AP Human Geography: Agriculture
Primary Economic Activity | economic activity concerned with the direct extraction of natural resources from the environment– such as mining, fishing, lumbering, and especially agriculture |
Secondary Economic Acticity | Economic activity involving the proccesing of raw materials and their transformation into finished industrial products, the manufacturing sector |
Tertiary Economic Activity | economic activity associated with the provision fo services (transportation, banking, retailing, education, routine, office-based jobs) |
First Agricultural Revolution/Neolithic | dating back 10,000 years, the First Agricultural Revolution achieved plant domestication and animal domestication. More sedentary life during later part of Stone Age. Dictionary.com |
Substinence Agriculture | growing only enough to provide for you and your family’s needs. |
Shifting Cultivation | A form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for relatively few years and left fallow for a relatively long period. |
Slash-and-Burn Agriculture | a farming technique used by the Mayans where they cut down trees and then burn them to use as fertilizer. Once the soil is worn out they move on to a new area and do it again |
Second Agriculture Revolution | Dovetailing with and benefiting from the Industrial Revolution, the Second Agriculture Revolution witnessed improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, and storage of farm produce. Notes |
von Thunen Model | A model that explains the location of agricultureal activities in a commercial, profit-making economy. A process of spatial competition allocates various farming activities into rings around a central market city, with profit-earning capability the determining force in how far a crop locates from the market |
Green Revolution/Third | the introduction of pesticides and high-yield grains and better management during the 1960s and 1970s which greatly increased agricultural productivity |
Genetically Modified Organisms | crops that carry new traits that have been inserted through advanced genetic engineering methods |
Plantation Agriculture | Production system based on a large estate owned by an individual, family, or corporation and organized to produce a cash crop. |
Livestock Ranching | An extensive commercial agricultural activity that involves the raising of livestock over vast geographic spaces typically located in semi-arid climates like the American West. |
Mediterranean Agriculture | an agricultural system practiced in the mediterranean-style climates of Western Europe, California, and portions of Chile and Australia, in which diverse specialty crops such as grapes, avocados, olives, and a host of nuts, fruits, and vegetables comprise profitable agricultural operations. |
Agribussiness | Commercial agriculture business characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations. |
Carl Sauer | American geography, wrote the article, “Recent Developments in Cultural Geography”, which considered how cultural landscapes are made up of “the forms superimposed on the physical landscape” Quizlet |
Milkshed | the surrounding area of a city from which milk can be supplied without spoiling |
Biotechnology | the exploitation of biological processes for industrial and other purposes, esp. the genetic manipulation of micro-organisms for the production of antibiotics, hormones etc. |
Dr. Norman Borlaug | Founder of the Green Revolution, increased wheat and maize yield. Won Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. |
Cereal Grain | A grass yielding grain for food |
Rural Settlement Patterns (Dispersed) | Characterized by farmers living on individual farms isolated from neighbors rather than alongside other farmers in settlements |
Rural Settlement Patters (Nucleated) | A number of families live in close proximity to each other, with fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings |
Horticulture | the art or practice of garden cultivation and management |
US Farm Bill | A statute that would regulate farm production and prices |
Crop Rotation | the system of varying successive crops in a definite order on the same ground, especially to avoid depleting the soil and to control weeds, disease etc. |
Cadastral Systems | A prevailing system that delineates property lines |
Terracing | Make sloping land into a number of level flat areas resembling a series of steps |
IR36 | A rice variety developed by Gurdev Khush. The variety was one of many used in the Green Revolution, which replaced local strains and genetic diversity (google definitions) |
Settlement Patterns | Linear: settlement of buildings formed in a long line. Round: settlement around a certain center or area Clustered: a settlement where buildings are clustered around a particular point Walled: settlement within a closed structure that divides and separates from the rest of the land. (google definition) |
Extensive Agriculture | System of crop cultivation using small amounts of labor and capital in relation to area of land being farmed. (Britannica) |
Pastoral Nomadism | A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals (textbook). |
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture | A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yields from a parcel of land. (textbook) |
Organics | Plants grown without green technology (quizlet) |
Mixed Crop and Livestock Farming | Both animal and crops are farmed in the same area. (quizlet) |
Dairy Farming | Raising cattle to create and sell dairy products. (quizlet) |
Grain Farming | Farming of seed of cereal grasses. (quizlet) |
Transhumance | The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures (quizlet) |
Mediterranean Agriculture | specialized farming that occurs only in areas where the dry summer Mediterranean climate prevails (grapes, olives, figs, etc.) (quizlet) |
Truck farming | the production of one or more vegetable crops on a large scale for shipment to distant markets (dictionary) |
Appellation | a legally defined and protected geographical indication used to identify where a crops was grown ex. grapes for wine (google definitions) |
Collective Farms | a farm or number of farms organized as a unit, worked by a community under the supervision of the state (dictionary) |
Double cropping | to grow two or more crops on the same land in the same season or at the same time (meriam webster) |
Land rent curve (bid rent theory) | geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate change as the distance from the central business district increases (dictionary) |
Pesticides | substances meant for attacking, seducing, destroying or mitigating any pest. (dictionary) |