CHAPTER

11
Agriculture

field Notes Changing Greens

NORTH DAKOTA

SOUTH DAKOTA
Presho•

- Figure 11.1
Presho, South Dakota. Soybeans growing in the semiarid ranch lands of western South
Dakota. © Erin H. Foubcrg.

Driving across the semiarid ranchlands of western South Dakota, I noticed the
presence of a crop in the landscape that was recently found only in the eastern,
moister region of the state: soybeans (Fig. 11.1).
I called a colleague who works in agriculture at South Dakota State University
to ask, "When did the cattle ranchers of western South Dakota start growing soy-
beans?" He replied, "When the soy biodiesel plants started popping up in Nebraska
and Kansas and when genetically modified soybeans made it possible to grow the
crop here." He explained the development of Roundup Ready soybeans, a particu-
lar genetically modified soybean that can grow in more arid regions of the country.

365
366 Chapter 11 Agrirulture

First, you plant the soybean; then you use an airplane to spray Roundup, a com-
mon weed killer that is manufactured by the company that produces the Roundup
Ready soybeans, over the field. The application of Roundup over the entire field
saves a lot of time and energy for the farmers because the genetically modified
soybeans are resistant to the Roundup, but the weeds are killed. Monsanto, the
company that produces Roundup, has developed soybeans, corn, cotton, and
other crops that are resistant to Roundup.
Counter to the genetically modified Roundup Ready crops, organic
agriculture-the production of crops without the use of synthetic or industrially
produced pesticides and fertilizers-is also on the rise in North America. In
wealthier parts of the world, the demand for organic products has risen exponen-
tially in recent years. Sales of organic food in the United States, for example, went
from under $200 million in 1980 to $1.5 billion by the early 1990s to over $10 billion
by 2003 and $24.8 billion in 2009. Organic foods are now just under 4 percent of all
food sales in the country. The growth rate is so strong that some predict organic
sales will approach 10 percent of total U.S. food sales within a decade. Parts of
western Europe are already approaching that figure-notably Denmark, Sweden,
Finland, and parts of Germany.
Agricultural fields are devoted to organic agriculture in the core, semi-periphery,
and periphery. Fields devoted to organic agriculture produce all kinds of foodstuffs,
including fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea, grains, nuts, and spices. Compared to all agri-
cultural land, the organic segment is still quite small and relatively scattered, but a
farmer who can gain organic certification from a government or an internationally
recognized third party is increasingly at a competitive advantage (Fig. 11.2).
Although organic crops are grown everywhere, most organic foods are sold in
the global economic core: in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe, and
Australia. The best-selling organic crops in the United States are fruits and vegeta-
bles, accounting for 39 percent of organic food sales, followed by nondairy bever-
ages at 15 percent and dairy at 13 percent. Organic products typically cost more
than conventional products in the grocery store. Nonetheless, a 2002 report
issued by the United States Department of Agriculture explains that in 2000
organic foods crossed a threshold, moving out of health food stores and into
supermarkets: "for the first time, more organic food was purchased in conven-
tional supermarkets than in any other venue:' Organic foods are sold in 54 percent
of conventional grocery stores in the United States, with increasing demands for
organic animal products such as meats and dairy.
Organic agriculture is an increasingly important part of agricultural produc-
tion and consumption in wealthier countries. In the core, organic farming has
helped some farmers extract themselves to a degree from the control of large,
external corporate interests by tapping a niche market. The role of organic agricul-
ture in the periphery and semi-periphery is similar to that of other major cash
crops: production is almost entirely for export to the global economic core. Yet, in
the periphery and semi-periphery, when organic agriculture bears a fair trade certi-
fication, more wealth typically goes directly to the producers (see the discussion
of fair trade coffee in the last section of this chapter).
The organic movement has some clear environmental benefits, particularly
in reducing levels of synthetic chemicals in soil and water. The putative health and
taste advantages of organic produce help ensure the continued growth of the
organic movement. The continually increasing demand for organic products has
led the United States Department of Agriculture to certify organic products in the
country, giving some degree of standardization to organic agriculture.
 (hangingGreens 367

ACRES USED FOR ORGANIC AGRICULTURE

IN THE UNITED STATES, 2007
One dot represents 250 acres
The United States total is 2,577,41 8
200 400 600 800 1000 Kilomelers

0 200 400 600 Miles

Modified afler pubiiCaiiOo 07-1/.097 U.S. Oepartmenl of Agncullure,
National Agricultural Statistics Serv~ce.

