AP Human Geography Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use - Google Docs PDF

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AP Human Geography: Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use Love these notes? Try Kaplan's best AP Prep: ● Get the full Kaplan AP Human Geography book from Amazon here! ● Sign up for an AP Human Geography on-demand review session and watch it wherever and whenever works for you. Key Takeaways: Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use 1. There were three agricultural revolutions that changed history. The First Agricultural Revolution was the transition from hunting and gathering to planting and sustaining. The Second Agricultural Revolution increased the productivity of farming through mechanization and access to market areas due to better transportation. The Third Agricultural Revolution involved hybridization and genetic engineering of products and the increased use of pesticides and fertilizers. 2. There are two primary methods of farming in the world. Subsistence farming involves producing agricultural products for use by the farm family. Commercial farming involves the sale of agricultural products off the farm. 3. Von Thunen’s model of agricultural land use focuses on transportation. The distance and the weight of crops as well as their distance to market affect which ones are grown. 4. Modern agriculture is becoming more industrialized and more specialized than ever. The loss of the family farm is a direct result of the rise of feedlots and mega-farms used to produce enormous quantities of agricultural commodities. 5. To compete with agribusiness in the United States, many family farms are turning to sustainable methods of production, organic agriculture, and catering to the local-food movement. 6. Many of the settlement patterns in the United States have been based on the agricultural possibilities of specific areas. 7. Many of the world’s crop products are dictated by the climate of the regions where they are grown. Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use Key Terms A Historical Perspective ● Farming: The methodical cultivation of plants and/or animals.

● Hunting and gathering: The first way humans obtained food. Nomadic groups around the world depended on migratory animals, wild fruit, berries, and roots for sustenance. ● Agriculture: The raising of animals or the growing of crops on tended land to obtain food for primary consumption by a farmer’s family or for sale off the farm. ● First (Neolithic) Agricultural Revolution: The slow change from hunter and gather societies to more agriculturally based ones through the gradual understanding of seeds, watering, and plant care. ● Growing season: The period of the year when temperature and rainfall allow for successful farming. ● Plant domestication: The process by which wild plants are cultivated into productive crops, often with more desirable traits. ● Animal domestication: The process by which wild animals are cultivated into a resource supply for humans, often resulting in physical and behavioral changes (e.g., modern-day dogs having descended from domesticated wolves). ● Second Agricultural Revolution: Coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, the Second Agricultural Revolution used the increased technology from the Industrial Revolution as a means to increase farm productivity through mechanization. This caused exponential population increase. ● Third Agricultural (Green) Revolution: This transformation began in the latter half of the twentieth century and corresponded with exponential population growth around the world. Hybridization, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers were key aspects. ● Environmental modification: The introduction of man-made chemicals and practices that, at times, have drastic effects on native soil and vegetation. ● Pesticides: Any substance that kills pests, especially insects. Can be natural or artificial in origin. Used on farms to protect the crop yield. ● Globalized agriculture: A system of agriculture built on economic and regulatory practices that are global in scope and organization. ● Agribusiness: The mass production of agricultural products; a form of large-scale commercial agriculture. ● Biotechnology: A precise science that involves altering the DNA of agricultural products to increase productivity, which has been extremely successful for the most part. Biotech is developed mainly in laboratories and is then tested on farm fields worldwide. ● Genetic engineering: The modification of organisms by directly altering their genetic material. ● Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Plants and animals that have been genetically engineered in some way.

● Double-cropping: The growing of two crops per growing season to double the harvest. The Green Revolution popularized fast- growing, high-yield rice strains that made double-cropping more viable. ● Triple-cropping: The growing of three crops per growing season to triple the harvest. ● Organic farming: Farming that uses natural processes and seeds that are not genetically altered. To be certified as organic in the United States, farmers must demonstrate organic methods on a number of different measures. ● Fourth Agricultural Revolution: A movement in which food is both grown and sold locally, and fertilizers and pesticides are minimized or eliminated in favor of pure organic farming. Agricultural Hearths ● Carl Sauer: Professor of geography who started the field of cultural ecology, including identifying the hearths of seed agriculture and vegetative planting. One of the most vehement critics of the philosophy of environmental determinism, arguing instead that humans have power over their environments. ● Agricultural origins: The origin points of vegetative planting and seed agriculture. ● Vegetative planting: Removing part of a plant and putting it in the ground to grow a new plant. Contrast with seed agriculture. ● Seed agriculture: The taking of seeds from existing plants and planting them to produce new plants. ● Diffusion: The spread or movement of a principle or idea. Agricultural Regions and Patterns of Change ● Cultivation regions: Areas that are specifically used for agriculture production. ● Rural settlement: Points of human habitation in non-urban and non-suburban areas. Often associated with agricultural labor. ● Dispersed: When the rural settlement is spread over a large area. ● Nucleated: When the rural settlement is clustered in a tightly packed area. ● Building material: Materials common to a given region that are used for structures (e.g., brick, bush, grass, wattle, wood). ● Village form: Refers to the layout of the rural settlement, of which there are several variations. ● Cluster: The village dwellings are nucleated.

