and was largely the result of the Industrial Revolution.
Improvements in transportation methods and farming techniques and machinery helped to increase farmers'
productivity. As a result, the amount of food surplus skyrocketed, as did the world's population.
The 3rd Agricultural Revolution is still taking place today. It involves the genetic engineering of plant species to increase
their efficiency and durability in different climates. The 3rd Agricultural Revolution began with rice and hten moved on to
other crops, such as wheat and sorghum.
B. Worth 3 points The 3 agricultural revolutions have each had a dramatic impact on the world's population. The 1st
AR allowed the human population to move away from hunting and gathering toward a more sedentary lifestyle. This
allowed population to grow, as a more reliable food source meant that people could have more children. Also, children
became economic assets, because they could assist with farm-work.
The 2nd AR allowed the population to start growing rapidly. The mechanization of farming allowed farmers to produce
many more bushels of food, supporting exponential population growth. This population boom could only have happened
with the rise in food production enabled by the 2nd AR.
The 3rd AR has supported further population growth. With the world's population exceeding 6.6 billion people, food must
be plentiful enough to support it. The genetic engineering of food crops has increased production enough to feed the
world's population; starving populations are not a result of food production but rather food distribution. Furthermore,
with growth rates continuing to soar in many African and some Asian countries, new methods of farming will be needed to
keep up with the demand for food.
C. Worth 3 points The 1st AR is thought to have begun in three separate areas, which were independent of each other.
The first hearth of agriculture is western Africa. Here, cattle, sheep, and goats were first domesticated, and coffee and
palm oil were first developed as useful commodities. The 2nd major hearth of modern agriculture is Southeast Asia.
Dogs, pigs, adn chickens were domesticated in this region, and rice probably started here. The 3rd major hearth is
northwestern South America. NW South America domesticated turkeys, llamas, and alpacas and started growing squash,
corn, beans, and cotton as primary products. The practices developed in these hearths then diffused to surrounding areas
and eventually around the world.
The 2nd AR began in Europe with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. In Western Europe, new technologies transformed
agriculture. They then diffused into Eastern Europe and eventually into the Western Hemisphere.
The 3rd AR has its hearth in science labs around the world. The first major lab to work on the genetic modification of
plants was the International Rice Institute in the Philippines. These scientists modified a strand of rice to make it more
nutritious and easier to grow. This technology has since diffused around the world, while ongoing discoveries to
genetically modify crops for easier growing and nutrition continue to this day.