(for) Fundamentals of the Human Mosaic / By Terry Jordan-Bychkov et al.
Keywords: agribusiness agriculture, aquaculture, biofuels, cadastral pattern, desertification, domesticated animal, domesticated plant, double-cropping, feedlot, folk culture, genetically modified (GM) crops, green revolution, hamlets, hunting and gathering, intensive agriculture, intercropping (intertillage), livestock fattening, mariculture, market gardening, monoculture, nomadic livestock herders, organic agriculture, paddy rice farming, peasants, plantation, plantation agriculture, ranching, sedentary cultivation, subsistence agriculture, suitcase farm, survey patterns, sustainability, swidden cultivation, urban agriculture
Tools: agricultural methods, surveys, transportation: profit =market price -transportation cost (-production cost)
Concepts:intercropping, sustainability, swidden methodology, von-Thunen model,
Preface: This summary is an adjunct to your readings, and is not intended as a replacement. It does not cover all relevant definitions. It has neither covered all applications nor all examples. In your studies, I recommend reading this before and after reading the text. Please use this summary, your outlined text, your notes, and my powerpoints to reinforce your knowledge of this chapter and overcome the learning decay curve. If you see something that does not make sense, or does not remind you of the content you should have acquired from the text, re-read appropriate sections. Remember that key-words define key concepts, which I test. Models and concepts which help us understand global and local patterns and their effects are particularly useful.
Agriculture, growing plants and raising animals for our sustenance, is crucial to survival. It varies spatially, driven by physical constraints, cultural preferences, and technological changes. It often radically changes the landscape, and unsustainable agriculture can, (and often does), damage ecosystems. We have a major but often overlooked impact on the world through the crops we consume and the agricultural systems that develop.
Subsistence agriculture focuses on keeping the local group fed, and is often planned to minimize risk of starvation. Commercial agricultureusually focuses on maximizing profit, within a range of acceptable risk.
Natural constraints, hot, cold, wet, and dry climates, steep rocky ground, swamps, and soil variability modify agriculture. When growing plants is too risky, (too dry or too cold), nomadic herding and/or hunting and gathering are practiced. Technological solutions in these regions, (irrigation and greenhouses), are costly.Ranching uses less marginal lands, has permanent housing, and produces meat and hides for profit.
In the desert fringe, indigenous cultures practiced a mixture of dry land or irrigated farming, hunting, and gathering to minimize starvation. Modern irrigation systems often use traditional irrigation routes and sources.
In wet regions, soils are leached of minerals by rain, and swidden agriculture, also called slash and burn or shifting cultivation, is practiced. First, the forest is cut (slashed) and left to dry. Later, it is burned to release nutrients into the soil. Cultivation is successful for a year or so, and then the process is repeated. The land may then be re-used decades later. Swidden and other traditional agricultural practices often use intercropping, in which crops are grown together to shade plants, physically support them, provide nutrients, or ward off insects.
Another wet tropical adaptation is paddy rice farming, in which rice is grown in muddy and shallow water fields. It is labor intensive agriculture, but can produce high yields, particularly if double-cropping is used.
Tropical plantationsuse cheap land and labor to offset transportation costs, often producing only one crop on huge landholdings. This produces a two-class society, with tensions between the rich and the very poor classes.
More temperate climates are well-suited to mixed grain, root crop, fruit, and livestock farming. This mixture of sources provides food variety, and again minimizes the risk of starvation. As usual, this traditional (aka peasant or folk culture) farming technique makes sense in local environmental (and cultural) context.
Market gardening is a spin-off of this traditional agriculture, as people became free to make a profit. These farmers grow one or more crops driven by consumer demand, transportation and production costs. They often truck their crop to market, often the first step in agribusiness development. Cheap seasonal labor is often used. Transportation innovations (air, land, & sea) allow market garden farms to profit far from their cities they serve.
Livestock fattening is carried out first in grassy (often hilly) lands farther from cities. Final fattening occurs in feedlots, just prior to butchering. Feedlots require considerable grain and /or hay sources, and often pollute.Dairy farming is also found in the periphery (producing cheeses, etc) and in feedlots closer to cities (milk).
