Agriculture Flashcards
(26 cards)
Biotechnology
Ever say science involves altering the genetic strands of agricultural products to increase productivity, biotechnologies develop mainly and science laboratories and then tested on farm fields around the world, where it has been, for the most part, extremely successful.
Agriculture
The raising of animals or the growing of crops on tended land to obtain food for primary consumption by farmers family or for sale off the farm.
Commercial farming
The farming of products for sale off the farm, commercial farming is usually a big business in developed countries and requires the use of heavy machinery.
Continentality
Describes the fact that areas proximity to a body of water affects its temperature (E.g., because oceans have a moderating influence on temperature, areas near oceans experience less extreme temperature variations).
creative destruction
Moving what nature originally produced in a location to grow what is desired.
Crop rotation
The planting of different crops each year to replenish the soil nutrients that were lost to the previous crop.
double – cropping
Growing of two crops per year to double agricultural output.
Environmental modification
The introduction of man-made chemicals and practices that,at times, have drastic effects on native soil and vegetation.
Farm crisis
Occurs when farmers are too productive, causing a surplus of props and, therefore, lowering prices and producing less revenue for the farmers.
Feedlots
Farms that specialize in cattle or hogs and may have thousands of head of livestock, feedlots can create large amounts of waste runoff, air pollution, and groundwater contamination.
First agricultural revolution
The slow change from non-agriculturally – based societies to more agriculturally – based ones to the gradual understanding of seeds, watering, and plant care.
Food chain
After harvesting, commercial green is sent to the market area, usually in semi trailers, where it is sold to a manufacturer makes a product with the grain, such as bread. The product is then sold to a wholesaler, who sells it to a grocery store, where individual customers can purchase it.
Grain farming
The mass planting and harvesting of grain crops, such as wheat, barley, and millet.
Intertillage
The manual clearing of rows in the field through the use of hoes, rakes, and other manual equipment.
Long lots
A system of farming were lots up to a half mile or more extend back from the river, which farmers use as their primary means of hauling the agricultural products to the market.
Mixed livestock with crop production
A type of farming where cows raised on farms are feed with the same crops grown on the same farm.
Planned Economy (government-controlled economy)
An economy in which the government dictates the quantity and the type of agricultural products that farmers can produce.
Primary economic activities
Subsistence farming based on little mechanization. That is currently preformed by aboriginal tribes in Australia.
Plantation agriculture
Often occurring in less developed countries, plantation agriculture involves the cultivation of one crop to be sold in more develop countries (e.g., coffee plantations in Costa Rica).
Quartiary economic industries
Activities that produce nothing one can physically touch but are important in society (e.g., selling Internet time or providing satellite technologies, such as cell phone usage).
Quinary sectors
Usually involving only about 10-15 percent of the workforce in an economy, these sectors employ the people who make decisions concerning the trade of commodities at the governmental and business executive levels.
Sauer, Carl
Professor of geography at the university of California- Berkeley who started the field of cultural ecology, and began the hearths of seed agriculture and vegetative planting, Carl Sauer was one of the most vehement critics of the philosophy of environmental determinism. Instead, he believed that humans had the power to over come their environment and weren’t simply a product of them.
Second agricultural revolution
Coinciding with the industrial revolution, the second agricultural revolution used the increase of technology from the industrial revolution as a means to increase farm productivity. This revolution started exponential population increase.
Secondary economic activities
Industrial activities in which factories take raw materials, such as natural resources, and produce some type of product for either trad ear sale. Many people in the United States are still employed in secondary economic activities.