,o
~
~~
,.P
HAWAI' I {).

- Figure 11.2
Acres of land certified for organic agricultural production in the United States, 2007.
Co1mesy of United States Census of Agriculture, 2007.

In this chapter, we examine the origins of agriculture and trace the geography of
changes in the production of food and the raising of livestock from the earliest domes-
tication of plants to such contemporary developments as genetic modification and
the turn toward large-scale agribusiness. In the process, we describe the early hearths
of agriculture, the geography of technological changes in agriculture, the global
pattern of agricultural production, and the imprint of agriculture on the cultural
landscape.

Key Questions For Chapter 11

1. What is agriculture, and where did agriculture begin?
2. How did agriculture change with industrialization?
3. What imprint does agriculture make on the cultural landscape?
4. How is agriculture currently organized geographically, and how has
agribusiness influenced the contemporary geography of agriculture?
368 (hapter 11 Agriculture

for 2.3 percent of GDP and only 2 percent of the labor

WHAT IS AGRICULTURE, AND WHERE DID force is employed in agriculture. T he tertiary sector in
Canada accounts fo r 75 percent of the labor force and
AGRICULTURE BEGIN? over 71 percent of GDP, and the tertiary sector in
Agriculture is the deliberate tending of crops and Guatemala accounts for 3 5 percent of the labor force and
livestock to produce food, feed, fiber, and fuel. "\Nhen we 62 percent of tl1e country's G DP.
think about agriculture, we tend to think about the pro- These data do not tell us exactly how goods are pro-
duction of foodstuffs for humans. Grai n is also used for duced, but they are revealing. T he high proportion of the
feed, grains fed directly to livestock. Raising livestock for labor force involved in agriculture in Guatemala (relative to
their milk, eggs, or meat makes up a large segment of U.S. the role of agriculture in the GDP) tells us that agriculture
agriculture. Feed also comes from tl1e remnants ofbiofuel is still quite labor dependent in Guatemala, implying a lack
production, and in 2009, 25 percent of all grain produced of mechanization. In Canada, tl1e United States, and the
in the United States was used to produce fuel for cars, not rest of tl1e global economic core, agriculture is produced on
for human or animal consumption. a large scale for commercial consw11ption. "\Nhen agricul-
A common way of classifying economic activities is to tural goods are produced in tl1ese ways, the number of peo-
focus on what is being produced. Economic activities that ple working directly in the field is quite small. In the United
involve the eAtraction of economically valuable products States, less than 2 percent of the workforce is involved in
from the earth, including agriculture, ranclling, hunting and agricultural production. Thousands of others participate in
gathering, fishing, forestry, mining, and quarrying, are called supporting agricultural production by working in the ter-
primary economic activities. Both the growing of food or tiary sector as research scientists for universities, seed com-
feed and the raising of livestock are considered primary eco- panies, or chemical (antibiotics, pesticides, and herbicides)
nomic activities. Activities that take a primary product and producers; as lobbyists for industry groups such as wheat
change it into something else such as toys, ships, processed producers or cattle ranchers; as engineers who design farm
foods, chemicals, and buildings are secondary economic implements; as the people who sell and repair the imple-
activities. Manufacturing is the principal secondary eco- ments; and as owners and clerks at retail establishments
nomic activity. Tertiary economic activities are those ser- where farmers buy other farm and nonfarm goods.
vice industries that connect producers to consumers and In the U nited States, total agricultural production is at
facilitate commerce and a·ade or help people meet d1eir an all-time high, but d1e proportion of the labor force in agri-
needs. People who work as bankers, lawyers, doctors, teach- culture is at an all-time low. Mechanization and efficiencies
ers, nurses, salespeople, clerks, and secretaries belong to tile created by new teclmologies have led to a significant decrease
tertiary sector. Some analysts separate specialized services in the nwnber of workers needed in agricultural production.
into quaternary and quinary economic activities, distin- In 1950, one fam1er in tl1e United States produced enough
guishing between those sen~ces concerned with infom1ation to feed 27 people; today, one farmer in the U nited States pro-
or the exchange of money or goods (quaternary) and those duces enough to feed 135 people. The mechanization of
tied to research or higher education (quinary). In this chap- agriculture goes beyond macllinery such as combines and
ter, however, for simplicity's sake we limit ourselves to three harvesters. New technologies include hybrid seeds and
categories: primary, secondary, and a broadly conceived ter- genetically engineered crops, pesticides, and herbicides, all
tiary or service sector. of which are designed to increase yields. The drive toward
By classifying economic activities into sectors and economic efficiency has meant that the average size of farms
analyzing the percentage of tl1e population employed in (acres in production) in tl1e U nited States has been growing,
each sector, we can gain insight into how the production regardless of the kind of agricultural good produced. The
of goods is organized, as well as the employment struc- U.S. D epartment of Agriculture keeps data sho•ving the dol-
tures of different societies. As we explained in our discus- lar value of agricultural production. The farms with the
sions of world-systems ilieory in Chapters 8 and 10, the highest total production have at least $500,000 in annual
story of any product (such as wheat or rice) can be better production in 2007 dollars. These high-producing fanns
illuminateo by focusing on how the good is produced (the accow1ted for 53.7 percent of agricultural goods produced in
kinds of technology, research, wages, and education that 2007 (compared with 28.9 percent in 1989).
go into its production), ratl1er d1an focusing simply on Agriculture in the U nited States has changed enor-
what is produced. Examining tl1e proportion of people mously in the last decade. A recent study by the Tational
