Agriculture & Rural Land Use – Key Topics
Commercial
Agriculture
Subsistence
Agriculture
Primarily for purpose of selling products for money, often monocultures for economies of scale
Primarily for direct consumption by a local population, usually small scale and low tech

Intensive Land Use
Small-area farms or ranches
High inputs of labor & high output per acre
Cattle ranch, northeast
Colorado
Rice paddies, southeast
China
Extensive Land Use
Large-area farms or ranches
Low inputs of labor & low output per acre

Labor-Intensive
Agriculture
Large amount of human work is applied per unit of output
Top picture – Labor-intensive corn raising in central
Mexico.
Bottom picture – Corn exported from capital-intensive
U.S. farms to the Mexican market
Capital-Intensive
Agriculture
Large amount of capital
(equipment and buildings used to produce other goods) is applied per unit of output

Subsistence – predominantly low-income regions
Intensive subsistence – subtropical monsoon areas
Shifting cultivation – tropical forests & savannas
Nomadic herding – semiarid and arid lands
Commercial – predominantly high-income regions
Crop farming – more humid climates
Livestock ranching - drylands

• Hunter-Gatherers
• Neolithic Revolution
– Domestication of Plants and Animals
– Diffusion of Agriculture
• Agricultural Industrialization
• The “ Green Revolution ”
• Modern Agribusiness

First Agricultural Revolution
Invention of farming & domestication of livestock (8,000–
14,000 years ago) + diffusion from several source regions = shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies
Probable culture-hearths of agriculture

Second Agricultural Revolution
Technological changes (starting 1600s in Western Europe; spread by 1800s to North America)
Began with new methods: crop rotation, better horse collars
Later innovations: replace human labor with machines, supplement natural fertilizers & pesticides with chemical
Beginnings of commercialization of agriculture
(production of surplus for trade); enabled widespread urbanization

Chile’s ag exports
Vegetables and orchards near
Santiago
Regional produce warehouse in Chile
Improved transportation and refridgeration
Market in Slovakia

Third Agricultural Revolution
Since 1960s
- hybridized grains for better yields (“Green Revolution”)
- greater reliance on synthetic fertilizers
- genetically engineered crops
- vertical integration of ownership
(e.g., Cargill, ConAgra, ADM)
- globalization of production
A partial list of ConAgra’s brands
Swiss Miss Hunt’s
Van Camp’s
Wesson
Slim Jim
Rosarita
ReddiWip
Marie Callender’s
Hebrew National
Egg Beaters
Chef Boyardee
Pam
Peter Pan Orville Redenbacher’s
Healthy Choice Banquet

Technology allows much greater production
(surplus) with less human labor, but has high social and environmental costs. Less farmers (push/pull).
 Metal plows, Reapers, Cotton Gin
 Tractors (Internal Combustion Engine)
 Combines
 Chemical Pesticides/Fertilizers
 Hybrid and genetically modified crops

 Modern commercial farming is very dependent on inputs of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides.
 Oil is required to make fertilizer and pesticides.
 It takes 10 calories of energy to create 1 calorie of food in modern agriculture.
 Small farmer can ’ t buy needed equipment and supplies.
 Fewer than 2% of U.S. population works in agriculture
 Land is harder to come by due to urban sprawl.

Subsistence
Agriculture
• Shifting Cultivation
• Pastoral Nomadism
• Intensive Subsistence
Agriculture
Subsistence Farms, China

Subsistence Agriculture Regions

Vegetation “ slashed ” and then burned. Soil remains fertile for 2-3 years. Then people move on.
 where: tropical rainforests. Amazon,
Central and West Africa, Southeast
Asia
 Crops: upland rice (S.E. Asia), maize and manioc (S. America), millet and sorghum (Africa)
 This form of agriculture occupies the largest percentage of the world's land area
Declining at hands of ranching and logging.

The breeding and herding of domesticated animals for subsistence.
Bedouin Shepherd
 where:
Asia arid and semi-arid areas of N. Africa, Middle East, Central
Somali Nomad and Tent
 animals: Camel, Goats, Sheep,
Cattle
 transhumance: seasonal migrations from highlands to lowlands
Most nomads are being pressured into sedentary life as land is used for agriculture or mining.

•
 where: S.E. Asia, E. India, S.E.
China
 very labor intensive production of rice, including transfer to sawah, or paddies
The Fields of Bali
 most important source of food in
Asia
 This form of agriculture is pacticed by the largest percentage of the world's people
 grown on flat, or terraced land
 Double cropping is used in warm winter areas of S. China and
Taiwan
Thai Rice Farmers

Commercial
Agriculture
• Mixed Crop and
Livestock Farming
• Dairy Farming
• Grain Farming
• Livestock Ranching
• Mediterranean
Agriculture
• Truck Farming
North Dakota Potato and Wheat Fields

Where: Ohio to Dakotas, centered on Iowa; much of Europe from France to Russia
 crops: corn (most common), soybeans
 In U.S. 80% of product fed to pigs and cattle
 Highly inefficient use of natural resources
 Pounds of grain to make 1 lb. beef: 10
 Gallons of water to make 1 1b wheat: 25
 Gallons of water to make 1 1b. beef: 2500

Where: near urban areas in N.E.
United States, Southeast Canada,
N.W. Europe
Locational Theory : butter and cheese more common than milk with increasing distance from cities and in West.
 milkshed : historically defined by spoilage threat; refrigerated trucks changed this.
Dairy Farm, Wisconsin

Where: worldwide, but U.S. and
Russia predominant
Crops: wheat
 winter wheat: Kansas, Colorado,
Oklahoma
 spring wheat: Dakotas, Montana, southern Canada
Highly mechanized: combines, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, migrate northward in U.S., following the harvest.

