Advanced Placement Human Geography
Chapter 10 Agriculture
Name_______________________________
Block_________
1. What is the basic difference between agriculture in MDCs vs. in LDCs?
2. What % of the people in the world are farmers?___In the U.S.?____
3. What questions about agriculture do geographers ask?
4. What kinds of cultural factors influence agriculture?
5. What kinds of physical geography concerns must farmers deal with?
6. How does “globalization” affect agriculture today?
7. What is the actual definition of agriculture?
8. What is a “crop”?
9. How did humans get food before agriculture?
10. Who and Where do people exist on hunting and gathering today?
11. What major advantage did agriculture allow people to do?
12. What is the difference between “vegetative planting” and “seed agriculture”?
13. Where did “vegetative planting” first take place and what plants were harvested?
14. Where were animals first domesticated and what animals were first domesticated?
15. What is an ‘agricultural hearth”?
16. According to Carl Sauer what were the first 3 seed agricultural hearths and what
were the first two grains harvested?
17. What region was first to integrate seed agriculture and produce animal products?
18. What 2 agricultural hearths originated in the Western Hemisphere and what crops
were raised?
19. What is the difference between “subsistence agriculture” and “commercial
agriculture”?
20. Name the 5 principles that distinguish commercial from subsistence agriculture?
21. What roles do large corporations play in commercial farming?
22. Why did the number of farmers decline so much in the 20th Century?
23. What technological advances have allowed commercial farmers in the U.S. and
Canada to produce higher crop yields?
24. How does GPS help farmers?
25. Why are farms so large in the U.S. today?
26. What is happening to farm land around large cities today?
27. How has GIS helped agriculture in Maryland?
28. What is the major reason why the amount of farmland has decreased since 1990?
29. What is “prime agricultural land”?
30. What is “agribusiness”?
31. List the 11 main agricultural regions in the world and name 1 country in each
region.(see world map in text)
32. How might “culture” affect agriculture?
33. Name and explain the 2 major characteristics of “Shifting Cultivation”.
34. What is “Slash-and-Burn” agriculture?
35. What is “Swidden”?
36. What are the limits of swidden?
37. Name 5 crops of shifting cultivation.
38. How widespread is shifting agriculture and what % of the people are involved in it?
39. Name 3 reasons why shifting cultivation is declining.
40. Why is shifting agriculture is environmentally sound?
41. What are the major effects of deforestation in the tropics?
42. What is “Pastoral Nomadism” and where is it practiced?
43. What kinds of products are obtained through “pastoral nomadism”?
44. What is “transhumance” and where is it practiced?
45. Why is pastoral nomadism declining today?
46. What are the components of “pasture”?
47. What is meant by “Intensive Subsistence Agriculture”?
48. Name 2 regions where intensive subsistence agriculture.
49. What is “wet rice” and name 2 regions where it is grown?
50. What is a “paddy”?
51. What is a “sawah”?
52. Identify the following terms:
a. chaffb. threshedc. winnowedd. hulle. double croppingf. crop rotationg. labor-intensiveh. communes53.What is the most common form of commercial agriculture in the U.S.?
54.What types of crops and livestock are raised on a mixed crop and livestock farm?
55. Name 2 advantages of a mixed crop and livestock farm.
56. Name 4 “cereal grains”.
57. Describe the “four-field” system.
58. Why have soybeans become a very important crop in the U.S.?
59. Where and why are dairy farms so important in the U.S.?
60. What is a “Milk-shed”?
61. Why are other milk products sometimes found away from urban centers?
62. Name and describe 2 problems dairy farmers face today.
63. How are grain farms different from “mixed farms”?
64. Why is wheat the most important grain in the U. S.?
65. What is the difference between “winter wheat” and “spring wheat”?
66. What was the “reaper”?
67. What 3 functions do “combines” perform?
68. What continent produces ½ the world’s wheat?(name the 2 countries)
69. Define “Ranching”
70. Why was it more profitable to drive cattle to Chicago than other areas of the U.S.?
71. Who was McCoy and why is he important?
72. Why was the Chisholm Trail so important?
73. What are the 3 most commonly found animals on ranches throughout the world?
74. What caused the “range wars”?
75. Name 2 ways cattle raising and feeding has chanced since WWII.
76. What invention in the late 1800s allowed countries like Argentine and Australia
become large cattle raising countries?
77. Why is ranching part of the “meat-processing industry” rather than an activity on an
isolated farm?
78. Why is “Mediterranean Agriculture” so different?
79. What types of crops are examples of “Horticulture”?
80. Why is California so important to U.S. agriculture?
81. What constitutes “truck farming”?
82. What is “specialty farming”?
83. Where is most “Plantation Farming” carried out in the world?
84. Why was cotton an important plantation crop in the 1800s in the U.S.?
85. Name 5 “plantation crops” grown in the world.
86. Name 2 economic factors the choice of crops you grow.
87. What is the main purpose of “commercial farming”?
88. According to Von Thunen what two costs does the commercial farmer take into
consideration in choosing to crops to produce?
89. Why was his book called the “Isolated State”?
90. Draw and label model he produced in 1826.
91.What 3 factors did von Thunen fail to take into consideration.
92.Where in today’s world is there an example of the von Thunen model?
93. Name the 3 U. S. policies that attack the problem of overproduction today.
94. Name 2 disadvantages of “subsidies”.
95. Name 2 characteristics of “sustainable agriculture”
96. Name two reasons “ridge tillage” is attractive?
97. Describe Boserup’s thesis and the effect of population on farming?
98. Name 4 “drug crops.
99. Name 4 strategies to increase food supply.
100. What is desertification and where is it occurring?
101.Name the two most important contributions of the “Green Revolution”?
102. What continent did the Green Revolution not affect?
103. Why did Norman Borlaug win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970?
104. What are the 3rd and 4th alternatives for increasing the world’s food supply?
105. Name the top 4 grain importers in the world today.
106. What region in Africa is a major problem today in regards to food supply?
107. How have government policies aggravated the food-shortage crisis?