employed in a given economic sector gives us a basic idea Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
of how the good is produced. For example, in Guatemala identifies four major issues that affect food security world-
the agriculture sector accounts fo r 13.5 percent of the wide: " I) varying abilities to balance production and con-
country's gross domestic product (GDP), yet 50 percent sumption across regions and countries, 2) accelerati ng
of the labor force is employed in agriculture. Contrast conversions of agricultural land to urban uses, 3) increas-
that with Canada, where the agriculture sector accounts ingly energy-intensive food production methods in a world
 What Is Agriculture,and WhereDid AgricultureBegin? 369
of shrinking fossil fuel resources, and 4) expanding use of Archaeological digs of ancient settlement sites suggest that
food crops for biofuel production." Agricultural production people would capture a fire caused accidentally and would
changes rapidly as farmers worldwide react to price Auctua- work to keep the fire burning continuously. Later, people
tions in fossil fuels, seeds, fertilizers, crops, and land. learned that fire could be generated by rapid hand rotation
To set the stage for understanding the contemporary of a wooden stick in a small hole swTotmded by dry tinder.
agriculture picture, in the next section of the chapter, we Fire became the focal point of settlements, and the camp-
discuss how people lived before the origins of agriculture fire took on symbolic and functio nal importance. It was a
and the circumstances that gave rise to the domestication means of making foods digestible, and it was used to drive
of plants and animals many millennia ago. animals into traps or over cliffs.
In addition to hunting game on land, humans har-
vested shellfish, trapped fish by cutting small patches of
Hunting, Gathering, and Fishing standing water off from the o pen sea, and invented tools
to catch fi sh, including harpoons, hooks, and baskets.
Before the advent of agriculture, hunting, gathering, and
Using tools and fi1·e, human commwuties altered their
fishing were the most common means of subsistence
environments, which helped to establish more reliable food
throughout the world. Of course, what people hunted or
supplies. Along with hw1 ting and gathering, early humans
gathered depended on where they lived. North America
were adept at keeping track of the nugration cycles of fish
provides a good example of the diversity of regional special-
and otheratumals. American Indians along the Pacific Coast
izations among hunter-gatherers. The oak forests of parts
and o n Arctic shores, the Ainu of Japan and coastal East
of North America provided an abundant harvest of nu ts,
Asia, and corrunwuties in coastal western E urope caught
sometimes enough to last more than a full yea r; American
salmon as they swam up rivers and negotiated rapids and
Indian communities living in and around these forests
falls. Archaeologists have found huge accwnulations of fish
therefore collected and stored this food source. Other
bones at prehistoric sites near salmo n tw1s.
American Indians living near the Pacific Ocean became
Hunter-gatherers nugrated to take advantage of cycli-
adept at salmon fishing. The bison herds of the G reat Plains
cal movements of mumals and to avoid exhausting the supply
provided sustenance, and so bison served as a focal point for
of edible plants in any one area. After the summer sahnon
many plains cultures. In the colder climates of North
runs, people hunted deer dming the fall and agai11 in the
America, people followed the migrations of the caribou
spring, taking advantage of seasonal movements to trap deer
herds. In the north, in the coastal zone stretching from
where they crossed rivers or in narrow valleys. Dming the
present-day Alaska to Russia, the Aleut developed special-
\vinter, people lived off dried meat and o ther stored foods.
ized techniques for fishing and for sea mammal hunting.
The size of hunting and gathering clans varied
according to climate and resource ava ilability. Hunting The First Agricultural Revolution
and gathering communities in ar eas of abunda nce could
Out of areas of plenty came agriculture, the deliberate tend-
support larger populations. People living on the margins
ing of crops and livestock to produce food, feed, fiber, and
of forests could gather food in the forest when hw1ting
fuel. Geographer Carl Sauer believed the experiments nec-
yielded poor results and then return to hunting when cir-
essaty to establish agriculture and settle in one place would
cumstances improved.
occur in lands of plenty. Only in such places could people
afford to experin1ent with raising plants or take the time to
capture animals and breed them for domestication. Sauer
Terrain and Tools studied the geography of the First Agricultural Revolution,
Before developing agricultme, hunter-gatherers \Vo rked focusing on the location of agriculture hearths and what
on perfecting tools, controlling fires, and adapting environ- kinds of agricultural innovations took place in those hearths.
m ents to their needs. The first tools used in hw1ting were ·w here did plant domestication begin? Sauer, who
simple clubs-tree limbs that were thin at one end and spent a lifetime studying cultural origins and diffusion,
thick and heavy at the other. The use of bone and stone and suggested that Southeast and South Asia may have been
the development of spears made hunting far more effecti ve. the scene, more than 14,000 years ago, of the first domesti-
The fashioning of stone into hand a;xes and, later, handle cation of tropical plants. There, he believed, the combi11a-
axes was a crucial iru1ovation that enabled hunters to skin tion of human settlements, forest margins, and fresh water
their prey and cut the meat; it also made it possible to cut sn·eams may have given rise to the earliest plmmed cultiva- ·
down trees and build better shelters and tools. tion of root crops-crops that are reproduced by cultivat-
The controlled use of fire was another important early ing either the roots o r cuttings from the plants (such as
achievement of hwnan communities. The first opportw1i- tubers, including manioc or cassava, yams, and sweet pota-
ties to control fire were offered by natmal conditions (light- toes in the n·opics). A similar but later development may
ning, spontaneous combustion of surface-heated coal). have taken place in northwestern South Am erica.
370 (hapter11 Agriculture

