In the past century, agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the replacement of human labor by synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, selective breeding, and mechanization.
The recent history of agriculture has been closely tied with a range of political issues including water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs, and farm subsidies. In recent years, there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of mechanized agriculture, and increasing support for the organic movement and sustainable agriculture.

The Impact of Agriculture on the Environment
• soil erosion

:

• deforestation

• elimination of some plant and animal species

• soil and water pollution
(herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers)

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities.
Practices that can cause long-term damage to soil include excessive tillage
(leading to erosion) and irrigation without adequate drainage (leading to salinization).

FR Von Thunen’s Agricultural Model
A land use model
In into too

used to explain the importance of proximity to the market in the choice of crops on commercial farms

(this created a concentric pattern: circles sharing the same centers)

Von Thunen believed farmers compare two costs in deciding what to grow: transportation costs versus rent
He defined rent as the difference between revenues received and costs paid — in other words, the profit earned from the land.

Because farmers must pay to transport their produce to the market, and these costs are directly proportional to distance, the profit for each product declines as a straight line with increasing distance from the market

The decline in profit with increasing distance from the market is an example of distance decay.

Von Thunen's model made several simplifying assumptions.
• all the farmers in a certain area would send their produce to one market town
• an evenly flat plain surrounded the market town
• the fertility of the soil and the climate were the same everywhere on that plain
• the cost of transport was the same in every direction from the market town, and directly proportional to distance.

What is intensive agriculture?
high inputs (labor, fertilizer, pesticides, machinery) makes a high cost so only a higher priced goods can turn a profit (strawberries for example)

Why is intensive farming used in the inner ring?
• Perishable products (needs to get to the market quickly)
• Higher land value so a higher value commodity must be produced
• High transportation costs could prevent a profit

2 nd Ring timber and firewood
• Fuel and building materials for industrialization
• Wood is heavy and expensive to transport if farther away from the market

3 rd Ring
Extensive field crops
• Grains
• Less profit per acre
• However:
• Cheaper to transport
• Can locate further from the city (less perishable) on less expensive land

4 th ring
Ranching
• Animal raising
• Can be self transported

For example:
On California’s poultry farms site factors are not as important as on other farms because chickens can be raised indoors on cheap land with poor soils.

The most ideal bioclimatic zone for wheat would be the
Ohio River Valley and the great prairies of Iowa,
Illinois, and Indiana, however , wheat is grown on the high plains farther west in the arid region. Wheat is grown there not because it is the best place to grow it, but because it is the crop that will yield a profit there while other crops will not.

• Up to 10 miles farmers grow strawberries
• 10-30 forest
• 30-50 wheat
• 50-80 cattle
Now draw this on a map
City
10
30
50
80

Up to 10 miles farmers grow strawberries
10-30 forest
30-50 wheat
50-80 cattle
Now draw this on a map
City stawberries
10 forest
30 wheat
50 cattle
80

10 30 50
Distance from the market
80

$
10 50 75 tom
10 wheat
50
100
100

Discuss two factors that explain why agriculture landuse patterns today differ from those developed by Von
Thunen’s model of 1826.
What is this question asking?

The rings often do not apply to the modern world

Can grow crops further is zero points. The rings are bigger is still von Thunen

Better technology is too vague zero points.

Refrigeration, preservation, canning and much faster transportation allows perishable products to be shipped from beyond the inner ring

• trucks and airplanes allows perishable food to get to the market faster so it doesn’t have to grow near city anymore which allows it to be produced in an outer ring.

• With Pasteurization milk is often transported from beyond the inner ring

• Can import vegetables and dairy products from other countries

• Flowers grown in South American
• European cheese sold in grocery stores
• Berries flown in from Central America
• Grapes from Chile

• Political influences make certain areas artificially profitable through subsidies.
cows in S. California (tax breaks on ag land)
Rice in CA (subsidized water)

Factors contributing to the steady decline in the number of dairy farms.
Factor: Increased production of milk
Explanations
• Cows produce higher yields, meaning fewer cows are needed to meet the demand for milk;

• Mechanization/technological changes in the milking process have enabled farmers to increase the size of their dairy herds (so there are less).

• Development of agribusiness, factory farms, industrialization of agriculture
.

Factor: Displacement by urbanization
Explanation
• Dairy farmers close to cities where dairy farms traditionally have been located (milk shed) have been displaced by urbanization, leading to a decline in the number of dairy farms overall.

California leads the nation in value of agricultural products, yield of products produced ($44 billion),

multiplier effect: an increase in some economic activity starts a chain reaction that generates more activity than the original increase. TQ

Agricultural economists have worked out quite different multipliers for crop agriculture and livestock agriculture; the two average out to about
2.7.
If this ratio is applied to the
$32 billion agricultural production, it could then be said that the monetary impact of California agriculture is $86.4 billion.

Two concerns with
Agriculture
1. loss of prime agricultural land to urban populations
More than 12% of original cropland has been converted to urban uses in
California’s Central
Valley.

2. mechanization displacing labor workers (brings social, economic and educational impacts)
On one side are growers and agricultural researchers whose aim is to increase production while lowering costs.