AGRICULTURE
Lecture Outline
Introduction
Effective agricultural practice is the taproot of civilization.
Without agricultural surplus, urbanization and industrialization is not possible.
Political and military power is often rooted in the ability to produce agricultural surpluses.
Subsistence Farming
Most of the world’s farmers plant only enough for themselves and their family.
Many of these subsistence systems are sustainable.
Some are not.
In some parts of Asia and Africa 80% of the people are subsistence farmers.
What percent of US workers are farming?
Agricultural Regions 
Defined by the type of crops grown, the style of labor and the use of land.
fig
figure
Shifting Cultivation 
(Slash and Burn, Swidden, Milpa)
Mostly in the tropical and equatorial areas of Latin America and Africa.  Some in the rainforests of Southeast Asia.
Required because of the poor soils of the rainforests, but very energy efficient.
A “land rotation” system.  Requires few, supports few.  Fallow periods must be maintained.
Sustainable, Healthy. Intertillage is common.
fig
Paddy Rice Farming
Mostly found in South/Southeast Asia
Flooded rice fields.
Supports many, requires many.
Double cropping (single, double grain)
Intercropping
Green Revolution technologies
Implications for economics, culture and standardized math scores?
Fig: Paddy Rice Terrace-Bali Indonesia
Peasant Grain, Root, and Livestock Farming
Where it is really dry, ranching and dry land grains are the agricultural practices.
Where it is wetter, root crops, like manioc/cassava are staples.
Nutritionally unbalanced.
Unaffected by green revolution technologies. 
Sorghum and Millet
Cassava (manioc/yuca)
Sweet Potato Field-New Guinea
Mediterranean Agriculture
Almost non existent in subsistence form.
Specialized crops that include?
Now similar to market gardening.
Where in the U.S.?
Who settled this part of the US?
What is the controlling variable?
Mediterranean Agriculture-Crete Greece
Nomadic Herding
Practiced in very dry areas of Africa and Asia, but dying out.
Also in parts of frozen world.
Africans raise cattle, Asians raise water buffalo…Others?
Characterized by the constant search for food for livestock.
Who else were nomadic herders?
Nomadic Herding-Kurdistan
Commercial Agricultural Systems
Marked by profit seeking farmers
Characterizes much of 1st World Farming
Can produce enormous food surpluses
Can wreak environmental havoc
Frequently come with intense social injustices in the Third World
Plantation Agriculture
Commercial agriculture that focuses on non-staple, export-oriented crops at the expense of traditional agricultural systems and food crops.
Developed in the Americas, exported to Africa and Asia.  
Tends to be coastal.
Plantation Agriculture
Socially and economically unjust.  Becoming more so as labor is replaced by machinery.
Coffee, Sugar Cane, Bananas, Tea, Cacao, Tobacco and Spices
Plantation Sign-Costa Rica
Welcome to Freehold Plantation: Where labor harmony reigns...
Tea Plantation-Papua New Guinea
Banana Plantation
We are the world!
Recorded to help Ethiopians suffering through famine in the mid-1980s.
We thought it was drought, but it was in reality war and capitalism.
Juan Valdez
Plantation agriculture and mono cropping are prone to wild market swings, competition and ecological disaster.
American Response
The Iran Contra affair of the mid-1980s  also points to the challenges of changing the agricultural / land used policies in the Third World.
It’s why many of you are here.
Q: It rains here every day!  What’s for dinner?
A.  Rice and Fish
B.  Corn, Squash and Beans
C.  Steak and bread
D.  Cheese and goat meat.
Von Thunen’s Model
Von Thunen’s Model
Von Thunen in Practice-Uruguay
Grand Central Market: LA
More profitable than farming?
Market (Truck)Gardening
Mostly in the first world
Generally specialized for urban markets
Dependent upon seasonal (immigrant) labor
New Jersey, Michigan, California
Where in California?
What crops are “local”?
Perishables: Truck Gardening
Commercial Livestock Fattening
Hogs and Cattle brought in for fattening
In areas of the Great Plains of the US
Much of the corn and soybeans grown in the US goes to feed cattle.
Is this efficient?
Expansion of production areas in environmentally sensitive rainforest.
Feedlot – San Joaquin Valley
Commercial Grain Farming
Much of the grain grown in the US is grown to feed livestock.  Efficiency?
Where is the corn belt; wheat belt; rice belt in the United States?
Are there international competitors?
Suitcase farming
Agribusiness vs. the family farmer
What grain?  Where?
Wheat Harvesting-Kansas?
Commercial Dairying
Also near large urban areas.  Upstate New York, Wisconsin, New England.
Butter, Cheese or Milk?  
Depends on where your cows are and markets are.
Where in California?
Also employs the feedlot system
Chino, California
San Joaquin Valley
Upstate New York
Upstate New York
Dairying: Vermont
Livestock Ranching 
Cattle and Sheep ranching
US and Canada (Beef) also in the Pampas of South America
Sheep ranching popular in Australia, NZ, Argentina and South Africa
South of Bakersfield
Hay Farming
Urban Agriculture
Big city people also have tiny little farms or backyard plots, especially in the Third World.
A very important source of food in China.
Becoming more prevalent in the US as “localvores” demand locally grown food.
Cultural Integration in Agriculture 
What we grow and eat is dependent upon many things:
 A. Culture (Dietary Preferences) 
 B. Politics
 C. Economics
Agricultural Landscapes 
Cadastral and Field Patterns 
Different strategies for dividing land, each with different political aims and outcomes; each with different ecological costs and benefits.
Land survey patterns
Metes and Bounds
Characterized by irregular patterns on the land.
Created in a nearly random pattern by surveyors, land speculators and buyers.
Can be found in much of the 13 original colonies, except in New England where they had a village farms system.
Township and Range
Devised in the US by Thomas Jefferson who wanted to promote democracy through equitable distribution of land.
(6)40 acres and a mule ideology…
Found in much of the US west of the Appalachian Mountains.
Not particularly environment-friendly.
Dominates landscapes in the Midwest.
Cadastral Systems
What cadastral system?
What Cadastral System?
A symbol of Jeffersonian Democracy on a rural landscape
Longlots
Found in many regions of Europe and introduced into North America by the French.
Provides access to transportation (esp. rivers) for each.
Egalitarian as well.
Longlots-Montreal
What US River is that?
Longlots-Germany
Question
What cadastral pattern is this?
What political value is represented by this pattern?
Which president is most associated with this?
Match this to a city name: