AG - Introduction to Agriculture Lesson

Introduction to Agriculture Lesson

Agriculture and the Revolutions

• Agriculture - is the purposeful growing of plants and raising animals for sustenance or economic gains
• Part of the primary economic sector, which means it is pulled directly from the Earth (i.e. fishing, mining, farming)
• Agriculture developed when human groups stopped being hunters-and-gatherers and domesticated animals and cultivated crops
• Today there are less than 250,000 hunters-and-gatherers in the world
• Isolated regions of Africa, Australia and the Arctic
• Animals had roles in religion and as pets before domestication began
• Neolithic Revolution (Agricultural Revolution) occurred 10,000 years ago
• Increased carrying capacities for cultures which led to increased populations
• Permanent settlements and more food production led to increased social differences and job specialization
• The first large civilizations developed along the river valleys, but agricultural innovation occurred around the world independent of other areas (including East and Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, northern Africa and the Middle East)

 

• Carl Sauer identified two early forms of cultivation (production of food by preparing the land to grow crops)
• Vegetative planting - direct cloning (i.e. taking the plant with you or cutting off a piece to replant)
• Seed agriculture - annual growth from planting seeds
• The variety of hearths supports possibilism, meaning that humans can modify their environments

Agricultural Crop and Animal Domestication Hearths

• Southwest Asia - barley, wheat, lentils, olives
  • Also an important center for animal domestication (cattle, goats, pigs and sheep)
• East Asia - rice and millet
• South Asia - rice
• Sub-Saharan Africa - sorghum and yams
• Southeast Asia - root crops, taro, bananas (dogs, pigs and chickens)
• Central and South America - squash, beans, cotton, potato, corn (turkeys, llamas and alpacas)
• Western Africa - yams and palm oil (cattle, sheep and goats)

 

• Second Agricultural Revolution - Europe in the 17^th century
  • Before the Industrial Revolution (these two revolutions were dependent upon each other – the increased food production supported population growth and because less farmers were needed people flocked to cities to work in factories)
    • new innovations (fertilizers, plow collars, etc) - less farms could make more food
• Farmers moved towards the enclosure system (land that had been treated as "common" and used by non-land owners was enclosed by the wealthy owners to create large, individual farms)
• Innovations like the seed drill, cotton gin, crop rotation , tractors, reapers and threshers continued to drive crop production

 

• Third Agricultural Revolution
• Green Revolution (Third Agricultural Revolution) -started in the 1960s and 1970s as a way to create enough food to feed all the people of the world (starting with higher yield seed and chemical fertilizers)
• Focused on stronger crops, more fertilizers, better technology, etc.
• This has led to Biotechnology (Genetically Modified Foods) - scientific creation or genetic engineering of crops
• Some opponents believe the focus should be on sustainable crops and techniques (ones that protect or even restore the environment) this movement is organic and known as the Green Movement
• Sustainability is focused on responsible land use, less chemicals and a focus on mixed land use and livestock model of agriculture
• The Green Revolution and GMOS were supposed to help feed the world, however, farmers need to buy the expensive seeds and machines in order to take advantage of the increased output and there are environmental and health concerns
• The move towards corporate and industrial farming has strengthened the importance of transnational corporations (multinational corporations) which produce crops in different countries (often periphery countries) for sale in different locations (often core countries)
• Pros: more food, fertilizers increase productivity, new methods of irrigation, agribusiness increasing globalization
• Blue Revolution is the movement to engineer fish that will produce more nutrients, this can be accomplished in conjunction with aquaculture (breeding and harvesting of marine life is a controlled environment)
• Cons: Poor nations suffer more (cannot afford tech or crops), overuse of land /sea, lack of water, lack of balance with crops
• Green Revolution and GMOS have not helped the area they were created for (Sub-Saharan Africa)

Farming Around the World

• LDC vs MDC
• Most farmers - LDCs and they are subsistence farmers
• They farm for their own food
• Almost 50% of population involved in farming
• Traditional and local methods
• Less land can be farmed (due to a lack of mechanization)
• Less output per person
• This type of farming is labor-intensive (using man power to produce output)
• Farmers in the MDCs are commercial farmers
• Food to sell
• Less than 5% of the population
• Large farms over 400 acres
• 4% of farms in the US account for ½ of the crops
• Half of all farmers in the US generate less than $10,000 yearly
• Use of technology (tractors, combines, GPS ), transportation (railroads and trucks) and scientific advancements (fertilizers and pesticides)
• This type of farming is capital-intensive (use cash to buy machinery to increase output)

Mapping Climate and Agriculture

• Wladimir Koppen created a map that illustrated the main climate zones and biomes globally (this map has been revised several times since 1900)

• Derwent Whittlesey went a step further and used the climate zones to create a map that shows the eleven zones for agriculture (and one zone where agriculture does not occur)

IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS (Creative Commons License Attribution)