Unit 5 Vocab

Question 1

Food desert

Answer 1

Area with limited access to fresh, nutritious foods

Question 2

Desertification

Answer 2

The process by which once-fertile land becomes desert as a result of climate variation or human activities

Question 3

Aquaculture

Answer 3

The cultivation and harvesting of aquatic organisms under controlled conditions

Question 4

Fair trade

Answer 4

A certification program that supports good crop prices for farmers and environmentally sound farming practices

Question 5

Township and range

Answer 5

Land survey system created by the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785, which divides most of the country’s territory into a grid of square-shaped townships with 6-mile sides

Question 6

GMO

Answer 6

A living organism, including crops and livestock, that is produced through genetic engineering

Question 7

Long lot

Answer 7

A linear settlement pattern in which each farmstead is situated at one end of a long, narrow rectangular lot; each lot has access to a major linear resource, usually a river or a major road

Question 8

Linear

Answer 8

A settlement pattern in which buildings are arranged in a line, often along a road or river; limited to areas where legal systems dictated that property lines must be rectangular

Question 9

Market gardening

Answer 9

A small-scale farming system in which a farmer plants one to a few acres that produce a diverse mixture of vegetables and fruits, mostly for sale in local and regional markets

Question 10

Metes and bounds

Answer 10

Survey system that uses natural features such as trees, boulders, and streams to delineate property boundaries

Question 11

Bid-rent theory

Answer 11

Explains how the demand for and price of land decrease as its distance from the central business district increases

Question 12

Agribusiness

Answer 12

Large corporation that provides a vast array of goods and services to support the agricultural industry

Question 13

Ranching

Answer 13

The practice of using extensive tracts of land to rear herds of livestock to sell as meat, hides, or wool

Question 14

Extensive farming

Answer 14

Crop cultivation and livestock rearing systems that require little hired labor or monetary investment to successfully raise crops and animals

Question 15

Colombian exchange

Answer 15

The interaction and widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, disease, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Question 16

Fertile Crescent

Answer 16

Area in Southwest Asia that includes the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; the earliest center for domestication of seed plants

Question 17

Dispersed

Answer 17

A settlement pattern in which families live relatively distant from one another

Question 18

Irrigation

Answer 18

a man-made system whereby water is spread from its natural source (such as a lake or river) over a much larger geographic range to aid in agricultural production

Question 19

Intensive farming

Answer 19

Crop cultivation and livestock rearing systems that use high levels of labor and capital relative to the size of the landholding

Question 20

Slash and burn

Answer 20

Agriculture that involves cutting small plots in forests or woodlands, burning the cuttings to clear the round and release nutrients, and planting in the ash of the cleared plot

Question 21

Carrying capacity

Answer 21

The number of people a particular environment or Earth as a whole can support on a sustainable basis

Question 22

Milk shed

Answer 22

an area surrounding the milk source (dairy farm) where milk is supplied without spoiling

Question 23

Clustered

Answer 23

A tightly bunched farm settlement that has anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred inhabitants

Question 24

Mixed crop livestock

Answer 24

A diversified system of agriculture based on the cultivation of cereal grains and root crops (such as potatoes and yams) and the rearing of herd livestock

Question 25

Pastoral nomadism

Answer 25

A system of breeding and rearing herd livestock, such as cattle, sheep, or goats, by following the seasonal movement of rainfall to areas of open pasturelands