Types of Farming

1. Types of Farming Agriculture is world’s leading industry

2. Two Worlds

3. Differences between commercial ag and subsistence: • LDC’s = Less Developed Countries • MDCs = More Developed Countries • Purpose of farming: subsistence ag is to produce food for own consumption. Commercial ag is produced for sale to others. • Percentage of farmers: in MDC’s less than 5% of workers are farmers, compared to 55% in LDC’s. • Use of machinery: Commercial ag makes heavy use of machinery where subsistence ag uses mainly hand tools and animals. • Farm size: Commercial farms are much larger than subsistence farms. The commercial farms have to be larger in order to pay for their heavy machinery, and to make a profit.

4. Major Types of Agriculture • Industrialized agriculture • Plantation • Traditional subsistence agriculture • Traditional intensive agriculture

5. Major Types of Agriculture Industrial Agriculture: • Fossil Fuel Energy • Heavy Water Use • Single Crops (monoculture) • Mostly in developed countries

6. Industrial agriculture in California

7. Major Types of Agriculture Plantation Agriculture: • Form of industrial agriculture in tropical developing countries • Cash crops: banana, coffee, sugar cane, cocoa • Increasing large livestock Coffee Plantation

8. Major Types of Agriculture Traditional Subsistence Agriculture: • Human labor and draft animals producing food for family survival • Nomadic herding • 42% of world’s people

9. Major Types of Agriculture Traditional Intensive Agriculture: • Increasing human and animal labor, fertilizers, water to get higher yields • Enough food for family and to sell locally

10. Key Issue 2: Where are agricultural regions in less developed countries? • The three primary types of ag in LDC’s are: • Shifting cultivation • Pastoral Nomadic • Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

11. Shifting Cultivation Vegetation “slashed” and then burned. Soil remains fertile for 2-3 years. Then people move on. • where: tropical rainforests. Amazon, Central and West Africa, Southeast Asia • Crops: upland rice (S.E. Asia), maize and manioc (S. America), millet and sorghum (Africa)‏ Declining at hands of ranching and logging.

12. Pastoral Nomadism The breeding and herding of domesticated animals for subsistence. • where: arid and semi-arid areas of N. Africa, Middle East, Central Asia • animals: Camel, Goats, Sheep, Cattle Most nomads are being pressured into sedentary life as land is used for agriculture or mining. Bedouin Shepherd Somali Nomad and Tent

13. Intensive Subsistence Agriculture • Wet Rice Dominant • where: S.E. Asia, E. India, S.E. China • very labor intensive production of rice, including transfer to sawah, or paddies • most important source of food in Asia • grown on flat, or terraced land Double cropping is used in warm winter areas of S. China and Taiwan The Fields of Bali Thai Rice Farmers

14. Key Issue 3: Where are agricultural regions in more developed countries • The methods of farming typically found in MDC’s are: 7 Methods • Mixed crop and livestock farming • Dairy Farming • Prairie Cereal Farming • Livestock Ranching • Mediterranean Agriculture • Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming • Plantation Farming

15. Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming Where: Ohio to Dakotas, centered on Iowa; much of Europe from France to Russia • crops: corn (most common), soybeans • In U.S. 80% of grain production is fed to pigs and cattle! • Highly inefficient use of natural resources • Pounds of grain to make 1 lb. beef: 10 • Gallons of water to make 1 1b wheat: 25 • Gallons of water to make 1 1b. beef: 2500

16. Dairy Farming Where: near urban areas in N.E. United States, Southeast Canada, N.W. Europe Dairy Farm, Wisconsin Over 90% of cow’s milk is produced in developed countries. Value is added as cheese, yogurt, etc.

17. Prairie Cereal Farming Where: worldwide in semi-arid mid-latitudes, but U.S. and Russia predominant Crops: wheat • winter wheat: Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma • spring wheat: Dakotas, Montana, southern Canada Highly mechanized: combines, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, migrate northward in U.S., following the harvest.

19. Livestock Ranching Where: arid or semi-arid areas of western U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and Portugal. History: initially open range, now sedentary with transportation changes. Environmental effects: 1) overgrazing has damaged much of the world’s arid grasslands (< 1% of U.S. remain!)‏ 2) destruction of the rainforest is motivated by Brazilian desires for fashionable cattle ranches

20. Mediterranean Agriculture Where: areas surrounding the Mediterranean, California, Oregon, Chile, South Africa, Australia • Highly valuable crops: olives, grapes, nuts, fruits and vegetables; winter wheat

21. Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming Where: U.S. Southeast, New England, near cities around the world • crops: high profit vegetables and fruits: • apples, asparagus, cherries, lettuce, tomatoes • mechanization: truck farming and cheap labor costs are by use of immigrant labor. • distribution: situated near urban markets.

22. Plantation Farming • large scale mono-cropping • where: tropical lowland Periphery • crops: cotton, sugar cane, coffee, rubber, cocoa, bananas, tea, coconuts, palm oil.

23. The amount of energy needed to produce a single hamburger is enough to power a small car 20 miles