APHUG: Agriculture

• Intensive Farming: A style of agriculture that uses high levels of inputs to maximize yields.
• Extensive Farming: A style of agriculture that uses a large area of land with low inputs of labor and capital per unit of area.
• Market Gardening: A type of intensive agriculture that involves a small-scale production of fruits, vegetables, and crops sold directly to consumers.
• Plantation Agriculture: A type of commercial farming where there is a production of one or more cash crops of the land, typically in tropical climates.
• Mixed Crop/Livestock: The combination of raising livestock and cultivating crops on the same farm.
• Shifting Cultivation: A subsistence farming technique where farmers move from land to land every few years.
• Nomadic Herding: The movement of livestock to where grazing land and water is available.
• Transhumance: The seasonal movement of livestock between different grazing areas.
• Clustered Settlement: An agricultural based settlement where houses are close together.
• Dispersed Settlement: Settlements where farmers live on individuals farms that are far away from their neighbors instead of being alongside them.
• Linear Settlement: A settlement where buildings and homes are built in a line, typically along canal, river or transportation route.
• Metes & Bounds: A method of describing land boundaries by using the physical features of the land.
• Township & Range: A system of dividing land into a grid pattern using longitude and latitude lines.
• Long Lot system: A system of splitting up land into long narrow strips stretching across waterways and major transportation routes like major roads.
• Fertile Crescent: A crescent shaped area around the Southeast Mediterranean coast.
• Columbian Exchange: The exchange of ideas, plants, animals, people and disease from the East and West.
• 2nd Agricultural revolution: When the Industrial Revolution radically advanced agricultural practices with new technology.
• Green Revolution: Advancements in agricultural practices that started during mid-20th century using biotechnology.
• Subsistence Agriculture: The production of food for the farmer and their family and not for economic reasons. It's most common in less developed regions.
• Commercial Agriculture: The production of food or raising livestock for economic purposes.
• Monocropping/Monoculture: An agricultural purpose that purposefully plants one variety or type of crop in a large area.
• Bid-Rent Theory: An geographical economic theory that shows the price of land according to how close or far they are from the market.
• Commodity Chains: A network of interconnected producers, suppliers, and consumers that shows the chain of events as a producers get from the farm to customers.
• Slash & Burn: A farming practice that cuts down a portion of trees and burns them for arable land.
• Terracing: An agricultural practice that includes creating stepped hills that uses runoff and reduces erosion.
• Pastoral Nomadism: A way of life where people move from place to place with their domesticated livestock.
• Biotechnology: A type of biological technology that changes the genetic makeup of a living organism to get certain traits.
• Urban Farming: The practice of planting crops or raising livestock in an urban area.
• Value Added specialty crops: Agricultural products that undergo processing, packaging, or marketing to increase their economic value.
• Food insecurity: When people face getting healthy food needed to survive.
• Food deserts: A geographic area where residents have limited access to food sources.
• Most food is consumed in the form of cereal grains, especially wheat, rice, and maize.
• People in developed countries consume more total calories and a higher percentage through animal products
• Most humans consume more than the recommended minimum calories, but undernourishment is still common in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Before the invention of agriculture, most humans were hunters and gatherers.
• Modern agriculture is divided between subsistence agriculture in developing countries and commercial agriculture in developed countries. They differ according to the percentage of farmers, use of machinery, and farm size.
• Agriculture can be divided into 11 major regions, including five subsistence and six commercial regions.
• In subsistence regions, pastoral nomadism is prevalent in drylands, shifting cultivation in tropical forests, and intensive subsistence in regions with high population concentrations.
• In commercial regions, mixed crop and livestock is the most common form of agriculture. Dairy, commercial gardening, grain, Mediterranean, and livestock ranching are also important.
• International trade in food is increasing, but in some places at the expense of producing food for domestic consumption.