The planned cultivation of seed crops, plants that tion. First, the plants themselves changed because peo-
are reproduced by cultivating seeds, is a more complex ple would choose seeds from the largest, heartiest plants
process, involving seed selection, sowing, watering, and to save for planting, yielding domesticated plants that
well-timed harvesting. Again, the practice seems to have grew larger over time than their counterparts in the
developed in more than one area and at different times. wild. Archaeologists in Southwest Asia have found pre-
Some scholars believe that the first domestication of seed served seeds, which tell them which plants were being
plants occurred in the N ile River Valley in North Africa, domesticated and when. The grain crops wheat and bar-
but the majority view is that this crucial development took ley grew well in the warm Southwest Asian climate.
place in a region of Southwest Asia (also called the Fertile Soon, people found that the river-inundated plains of
Crescent), through which flow the two major rivers of Mesopotamia provided irrigable fields for farming.
present-day Iraq: the Tigris and the Euphrates (Fig. 11.3). Agriculture provided a reliable food source, and grain
The cultivation of seed crops marked the begilming of surpluses enabled people to store grain for long-term
what has been called the First Agricultural Revolution. distribution and use and to settle permanently in one
Archaeologists note that a number of changes place. In the process, the population of settlemen ts
occurred in Southwest Asia along with plant domestica- began to increase.

- Figure 11.3
The Fertile Crescent and Nile River Valley. The Fertile Crescent and N ile River Valley
were two hearths of the first agricultural revolution. Modern political boundaries are shown fo r
reference. ©E. H. Fouberg, A. 13. Murphy, H.j. de Blij, and john \<Vi ley & Sons, Inc.
40'

40'
.Hattusas
HITTITES
1600-1200 B.C.E.