● Grid: The village dwellings are sorted along a rectangular street grid. ● Linear: The village dwellings are tightly grouped along a straight line, such as a river or railroad. ● Round: The village dwellings surround an area for animals, acting as a pen. ● Walled: The settlement is fortified for protection against attacks. ● Agricultural landscape: The land people choose to farm together with the products they choose to farm. ● Subsistence farmers: Farmers who depend on the crops that they grow and the animal products they raise for daily sustenance. ● Shifting cultivation: The moving of farm fields after several years in search of more productive soil after depleting the nutrients in the original field. ● Slash-and-burn agriculture: The process of burning the physical landscape to create space and add nutrients to the soil. ● Crop rotation: The planting of different crops each year to replenish the soil’s nutrients that were lost to the previous crops. ● Pastoral nomadism: The moving of animals to areas that have the necessary resources to meet the needs of the herd; usually practiced in arid climates. ● Transhumance: The seasonal moving of herds by nomadic groups; they go to higher elevations in the summer to protect herds from the lowland heat, and return to the valley floor in the winter. ● Extensive subsistence agriculture: Both pastoral nomadism and shifting cultivation are this farming type, which has been criticized for causing environmental problems but is often more productive than other types of subsistence farming and does not require a lot of labor. ● Intensive subsistence agriculture: A high- labor form of agriculture that involves farmers devoting a large amount of effort into making an area of land maximally productive. ● Rice sawahs: Flooded fields where rice grows. They require the planting and harvesting of each stalk by hand. Because the fields cannot be left alone, this type of farming is very time-consuming and labor intensive. ● Intertillage: The clearing of rows in the field through the use of hoes, rakes, and other manual equipment. ● Commercial farming: The farming of products for sale off the farm, commercial farming is usually a big business in developed countries and requires the use of heavy machinery. ● Mediterranean agriculture: A type of farming which must be practiced in a climate that has a dry summer and a cool, moist winter. The crops associated with the Mediterranean Sea region include grapes, dates, and olives.

● Dairy farming (dairying): A form of commercial farming which has become highly mechanized in recent years. Note that dairy farming is not limited to milk production, but includes anything that can be made with that milk, like butters and cheeses. ● Mixed livestock with crop production: A type of farming where cows raised on a farm are fed with crops that are grown on the same farm. ● Livestock ranching: A form of commercial farming where animals are raised for their meat and other products. Almost always occurs in more developed countries and is done on the fringes of productive land. ● Specialized fruit production: A form of commercial farming devoted to producing fruit from fruit trees. ● Irrigation: The supplying of water to farmland in order to support agriculture. ● Plantation agriculture: A type of agriculture that occurs in less developed countries, it involves the cultivation of one crop to be sold in more developed countries (e.g., coffee plantations in Costa Rica). The plantation and most of its profits often belong to owners residing in a more developed country. ● Core countries: Shorthand for the developed world, primarily located in a broad arc in the northern hemisphere. Core countries often rely on periphery countries for their raw materials or agricultural products, especially during wintertime. ● Periphery countries: Shorthand for the developing world, where the primary industries are based on exports and resource extraction. Plantation agriculture is common here. ● Truck farms: A farm that uses mechanization to produce large quantities of fruits and vegetables, which are sold to processors. Many truck farms use migrant labor to keep costs low. ● Suitcase farms: Farms where no one resides permanently and migrant workers provide the majority of manual labor cheaply. ● Large-scale commercial agriculture: Agriculture on an industrial level, using standardized techniques and seed stock. ● Agricultural industrialization: The increased mechanization of the farming process to boost profits and productivity. Farming is less and less an industry of individual proprietors. ● Grain farming: The planting and harvesting of grain crops, such as wheat, barley, and millet. ● Staple grains: The grains that are produced in commercial grain-farming regions. Staple grains include wheat, barley, millet, and other grain products that a large percentage of the world population depends on for survival.

