MDC LDC Farm Types
-----------------------------------------------------------5 present in developing countries
Pastoral Nomadism (lesser)
Shifting Cultivation (lesser)
Intensive Subsistence, wet rice dominant
Intensive Subsistence, crops other than rice dominant
Plantation (MDC owned, Exported to MDCs, exist in LDCs)
6 more often present in developed countries
Mixed Crop and Livestock
Dairying
Grain
Ranching
Mediterranean
Commercial Gardening
-----------------------------------------------------------LDCs
Market Gardens in LDCs
Predominant type of farming in southeastern U.S.
In LDCs, this would be small market gardens just outside of the city (von Thunen)
Grow many of the following fruits and vegetables that the local area uses
They are fresh and sold in city markets
Small scale operation from small farms
Mentioned in the Southeast Asian City model
Pastoral Nomadism
-Pastoral nomadism is a form of subsistence agriculture based on the herding of domesticated animals.
-Various approaches combine some reliance on sedentary agriculture with the herding of livestock.
-Some pastoral nomads obtain grain from sedentary subsistence farmers.
-More commonly, women and children of a nomadic group tend to crops at a fixed location.
-Nomads may hire worker to practice sedentary agriculture.
-Some nomads will remain in a place and cultivate the land only when rainfall is abundant.
Example: Kenya
-remember the video of pastoral nomads there
-competition for land with new forms like horticulture – brings cash into the country as a luxury, cash crop
-involves wandering over differing areas despite border or other issues
-large amount of land use often puts them into conflict with newer agriculture techniques, private lands
-diminishing over time
Where:
Central Africa
Southern Africa
Mongolia to Southwest Asia
Shifting Cultivation
Shifting cultivation is characterized by two distinctive features:
Farmers clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and burning the debris.
Farmers grow crops on a cleared field for only a few years, until soil nutrients are depleted, and then leave it fallow
for many years so the soil can recover.
Farmers return to a fallow site as few as 6 years
later or as many as 20 years later.
Land Ownership
Traditionally, land collectively owned by village.
Today, private individuals now own land, especially
in Latin America.
Intensive Subsistence Farming
-Feeds most of the ¾ of the world’s people who live in developing countries.
-Farmers work intensively to subsist on a parcel of land.
-Example: average farm size in China .5 acre
-Most of the work is done by hand or with animals rather than machines.
-Virtually all available land is used for production.
-Parcels of land are much smaller than elsewhere in world.
Example
Wet rice: the process where rice is planted on dryland in a nursery and then moved as seedlings to a flooded field to
promote growth.
-involves the flooding of fields, terracing of fields, plowing with animals or by hand, transferring of plants in some
cases
-remember that Tanzania video
Where:
Intensive wet-rice farming is the dominant type of agriculture in the following places:
Southeastern China
East India
Much of Southeast Asia
Climate prevents farmers from growing wet rice in portions of Asia, especially where summer precipitation levels are
too low and winters are too harsh.
MDCs
Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming
Most distinctive characteristic is the integration of crops and livestock.
Most of the crops are fed to animals instead of humans.
Typical example devotes nearly all land area to growing crops but derives more than ¾ of its income from the sale of
animal products. e.g. beef and eggs
Permits farmers to distribute the workload more evenly through the year, because crops require less attention, aside
from planting and harvesting them.
Typically involves crop rotation, practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid
exhausting the soil.
It is MDC in the sense that it involves animals and the meat industry but goes along organic and local and European
style farms – earlier in American farming (1950s) and currently is diminishing in favor of large-scale corporate farms
that prefer specialization
Mxied crop is not specialized which is more typical of modern MDC
You find this in Europe and America // Corn and Soy are the two most popular crops (wheat later
Dairy Farming
Most important type of commercial agriculture in the first ring outside the large cities because of transportation factors
(back in the 1800s to the early 1900s). Today we see this in LDCs (von Thunen)
Today in MDCs, it is within the region (100s of miles)
Ring surrounding a city from which milk can be supplied is known as the milkshed.
Advancements in modes of transportation have increased the radius of milksheds to 500 km. (300 mi.)
Process
Dairy farmers typically sell their milk to wholesalers who later distribute it to retailers.