.. ,
M EDI A
,__~YRlA

• Si~dn _,-
•ryre /
_ ,"-' .-( Syrian
P.ALESTINE / / \ Desert
Jj{45ale!l)__/ •

30- (
f. '\
·I
'( ·1
• 1
),· <""
\
----- /'·---

A R A B I A '·-....
·-.... ' ·
I
/ \i;i ·, r-------------'~·--------~---------,
\
i
. . v /'//
Sma1 ....... _ _/
THE FERTILE CRESCENT
i AND THE NILE VALLEY
i D Mesopotamia D Uruk
i
I D Egypt D Elam
i Libyan
! Desert D Hittites
I
I
Dates represent range of each
i kingdom's existe nce
! 0 250 500 750 Kilometers
I
i 0 250 500 Miles
30' 40' so•
 What IsAgriculture,and WhereDid Agriculture Begin? 371
Figure 11.4 depicts the global distribution of plant ill many cases, what we now think of as centers of
domestication hearths. L1 Southeast Asia (Region 1), taro, producton of particular crops are not the places where
yams, and bananas were the leading food plants. ill those crops were originally domesticated. The corn
Southwest Asia (Region 4), plant domestication centered (maize) we associate with the American Corn Belt diffused
on wheat, barley, and other grains. ill the Mesoamerican from Mesoamerica (Region 6) into North America. Later,
region (Region 6), the basic plants were maize (corn), the Portuguese brought it across the Atlantic, and corn
squashes, and several kinds of beans. became a staple in much of Africa. The white potato we
Archaeologists continually fi nd new sites to excavate, associate with I reland and Idaho came originally from the
and as places are analyzed further, academics revise their Andean highlands but was brought to Europe in the 1600s
assumptions about the timing of the emergence of agricul- where it became a staple from Ireland to tl1e eastern
tural hearths. The Central China hearth (Region 7) has expanses of the North European Plain. T he banana we
recently attracted greater attention because new evidence associate witl1 Mesoamerica came from Soutl1east Asia, as
supports a much earlier development of agriculture in this did a variety of yams. Diffusion of crops and seeds was
region- so early, in fact, that C hinese farmers may have greatly accelerated by worldwide trade and communica-
been among tl1e world's first. Anotl1er agricultural source tions networks established witl1 the development of mer-
region lies in \i\lest Africa (Region 9). Archaeological cantilism and European colonialism.
research on agriculture in this area is relatively recent, and
analysts are not certain whetl1er agriculture developed
independently there.
Domestication of Animals
Table 11.1 may be overwhelming at first glance, but Some scholars believe tl1at animal domestication began
it is worth careful attention. It reveals tl1e enormous range earlier than plant cultivation, but otl1ers argue tl1at animal
of crops that were cultivated around the world, as well as domestication began as recently as 8000 years ago-well
how, at various times and in different locales, particular after crop agriculture. W hichever is the case, goats, pigs,
groups of crops became the mainstays of life. Soon tl1e and sheep became part of a rapidly growing array of domes-
knowledge needed to farm such crops diffused outward ticated animals, and in captivity tl1ey changed considerably
from these agricultural hearths. For example, both millet from their wild state. As with tl1e growing of root crops, tl1e
and sorghum diffused from the West African region- notion of animal domestication must have emerged over
millet to illdia and sorghum to China. time, in stages.

- Figure 11.4
World Areas of Agricultural Innovations. Cul tural geographer Carl Sauer identified 11
areas where agricultu ral innovations occurred. Adapredwirb pmnissioufrom: C. 0 . Sauer, Agriwlrural Origins
aud Dispn~ols. New York: American Geographic:~! Sociery, 1952, p. 24.

40'
O C EAN
.... 20' 20'

WORLD AREAS OF
AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS
1. Upper Southeast Asian Mainland
2. lower Southeast Asian Mainland and Malaysia
3. Eastern India and Western Myanmar
4. Southwestern Asia
{Northwest India-Caucasus)
5. Abyssinian and East African Hlghlands
6. Mesoamerican Region
(Southern Mexico to Northern Venezuela)
7. North Central China
(including the Central Asian Corridor) 0' 20' 40' 60'
8. Mediterranean Basin-Classical Near Eastern Fringe 60' 60'
9. Western Sudan Hill lands and their Margins
10. Andean Highlands and their Margins A~-
11. Eastern South America
!centered on Eastern Brazill
372 Chapter II Agriculture

