Food & Agriculture
Soils
Food & Agricultural Production
• Soils and Climate
• Agricultural and Land Use Practices
• Irrigation
• Utilization of Technology
• Labor Force
• Distribution and Marketing
Food Supplies Over the Last 200
Years
• Predictions of widespread shortages
• New crops
– Transplants and genetic engineering
• New cropland
– New lands opened by irrigation
• Transportation and storage
– Faster refrigerated modern methods
– Improved storage protects against spoilage and pests
• Technological advances
Agriculture Today
• Hunter-gatherers
• Subsistence agriculture
– Food for self and family
• Commercial agriculture
– Food for sale
• Polyculture
– Raising a variety of crops
• Monoculture
– Specializing in one type
Subsistence vs. Commercial
Agriculture
• Commercial Traits
• Subsistence Traits – Relies on capital
– Relies mostly on investment in
human labor – little machinery, chemicals,
animal or machine improved seeds
power – Large average farm
– Low technology use size
– Smaller average farm – Products sold to
agribusiness
size companies
– Most food is consumed – Fewer family owned
by farmer farms
Subsistence vs. Commercial Agriculture
Types of Agriculture
• Defined by five variables
– Natural environment
– Crops that are most productive in that
environment
– Degree of technology used
– Market orientation
– Raised for human or animal consumption
10 Categories of Agriculture
• Irrigated • Mixed farming with
• Nomadic herding livestock
• Low tech subsistence • Prairie cereals
• Intensive rice • Ranching
• Asian mixed • Mediterranean grains
cereals/pulses fruits and vegetables
• Plantation agriculture
Types of Agriculture
• Irrigated • Nomadic herding
– Includes many farming – Pastoral nomads
styles from subsistence – Depend on animals
to intensive production – Animals sold or
consumed
– 12-15 million nomads
today
– Government settlement
Types of Agriculture
• Low-tech subsistence • Intensive rice farming
– Slash-and-burn – East, South and
– Amazon, Central and Southeast Asia
West Africa – Work done by hand
– Supports low levels of – Wet rice important
population source of food
– Double cropping
Types of Agriculture
• Asian mixed cereal • Mixed farming with
and pulse farming livestock
– Interior India and – Usually commercial
northeast China – Crops fed to livestock
– Wheat and barley – Dominant in most of
– Pulses = pea or legume world
family – Mixed farming in the
“corn belt”
Types of Agriculture
• Prairie cereals • Ranching
– Large scale – Commercial grazing
commercial grain – Arid or semiarid land
production – Cattle – North and
– Wheat South America
– Areas of concentration – Sheep – Australia
in North America
• Winter wheat belt
• Spring wheat belt
• Palouse region
Types of Agriculture
• Mediterranean • Plantation
– Mediterranean climates – Large commercial farm
– Hot dry summers, cool – Latin America, Asia,
rainy winters Africa
– Most crops for human – Coffee, sugarcane,
consumption bananas, rubber
– Olives, grapes, fruits
and vegetables
Determining Productivity
• Capital investment
– Technology
– Equipment
– Fertilizers/pesticides
– Irrigation
• Natural environment
– Technology and capital investment lessens the
importance
Livestock
• Grain consumption
– Direct and indirect
• Per capita consumption of meat
• Problems with animal production
– Environmental
• Dairy farming
– Value added by manufacturing
Future Food Supplies
• New crop potential
– Preserving genetic diversity
– Cultural acceptance
• Scientific revolution
– Gene splicing
– Genetically modified (GM)
– Cloning
• Resistance to biotechnology
– Religious / cultural / environmental
• Climate Change
Distribution of Supplies and
Production
• Poor distribution
– Hunger/famine
– Political strife
• Countries that import and export food
• Methods to Increase in production
• Methods to Improvement in distribution
Problems Increasing Food
Production
• Diminishing returns of fertilizers
• Financial incentives
– Pricing controls
– Taxes
• Land ownership
– Concentration of ownership
– Collective farming/ Communism
• Commercial cash crops in developing countries
– Leading to economic self sufficiency?
– Illegal drugs
Policies of Wealthy Countries
• High tariffs to protect markets
• Farm subsidies
– Encourage surpluses in rich areas
– Decrease production in poor areas
– Impact on world market
Subsidies: Reasons & Results
• Reasons
– Protects farmers
– National security
– Tradition
– Political
• Results
– Low price
– Restricts competition
– Effect on trade and production
Fish Harvest
• Traditional fishing
– Physical and financial risks
– Small fraction of global catch
• Modern fishing
– Fisheries
– Overfishing and depletion
– Increasing regulation
• Aquaculture
– Herding and domesticating aquatic species
– Fertilizer production