AP HuG Unit 5

Cards (54)

  • Agricultural practices and land use patterns

    • Influenced by physical environment and climatic conditions
    • How weather affects agricultural practices and products
  • Tropical climate

    • Produces certain plants, such as cassava, banana, sugar cane, sweet potato, papaya, rice, maize
  • Mediterranean climate

    • Produces certain fruits, vegetables, and grains such as grapes, olives, figs, dates, tomatoes, zucchini, wheat, barley
  • Intensive farming practices

    Farming that uses significant amounts of labor/money
  • Extensive farming practices
    Farming that uses smaller amounts of labor/money in relation to the land area
  • Extensive farming practices
    • Shifting cultivation (slash and burn)
    • Nomadic herding (pastoral nomadism/transhumance)
    • Ranching
  • Rural land use patterns
    • Shaped by agricultural practices
    • Clustered, dispersed, linear settlement patterns
  • Types of land survey systems

    • Long-lot survey system
    • Metes and bounds survey system
    • Township and range survey system
  • The Fertile Crescent is the hearth of early agriculture and early civilization (Cradle of Civilization)
  • First Agricultural Revolution
    Humans achieved plant and animal domestication 10,000 years ago
  • Columbian Exchange
    Facilitated the global diffusion of plants, animals, diseases, human population, culture, technology, and ideas
  • Globalization of Agriculture
    Improvements in transportation and communication technologies create a variety of goods offered year-round, when they traditionally were only available seasonally
  • Second Agricultural Revolution

    Improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, and storage of food that started in the Middle Ages and then benefited from the Industrial Revolution with the use of machines and new technology
  • Effects of Second Agricultural Revolution
    • Better diets
    • Longer life expectancies
    • Increase in population
    • More people available to work in factories
  • Green Revolution (Third Agricultural Revolution)

    High yield seeds (hybrid and/or GMOs), increased use of chemicals, mechanized farming, and elaborate irrigation systems
  • Positive impacts of Green Revolution
    • Increase in food supply
    • More crops grown on same size land
    • Improvement in varieties
  • Negative impacts of Green Revolution
    • Destroying local land and traditional modes of agriculture production
    • Decreasing biodiversity (hybrid seeds diminish local plant diversity)
    • Impact of chemicals
  • Types of agricultural production

    • Subsistence agriculture
    • Commercial agriculture
    • Monoculture
    • Mono-cropping
    • Multi-cropping
  • Bid-rent theory

    Theory that shows what various land users are prepared and able to pay for access to the center market (CBD), the further from the center market (CBD), the lower the cost for a site
  • Agribusiness
    A large-scale mechanized farming business that is controlled by corporate interests, agriculture is gradually being controlled by a small number of large corporations instead of many independent farmers
  • Agribusiness operations
    • Feedlots/Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)
  • Commodity chain activities
    • Design
    • Production of raw materials
    • Manufacturing and assembly
    • Distribution
  • Economies of scale
    Cost advantages gained by an increased level of production
  • Von Thünen model
    Explains the location of agricultural activities by emphasizing the importance of transportation costs associated with distance from the market, describes what should be grown where in relation to the market, illustrates the relationship between land cost and transportation cost, distributes various farming activities into concentric rings around a central market city
  • Global supply chain

    A worldwide network to maximize profits in production
  • Commodity dependency
    Highly dependent on one or more export commodities
  • Desertification
    Process by which fertile land becomes desert as a result of human activity (inappropriate agriculture/overgrazing)
  • Soil salinization

    Process by which the amount of salt increases in the soil (irrigation)
  • Land cover change
    Process by which agricultural areas are lost to development
  • Pollution

    Process by which soil is contaminated by chemicals
  • Sustainable agriculture

    Farming methods that are profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities
  • Agricultural land use alters the landscape
    • Slash and burn (shifting cultivation)
    • Terraces
    • Irrigation
    • Deforestation
    • Draining wetlands
    • Pastoral nomadism
  • Changing diets
    MDCs: continued demand for meat, LDCs: growing demand for meat, as well as convenient, processed foods (western diet)
  • Role of women in agriculture

    Increased contributions to rural economies, especially in LDCs
  • Economic purpose of agriculture
    • Farmers in LDCs growing cash crops for consumers in MDCs instead of food for local people
    • Farmers in LDCs growing crops for illegal drugs instead of food crops
    • Farmers in MDCs and LDCs growing crops for bio-fuel
  • Agricultural biotechnology

    The use of scientific tools and techniques to modify plants/animals
  • Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

    Plants or animals whose DNA has been genetically modified, often through combination of DNA from a similar plant or animal species for desired traits
  • Positive impacts of GMOs
    • Greater outputs on smaller pieces of land
    • Less need for chemicals
  • Negative impacts of GMOs
    • Unknown health effects
    • Unknown effects on pollinating insect population
  • Aquaculture
    Raising of fish and shellfish in ponds and controlled saltwater hatcheries