TABLE 11.1
Chief Source Regions of Important Crop Plant Domestications. Adapted with permission
from:J. E. Spencer and W. L. Thomas, Introducing Cultural Geography, 1978,John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A. Primary Regions of Domestications

1. The Upper Southeast Asian Mainlands
Citrus Fruits* Bamboos* Yams* Rices* Eugenias* Lichi Teas Ramie
Bananas* Taros* Cabbages* Beans* Job's tears Longan Tung oils Water chestnut
2. Lower Southeast Asian Mainland and Malaysia (including New Guinea)
Citrus fruits* Taros* Pandanuses Breadfruits Lanzones Vme peppers* Nutmeg Areca
Bananas* Yams* Cucumbers* Jackfruits Durian Gingers* Clove Abaca
Bamboos* Almonds* Sugarcanes Coconuts Rambutan Brinjals* Cardamom
3. Eastern India and Western Bunna
Bananas* Beans* Millets* Grams Vme peppers* Mangoes Safllower Lotus
Yams* Rices* Sorghums* Eggplants Gingers* Kapok* Jute Tunneric
Taros* Amaranths* Peas* Brinjals* Palms* Indigo Sunn Hemp
4. Southwestern Asia (Northwest India-Caucasus)
Soft wheats* Peas* Rye* Beets* Hemp Soft Pears* Pomegranates Walnuts
Barleys* Oil seeds* Onions Spinach Apples Cherries* Grapes* Melons
Lentils* Poppies Carrots* Sesames Almonds* Plums* Jujubes* Tamarind
Beans* Oats* Turnips Flax Peaches* Figs Pistachio Alfalfa
S. Ethiopian and East African Highlands
Hard wheats* Sorghums* Barleys Beans* Oil seeds* Melons* Coffees Okras
Millets* Rices* Peas* Vetches Cucumbers* Gourds* Castor beans Cottons*
6. Meso-American Region (Southern Mexico to Northern Venezuela}
Maizes Taros* Tomatoes* Avocados Muskmelons Cottons•
Amaranms- Sweet potatoes Chili peppers Sapotes Palms* Agaves
Beans* Squashes Custard apples Plums* Manioc Kapok

B. Secondary Regions of Domestications

7. North-Central China fmcluding the Central Asian corridor}
Millets* Soybeans Naked oat* Mulberries Bush cherries* Peaches*
Barleys* Cabbages* Mustards Persimmons Hard pears* Jujubes*
Buckwheats Radishes* Rhubarb Plums* Apricots
8. Mediterranean Basin-Classical Near Eastern Fringe \
Barleys* Lentils* Grapes* Dates Parsnips Lettuces Carrots* Sugar beet
Oats* Peas* Olives Carobs Asparagus Celeries Garlic Leek
9. Western Sudan Hill Lands and Their Margins
Sorghums* Rices* Yams* Peas* Melons* Oil palms Kola nut
Millets* Fonio Beans* Oil seeds* Gourds* Tamarind*
10. Andean Highlands and Their Margins
White potatoes Tomatoes* Beans* Quinoa Cubio Ulluco
Pumpkins Strawberries Papayas Oca Arrocacha
11. Eastern South America (centered on eastern Brazil)
Taros* Peanuts Cashew nut Cacao Cottons*
Beans* Pineapples Brazil nut Passion fruits Tobaccos

