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GEOG 247 Cultural Geography Subsistence Agriculture
AGRICULTURE
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 Extensive subsistence agriculture
• Large areas of land
• Minimal labor input per acre
• Product per land unit/population densities is low
• Includes shifting cultivation and nomadic herding
 Intensive subsistence agriculture
• Cultivation of small land holdings
• Great amounts of labor per acre
• Yields per unit area and population densities are
both high
Prof. Anthony Grande
Hunter College‐CUNY
©AFG 2015
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Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
Involves about 45% of world’s people.
Characterized by:
• Small-plot production of grains as
rice, wheat, maize, or millet
Intensive Agriculture
Farmers in Madagascar
plant highland rice by
hand in a field that
was prepared by the
swidden (slash and burn)
method.
– The warm, moist areas of monsoon
Asia are well-suited to rice production
– The cooler, drier portions of Asia/Africa
produce wheat, millet and upland rice.
• Intensive use of fertilizers, mostly
animal manure but including human waste
(night soil)
• High yields in good years
• Polyculture (variety of crops) is practiced
for food security and dietary custom
• Urban agriculture is a rapidly growing
activity in cities
Frans Lanting/Corbis
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Intensive Agriculture
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Intensive
Agriculture
Sugar cane in the Philippines
Farmers in Indonesia
tending to terraced rice
paddies. This highly
labor intensive form of
agriculture provides a
very high return.
Corn in Kenya
Bananas in India
Climate allows for double cropping. Climate also provides the
large amounts ofDenis
water
required
Waugh/Tony
Stone Images
for this form of agriculture. 5
Rice in Myanmar
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Urban
Agriculture
Urban Agriculture
The raising of food (including fruit, vegetables, meat,
and milk) inside cities, particularly in developing
nations.
Fields in
Havana
Result of increased world urbanization (over 50% of world’s
people live in cities). Production is usually enough to feed
Vertical agriculture in Tokyo
the family with enough surplus to sell at the local market.
In China urban agriculture provides 90% of vegetables
consumed.
In East Africa it provides 70-90% of poultry and vegetables.
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South Africa
Farming in San Francisco
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Urban Agric in Developed World
Detroit Redevelopment: Farming
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Second Industrial
Revolution
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Mechanization of Agriculture
The replacement of human farm labor with machines.
How did agriculture
change with
industrialization?
Industrialization as applied to agriculture would move it
beyond subsistence to generate the kinds of surpluses
needed to feed thousands of people now working in
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factories instead of in fields.
 New technologies developed, as the seed drill and
horse-pulled hoe
 Mechanical reaper perfected by
farmer Cyrus McCormick (1831). >>>
 Advances in breeding livestock.
 Great Britain’s Enclosure Act: encouraged
field consolidation into large, single-owner holdings
(efficiency of scale)
 Innovations in machinery that occurred with the
Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s and early 1900s
helped sustain increased productivity while
reducing farm labor.
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Large-scale
Grain Farming
Agricultural Inventions
Widespread use of
machinery encourages
larger farms.
Steel plow
Agribusiness instead of
family farming.
Common in the United States,
Canada, European Union,
Argentina, Australia
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Agriculture:
Expanding Crop Production
Vegetable Farming
 Once mechanization is in place with increased yields
produced by less manual labor, there is still a need to
continue to increase food production, especially as the
world’s population continues to grow. (Shades of Malthus reemerging).
 Two paths to increased food production:
1. Increase the land area under cultivation
2. Boost crop yields from existing farmlands
 Two other options to increased food supplies:
1. Identify new sources of food
2. Redistribute food supplies (increase exports from surplus
areas… But who pays?)
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Expand the Land Area
under Cultivation
Expand Crop Production
HOW? Most of the area well-suited for farming is
already under cultivation (includes best/better marginal).
 Convert marginal areas through drainage, irrigation,
fertilization, landscaping (very expensive)
 Slow loss of millions of acres annually because of
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Two interrelated approaches to increase yield:
a. Increase production inputs: Use more water,
fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, labor
b. Scientific experimentation: Complex of seed
and animal improvements adapted to the needs of
intensive agriculture and designed to bring larger
harvests from a given area of farmland, e.g., genetic
improvements to plants and animals, plus better farm
management techniques.
soil erosion
salinization through improper irrigation and sea level rise
desertification
conversion of farmland to other uses: urban, industrial
and transportation
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Third Agricultural Revolution
 The Green Revolution: Increased crop yields from
existing farmlands was seen as the key to increasing agricultural output
• 1930s: US agricultural scientists begin experimenting with
technologically manipulated seed varieties to increase
crop yields.
• 1960s: Focus shifted to India (IR8: quick growing high-yield
rice), then to the Philippines and SE Asia.
• 1980s: Fast-growing hybrid rice (IR36) was produced that
had genetic resistance against pests and diseases.
• New high-yield varieties of wheat and corn developed in the
US were planted in other parts of the world, esp. in South
and Southeast Asia (diffusion).
WORLD
AREAS of
BIOTECH
PRODUCTION
The U.S. is the
world’s chief
user of GMOs,
followed by
Brazil
Argentina
India
Canada
China.
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Summary of the Three Strands
of the Green Revolution
Expand Crop Production
Green Revolution = High-input, high-yield agriculture.