Von Thunen’s Model of Agricultural Land Use ● Model of agricultural land use: A model developed by Johann Heinrich von Thunen that suggested that certain crops were grown in direct relation to their distance to market. Sometimes called the agricultural location model. ● Market-gardening activities: The first zone in von Thunen’s model is reserved for these activities, which include various heavy and bulky products such as melons and vegetables. ● Livestock fattening: The deliberate adding of weight to animals, such as cows and hogs, to increase their sale price. ● Feedlots: Farms that specialize in cattle or hogs and may have thousands of head of livestock. Feedlots can create large amounts of waste runoff, air pollution, and groundwater contamination. ● Commercial grain farming: The mass planting and harvesting of grain crops, such as wheat, barley, and millet, on an industrial scale. ● Combines: Large machines that separate the seed from the shaft of the plant, eliminating the need to do so manually. Because combines are very expensive, several farmers often purchase one jointly and share the machine during harvest. ● Food chain: The process food goes through to get to customers. After harvesting, commercial grain is sent to the market area, usually in semitrailers, where it is sold to a manufacturer who makes a product with the grain, such as bread. The product is then sold to a wholesaler, who sells it to a grocery store, where individual customers can purchase it. ● Commodity chain: The process that food goes through to get from the primary sector (resource-based) of the economy to the tertiary sector (service-based). The in-between players include the transportation systems and two, three, or more different sellers before the consumer has the opportunity to purchase the item. Economic Systems and Activities ● Adaptive strategies: Culture and behaviors that humans adopt to thrive in a given region based on its cultural and physical landscape. ● Elevator: A cooperative (or “co-op”) whose members are the farmers of a small town or village. The farmers sell their products to the elevator, which sells them to a processor. After being transported to a plant, the farm commodity is turned into some type of food product. ● Farm crisis: Occurs when farmers are too productive, causing a surplus of crops and, therefore, lowering prices and producing less revenue for the farmers.

Agriculture and Gender ● Specialization: The process by which jobs in human society became focused on certain tasks, starting when ancient farmers first began to develop a surplus of food following the invention of agriculture. For example, one person in a village might specialize in making bread or working with metal, freeing other people to focus their energies on their own particular jobs. Agriculture in the United States ● Metes and bounds: A traditional English system of measuring that uses the land’s physical features to describe ownership claims. The bounds system uses more generalized features, while the metes system uses traditional distance measurements. ● Township and range: A form of land division in the Midwest and Great Plains in which land is divided into regular squares. ● Sections: Square-mile tracts created by the township and range system; settlements were often dispersed around the township. ● Survey pattern: Artificial systems used to survey the Earth’s surface. ● Long lots: A system of farming established by the French in which lots up to a half mile or more extend back from a river, which farmers use as their primary means of hauling their agricultural products to the market. ● Agrarians: People who support policies that advance the needs and interests of farmers. Agrarianism, or agrarian politics, was an important political movement throughout U.S. history until the second half of the twentieth century. ● Desertification: When herds of animals graze on land that does not receive enough rainfall and the land becomes barren, leading to the expansion of deserts in arid regions. ● Soil erosion: The loss of topsoil to flowing water or wind. ● Aquaculture: The farming of finfish and shellfish for sale off the farm. Fish may be raised in pools and then sold for food or to stock lakes for the tourism industry. ● Fishing: The hunting of fish for food and sport. ● Forestry: Managing a forest while extracting useful resources from it, like medicinal herbs. Some don’t consider it to be farming, but rather the harvesting of a natural resource. ● Creative destruction: Removing what nature originally produced in a location to grow what is desired.

● “Just-in-time”: A process where products arrive at the grocery store just before consumers purchase them. This keeps products fresh. ● Locavores: People who consume products grown or raised close to them. Often associated with organic farming. Agriculture and the Environment ● Sustainable yield: Resources that can be harvested regularly without endangering the supply to future generations. World Crop Regions ● Planned economy: An economy in which the government dictates the quantity and type of agricultural products that farmers can produce. ● Collective farm: A farm type where workers are not paid with money but instead receive a share of the crop. This arrangement may come about because the farmers have a common religious or political ideal, or because they are forced to accept it by those in power....