Grain farming provides food and animal feed, as well as for biofuels. Modern grain farming is often a monoculture, although crop rotation may also be used. Absentee landlords (suitcase farms) are common.
Urban agriculture is a product of necessity, more common in the second and third world economies as well as during wars. Plots may be urban or suburban, and used for food or cash. This may also include aquaculture.
Unlike hunting, gatheringand fishing, mariculture is agricultural because the seafood is contained, managed, fed, and distributed from fixed sites. Like most modern agriculture, pollution and disease spread are major risks.
Each method of agriculture diffused, some with the domesticated plants and animals they developed, others with the innovations that enabled land use change. Exploration and discovery spread local species to new regions based on cultural preferences. As cultural preferences shift, e.g. chili or wines, so does production.
Folk culture farming focuses on survival. Modern farming develops into agribusinesses, whichmechanizeand combine farming with distribution, processing, and packaging to increase profits. Both are affected by cultures and their technologies. We can learn from both traditional and modern successes and failures, in this dynamic ecological-cultural interaction. Modern methods have globalized plant and animal diseases, long-term poisons and toxins, dams and agricultural siltation, water appropriation and contention, and economic dependency. These same modern methods have also continued to feed a burgeoning world population, forestalling famine.
Sustainability is a major issue, as soil and water systems are susceptible to degradation. Desertification is largely a product of poor land use and climate change, both of which can be addressed. However, we must often perceive the change and its problems in order to be willing to address the root causes. Organic agriculture is now a reaction to pesticides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers, as well as genetically modified (GM) crops. GM crops often have higher yields, but reduce genetic diversity by reducing the number of plant varieties used by farmers. Biodiversity reduction in itself increases environmental risks to production (diseases, pests, etc.). It also increases global economic dependency. Biofuels reduce non-renewable resource production, but increase food costs and agricultural land demand. Changing biofuel sources can reduce food costs, but still requires land.
Agriculture is tied to the rest of culture, as it sustains our very existence. We rely on crops we do not produce, and buy them based on needs and desires, as well as the cost of each food source. Cultural norms, including preferences, habits, and religious rules modify our choices. Technologies change crop availability and costs.
The von-Thunen model explains observed crop production patterns, and is based on market price and transportation costs. If each crop is grown at the market, it can produce a given profit per unit of land. However, there is not enough land at the market, (and land rents are high there), so production is distributed based on transportation costs. Easy to ship crops are produced farther out, while fragile perishable crops are closer. Ideally, this forms a concentric ring pattern, but soils, slopes, climate, and transportation complicate the pattern.
Can the world be fed? So far, yes, although we have food distribution problems and conflicts, so people still suffer and die. Where we trash the environment, degradation (such as desertification, contaminated soils, and radioactive regions) reduce overall yields somewhat. The tragedy of the commons seems to be our largest problem though, as we over-fish, overgraze, and over-farm fragile ecosystems. MDCs see higher prices, and some LDCs see less food. Also, MDCs still suffer from obesity while some LDCs still suffer malnutrition and undernourishment. I perceive the problems as fixable, but I also believe we have insufficient will to change, yet. Globalization of pests, diseases, and the reduction of both species and subspecies are extremely worrying.
Patterns of agricultural use and ownership are evident in our environment. Cadastral (ownership) patterns are modified by survey advances, as well as agricultural necessity. Hedges, walls of rock from agricultural land, and fences often define the agricultural landscape, and survey systems, need for water, transportation, woodlands change their shape. Traditional land divisions are shifting to agribusiness ownership, which often leads to field shape changes for greater efficiency available using newer technologies.
Primary sector workers provide our sustenance (our very existence) and raw materials for manufacturing, which is called the secondary sector. Agriculture modifies ecosystems that support it, and is modified by the cultures it supports. Technologies and preferences, along with the physical world, change. Plan for change.
Reference: Jordan-Bychkov, Terry J., Mona Domosh, Roderick P. Neumann, Patricia L. Price. 2010. Fundamentals of the Human Mosaic. W. H. Freeman and Company. 357 pages.