Retailers then sell it to consumers in shops or at home.
More often found in MDCs – von Thunen no longer applies as it used to for these areas. Now dairy is still regional
LDCs are increasing their consumption of dairy and meat as they grow in income – von Thunen applies better here
but important to remember most LDCs have other styles of farming
Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming
Predominant type of farming in southeastern U.S.
Commonly referred to as truck farming from the Middle English word, truck, meaning “bartering” or “exchange of
commodities.”
In LDCs, this would be small market gardens just outside of the city (von Thunen)
Grow many of the following fruits and vegetables that consumers in developed countries demand:
Apples -Asparagus -Cherries
Lettuce -Mushrooms -Potatoes
Some of the fruits and vegetables are sold fresh to consumers, but most are sold to large processors for canning or
freezing.
Truck farms are highly efficient large-scale operations that take full advantage of machines at all stages of the
growing process.
Labor costs are kept down by hiring migrant farm workers.
Specialization in a few crops is common.
Grain Farming
Distinguished from mixed crop and livestock farming, because crops are grown primarily for human consumption.
Farms sell their output to manufacturers of food products, such as breakfast cereals and bread.
Characteristics of a Typical Grain Farm
Heavily mechanized
Large Scale and corporate (economies of scale)
Farms large in areal extent (megafarm)
Oriented to consumer preferences
Monoculture is the main technique uses for this style of farming nowadays
Where:
Eurasia, North America
Mediterranean Agriculture
Can be both MDC and an LDC style
Every site practicing this form of agriculture borders a sea, and most are on west coasts of continents.
Prevailing sea winds provide moisture and moderate the winter temperatures.
Farmers derive a smaller percentage of income from animal products.
Most crops are grown for human consumption.
Horticulture, which is the growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, and tree crops form the commercial base.
Along the Mediterranean Sea, olives and grapes are two most important cash crops. LDCs can grow these and have
them as part of their local diet.
Approximately half of the land here is used to grow cereals.
In America (use immigrant or undocumented labor, large-scale, corporate, specialized, larger markets – shipped
longer distances)
Where
South Africa, Chile, California as well as the southern part of Europe
Livestock Ranching
Ranching is the commercial grazing of livestock over an extensive area.
Well suited for semiarid or arid land
Practiced in developed countries where vegetation is too sparse and soil too poor to support crops.
Historically, ranchers sought to move their cattle from Texas to Chicago, because the cattle were worth more money
farther north.
In very poor LDCs, they have pastoral nomadism
Today, ranching has become part of the meat-processing industry where new methods of breeding and sources of
water and feed are embraced.
Slaughterhouses away from cities
Where
North America, southern South America
Why do newer techniques fail in the Very Least Developed Areas –
Sub-Saharan Africa
The area is also one of the poorest areas in the world and since many people are subsistence farmers they are
susceptible to food prices and environmental issues and changes.
Shortages and near-historic prices for staples such as corn, wheat and sugar have magnified the impact of the
drought now ravaging the Horn of Africa.
Issues:
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prolonged droughts
areas struggling with conflict and internal displacement such as Somalia
food prices that are near the record high levels
lack of infrastructure
population growth
infrastructure issues cause a lack of potable water
simple farming techniques and soil conditions make it difficult to farm enough in many countries within Africa
short lifespans, disease and a high youth population make it difficult to maintain a trained labor force
government corruption
More than 12 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa, the report said. In
some areas of Somalia, more than 40% of children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition.
The report also warned that production of biofuels – specifically America's production of corn ethanol – was
contributing to rising food prices.
But the price rises were particularly severe in Africa. Corn prices doubled in Kampala, Mogadishu and Kigali over the
last year, the report said.
It blamed the soaring prices on poor local harvests as well as shrinking global food stocks.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning that 27 sub-Saharan countries now need help.
It is particularly striking that the FAO highlights political problems such as civil strife, refugee movements and
returnees in 15 of the 27 countries it declares in need of urgent assistance. By comparison drought is only cited in 12
out of 27 countries.
The implication is clear - Africa's years of wars, coups and civil strife are responsible for more hunger than the natural
problems that befall it.