Costs for Green
Revolution successes?
• Salinization of soil and
ground water depletion due
• Commercial orientation
to irrigation
and demands = costly
• Unequal spatial distribution
inputs
of benefits, especially when
commercialization of the
• Displacement of
product is involved.
traditional and subsist• Gains are falling off in many
ence agriculture with
geographic areas (production
“chemical farming”
plateaus are being reached)
• Loss of food security and
• Consumer resistance to
nutritional diversity
genetically modified crops
(monoculture)
and products.
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Criticism of the
Green Revolution
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Commercial Agriculture
• Fear about the impacts of pollen • Some studies show that the
Green Revolution has done
dispersal from genetically modilittle to alleviate poverty in
fied plants and the potential for
areas where most farmers still
disease-resistant plants to spur
work small plots.
the evolution of super-pests.
• The need for capital from the
West to implement Green
• The large-scale mono-cropping
Revolution technologies has led
can make farms vulnerable to
to a shift away from production
changes in climate or the
for local consumers toward
infestation of particular pests.
export agriculture.
• Higher inputs of chemical fertil• Funding need has also led to a
izers, herbicides, and pesticides
closer association between
farmers, esp. agribusiness
can lead to reduced organic
farms, and the food
matter in the soil and to groundprocessing industry.
water pollution.
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 COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE:
The growing of crops and the
raising of livestock specifically for
sale rather than for consumption
by one’s own family (opposite of
subsistence agriculture)
• It began in the 18th and 19th centuries when Europe became a
market for agricultural products
from around the world.
• It has come to dominate in the
world’s economic core, as well as
some of the places in developing
and Third World areas.
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Commercial Agriculture
Commercial Agriculture
EXTENSIVE:
• Larger farm units on cheaper land
that are farther from market
• Large-scale grain farming
• Livestock ranching >>>>>>>>
It has resulted in the intensification and
consolidation of agriculture including:
– Reduction in the number of farms
– Enlargement in the size of farms
– Loss of “general farms” in favor of one or two crop
operations
INTENSIVE:
• Production of crops that give high yields and high
market value per unit of land
• Truck farming (fruits and vegetables)
• Dairy farming
• Livestock-grain farming
• “Live-stock factory” farms: for milk,
beef, wool, hogs, chickens >>>>
 21st century rise in the number of small farms in
developed areas that fill the consumer-driven niche
for organic and local food.
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Commercial Agriculture
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Specialized Agricultural Regions
Commercial agriculture is subject to many
production controls and regulations; much
different from the subsistence family farm.
– In developed economies there is specialization, offfarm sale, interdependence of producers and
buyers
– Contractual arrangements: agreeing to the wishes
of clients
– Agribusiness: profit motive
– Governmental involvements: regulations, oversight,
zoning, work rules
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Commercial Agriculture:
Special Crops
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Commercial Plantation
Replaces Peasant Farms
 Special crops are profitably grown where
natural conditions, consumer demand and
transportation come together
Circumstances make some places
far from markets intensively developed farming areas
Mediterranean-type agriculture
– Grapes, oranges, figs, vegetables, olives
Plantation crops
– Large agricultural holding, frequently foreignowned, devoted to the production of one or
two export crops
– Typically tropical, near coasts for export
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 Base for European expansion into Asia,
Africa and Latin America
 Subtropical –tropical areas
 One crop farming
 Capital intensive
 Workers live on plantationCourtesy of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov
 Tension between labor and management
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Commercial Agriculture:
Planned Economies
Livestock Feeding
Animals are fattened
for slaughter in feedlots after journey from
ranch or farm.
In planned economies agriculture is controlled as to
product produced, organization of production, price
of product and export venues
– State and collective farms and agricultural
communes are created, and replace the family farm
– 20th century saw the “socialization” of farming
especially in societies where socialist and communist
doctrines prevailed and also in areas under their
influence
– 21st century has seen the controls relaxed or
abandoned in most economies but the traditional
rural landscapes have been permanently altered.
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Aquaculture/Mariculture
Farming the water: Fishing
Fishing is a major supplement to human food
resources especially when populations are large, live
in high density and agricultural land is not productive.
– About 80% of annual fish harvest consumed by
humans, rest used for livestock feed or fertilizer
– Fish supply comes from
• Inland catch (fresh water)
• Fish farming (both fresh and salt)
• Marine catch (oceans, salt water)
– Maximum sustainable yield exceeded in local waters
in many areas of the world
Source of protein in diets.
Practiced
along the
coasts.
China is
dominant in
farmed seafood
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Aquaculture (fish farming)
Problems facing Fishing
Commercial marine fishing
• Concentrated in northern waters of the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans
• Uses sophisticated technology to locate and catch
fish
• Overfishing of prime fishing grounds has resulted
Quality of the catch
• Pollution of freshwater areas, coastal waters and
deep sea areas
• Concern about fish quality in fish farms
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Commercial aquaculture is a 20th century
enterprise and is the fastest growing sector
of the world food economy.
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Has existed for over 4000 years
Means of increasing fish supply
Virtually all farmed fish are for human consumption
Disadvantages:
– Pollution from fish wastes, chemicals and drugs
– Transference of disease to wild fish stocks
– Depletion of wild fish stock to feed farmed fish
– Genetic damage to wild fish stock
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