Where: arid or semi-arid areas of western U.S.,
Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and Portugal.
History: initially open range, now sedentary with transportation changes.
Environmental effects:
1) overgrazing has damaged much of the world ’ s arid grasslands
(< 1% of U.S. remain!)
2) destruction of the rainforest is motivated by Brazilian desires for fashionable cattle ranches

Where: areas surrounding the
Mediterranean, California, Oregon, Chile,
South Africa, Australia
Climate has summer dry season.
Landscape is mountainous.
• crops: olives, grapes, nuts, fruits and vegetables; winter wheat
• California: high quality land is being lost to suburbanization; initially offset by irrigation

• crops: high profit vegetables and fruits demanded by wealthy urban populations: apples, asparagus, cherries, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
• mechanization: such truck farming is highly mechanized and labor costs are further reduced by the use of cheap immigrant (and illegal) labor.
• distribution: situated near urban markets.

What are potential problems with this type of agriculture? Environmental? Economic?

Making
Sense of the
Map of US
Agricultural
Regions

(Green Revolution)
• invention of high-yield grains, especially rice, with goal of reducing hunger.
- increased production of rice
- new varieties in wheat and corn
- reduced famines due to crop failure, now most famines are due to political problems
- impact (in terms of hunger) is greatest where rice is produced

The term green revolution refers to the development and adoption of high yielding cereal grains in the less developed world during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Very large short term gains in grain output have allowed food supplies to grow faster than populations, until late 1980s. Mostly in
South/SE Asia and Latin America.

Rice plant
Sources: FAO, IRRI (research organization devoted to rice) – part of global CGIAR effort at improving yields of staple crops worldwide
“Green Revolution” –
1960s -1980s
Rice - staple food for 2.5 billion
Asians - provides 2/3 of calories for Asians with rice-based diets
Green Rev – Raised yields
* Improved rice strains
* Greater use of fertilizer
* Increase use of irrigation
Asia’s rice production grew at annual rates of 3.0% until 1980s
Yield growth rate exceeded high pop. growth rates of the time

Green Revolution Plusses:
Countries self-sufficient in rice or even exporters (Thai, Viet).
Poor people benefited as yield increases caused real price of rice to drop.
“Post-Green Revolution”
(since 1980s)
Problems
Successes led to less concern about food security, and less investment in irrigation, agric research, and rural infrastructure.
Growth rate in rice production declined during 1985-95 due to drop in growth rate of rice yields.
In most places, despite increasing use of fertilizers, further increases in yields became harder to achieve and more costly.
Environmental Impact (water, pollution, desertification, salination)

Third Agricultural Revolution
Benefits
Reduced uncertainties in agriculture
Greater global exchange of ag products
Increased yields
Costs
Increased dependence on fossil fuels
Reliance on chemical inputs
Less global diversity of food products
Concentration of pollutants

• Heavy Use of Fresh Water
• High Dependence on Technology and
Machinery Provided/Sold by Core
Countries
• Heavy Use of Pesticides and Fertilizer
• Reduced Genetic Diversity / Increased
Blight Vulnerability
• Questionable Overall Sustainability

• Starvation of many prevented, but extra food may lead to higher birth rates.
• Life expectancy in less developed countries increased by 10 years in less than two decades (43 in 1950 ’ s to 53 in 1970 ’ s).
• Dependency on core countries increased; rich-poor gap increased.
• Wealthy farmers and multinational companies do well, small farmers become wage laborers or unemployed – dependent.
• More at risk? More people malnourished/starving today than in 1950 (but lower as a percentage).
• U.S. spends $10,000,000,000 year on farm subsidies, damaging farmers and markets in LDCs.

“ Our incredible successes as a species are largely derived from this choice, but the biggest threats to our existence stem from the same decision.
” Jared Diamond, 1999
 Emergence of new human diseases from animal diseases (i.e. smallpox, measles)
• Dense urban populations allow spread/persistence of disease
 Lower standard of living for many people.
• Archaeological evidence of serious mal-nourishment among early farmers.
• Many modern impoverished and malnourished farmers.
• Famine virtually non-existent in hunter-gatherer societies.
 Increased susceptibility to plant blights and increased dependence on complex economic systems.
 Environmental degradation
• topsoil loss (75% in U.S.), desertification, eutrophication, salinization,
PCBs in fish, DDT and other pesticides