Critical issues
In essence Africa's hunger is the product of a series of interrelated factors. Africa is a vast continent, and no one
factor can be applied to any particular country. But four issues are critical:
Decades of underinvestment in rural areas, which have little political clout.
Africa's elites respond to political pressure, which is mainly exercised in towns and cities. This is compounded by
corruption and mismanagement - what donors call a lack of sound governance.
With good governance, most African countries could be net exporters of agricultural produce
"Problems such as corruption, collusion and nepotism can significantly inhibit the capacity of governments to promote
development efforts."
Wars and political conflict, leading to refugees and instability.
In 2004 the chairman of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, reminded an AU summit that the
continent had suffered from 186 coups and 26 major wars in the past 50 years. It is estimated that there are more
than 16 million refugees and displaced persons in Africa.
Farmers need stability and certainty before they can succeed in producing the food their families and societies need.
HIV/Aids depriving families of their most productive labour.
This is particularly a problem in southern Africa, where over 30% of sexually active adults are HIV positive. According
to aid agency Oxfam, when a family member becomes infected, food production can fall by up to 60%, as women are
not only expected to be carers, but also provide much of the agricultural labour.
Unchecked population growth
"Sub-Saharan Africa 's population has grown faster than any region over the past 30 years, despite the millions of
deaths from the Aids pandemic," the UN Population Fund says.
A decline in soil quality and subdividing land makes land less productive
"Between 1975 and 2005, the population more than doubled, rising from 335 to 751 million, and is currently growing
at a rate of 2.2% a year."
In some parts of Africa land is plentiful, and this is not a problem. But in others it has had severe consequences.
It has forced farming families to subdivide their land time and again, leading to tiny plots or families moving onto
unsuitable, overworked land.
In the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea some land is now so degraded that there is little prospect that it will ever
produce a decent harvest.
This problem is compounded by the state of Africa's soils.
In sub-Saharan Africa soil quality is classified as degraded in about 72% of arable land and 31% of pasture land.
In addition to natural nutrient deficiencies in the soil, soil fertility is declining by the year through "nutrient mining",
whereby nutrients are removed over the harvest period and lost through leaching, erosion or other means.
Nutrient levels have declined over the past 30 years, says the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Consequences
The result is that a continent that was more than self sufficient in food at independence 50 years ago, is now a
massive food importer. The book The African Food Crisis says that in less than 40 years the sub-continent went from
being a net exporter of basic food staples to relying on imports and food aid.
In 1966-1970, net exports averaged 1.3 million tons of food a year, it states.
"By the late 1970s Africa imported 4.4 million tonnes of staple foods a year, a figure that had risen to 10 million
tonnes by the mid 1980s."
It said that since independence, agricultural output per capita remained stagnant, and in many places declined.
Some campaigners and academics argue that African farmers will only be able to properly feed their families and
societies when Western goods stop flooding their markets.
How Do We Increase the Food Supply?
Increase the food supply
Decrease meat consumption
Decrease food waste in MDCs
Urban farms – green roofs, community gardens, return blighted land to farming
Better use of land to increase long-term yield
New Food Sources
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1.Cultivate Oceans
Increased fish consumption could meet the needs of a rapidly growing global population. The worlds
annual fish catch has increased from 22 million tons in 1954 to 100 million tons in 1991.
However the population of some fishes have declined due to being harvested faster than they can
reproduce.
2. Develop Higher-Protein? Cereals
People in MDCs obtain protein by consuming meat, but people in LDCs generally rely on wheat, corn,
rice, which lack certain proteins.
People can also obtain needed nutrition by consuming foods that are fortified during processing with
vitamins, minerals, and protein-carrying amino acids.
However, fortification has limited application in LDCs, where most people grow their own food rather
than buy processed food.
3. Improve Palatability of rarely consumed foods
People consume types of food adapted to their community's climate, soil, and other physical
characteristics.
People also select foods on the basis of religious values, taboos, and other social customs that are
unrelated to nutritional or environmental factors.
To make more effective use of existing global resources is to encourage consumption of foods that are
avoided for social reasons.
For example, soybean, which is one of the region's leading crops, most of the output is processed into
animal feed, in part because many North Americans avoid consuming tofu, sprouts, and other
recognizable soybean products.
In Asia, high protein beverages made from seeds resemble popular soft drinks.
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