So11rce: J. E. Spencer and W. L. Thomas, Introducing Cultural Geography: 1978. Reproduced by permission from John Wiley & Sons.
*The asterisk indicates domestication of related species or hybridized development of new species during domestication in some other region or
regions. Some of these secondary domestications were later than in the original region, but evidence of chronologie priority seldom is clear-cut.
The plural rendering of the crop name indicates that several different varieties/species either were involved in initial domestication or followed there-
after,
The tenn oil seeds indicates several varieties or species of small-seeded crop plants bTI"Own for the production of edible oils, without further breakdown.
In regions 2 and 3 the brinjals refer to the spicy members of the eggplant group used in curries, whereas in region 3 the eggplants refer to the sweet
vegetable members.
None of the regional lists attempts a complete listing of all crop plants/species domesticated within the region.
The table has been compiled from a wide variety of sources.
 What Is~riculture, and Where Did Agriculture Beginl 373
The process of animal domestication began as peo- have been the first ani mals to be domesticated) and in
ple became more sedentary. People kept ani mals forcer- widely separated regions. Single, specific heartl1s can be
emonial purposes as well as for pets or for other reasons. pinpointed for on ly a few animals, including the llama and
Quite possibly, animals attached th emselves to human tl1e alpaca, tl1e yak, the turkey, and tl1e reindeer.
settlements as scavengers (foraging through ga rbage Efforts to domesticate ani mals continue today. In East
near human settlements) and even for protection against A.fr.ica, people are attempting to domesticate the eland, to
predators, thus reinforcing the idea tl1at they might be serve as a source of meat in a region where a stable protein
ta med and kept. Orphaned yo ung probably were adopted source is greatly needed. Several experimental stations in
as pets; some wild animals were docile and easily penned the savanna are trying to find ways to domesticate Africa's
up. Goats were domesticated in the Zagros Mountains wildlife. They have had some success with a species of
(in the Ferti le C rescent) as long as 10,000 years ago; eland, but less so with va ri ous species of gazelles; they have
sheep some 9500 years ago in Anatolia (Turkey); and been unable to domesticate tl1e buffalo (Fig. 11.5). In fact,
pigs and cattle shortly thereafter. The adva ntages of ani- throughout tl1e world only some 40 species of higher ani-
mal domestica tion- thei r use as beasts of burden, as a mals have ever been domesticated-and most of these were
source of meat, and as providers of milk-stimulated the domesticated long ago. J ared Diamond, autl10r of Guns,
rapid diffusion of this idea among interlinked places and Germs, nnd Steel, explains tint only five domesticated mam-
gave the sedentary fanners o f Soutlnvest Asia and else- mals are important throughout tl1e world: the cow, sheep,
where a new measure of security. goat, pig, and horse. Accordin g to Diamond, if we select
Archaeological research indicates that when animals only me big (over 100 pounds), herbivorous, terresn-ial ani-
such as wild cattle are penned in a corral, they undergo mals, we have 148 species tint meet these criteria in the
physical changes over ti me. In a pen, animals are pro- "wild." Only 14 of those 148 have been domesticated suc-
tected from predators, allowing the survival of animals cessfully, and each of these 14 was domesticated at least
that would have been killed in the wild. Our domestic ver- 4500 years ago. Modern attempts at animal domestication,
sions of the goat, the pig, tl1e cow, and tl1e horse differ even those driven by knowledgeable geneticists, have failed
considerably from those first kept by our ancestors. In because of problems with the anima l's diet, growth rate,
early animal domestication, people chose the more docile, breeding, disposition, or social structure.
often smaller animals to breed. Archaeologists discern the T hus, the process of animal domestication, set in
beginnings of animal domestication in a region by inspect- motion more tlnn 8000 (and perhaps as long as 14,000)
ing the bones of excavated animals. They look for places yea rs ago, continues. The integrated use of domesticated
where bones get smaller over time, as this usually indi- plants and domesticated animals eased the work burden
cates early domestication. fo r early farmers. Anima l waste fertilized crops, animals
As with plant domesti cation , archaeologists can pulled plows, and crops feel animals. The first place where
use th e combination of bone fragments and tools to domesticated plants and ani mals were successfully inte-
identify ge neral areas whe re the domestication of par- gra ted was Soutlnvest Asia (the Fertile Crescent).
ticular animals occurred. I n Soutl1 west Asia and adja-
cen t parts of the Mediterranean basin , people domesti-
cated the goat, sheep, and camel. Southeast Asians
Subsistence Agriculture
domesticated several kinds o f pigs, tl1e wate r buffalo, Subsistence agriculture-growing only enough food to
chickens, and some water fowl (clucks, geese). In East survive-was tl1e norm tl1roughout most of huma n his-
India and W est Burma (South Asia), people domesti- tory. Subsistence farmers often hold land in common; sur-
cated cattle, and cattle came to occupy an important pluses are shared by all tl1e members of the community;
place in the regional culture. In Central Asia, people accumulation of personal weal th is restricted; and indi-
domesticated the yak, horse, some species of goats, and vidua l advancement at tl1e cost of the group as a whole is
sheep. In tl1e Mesoamerica and the Andean Highlands, limited. Subsistence agricu lture declined during the 1900s
early Americans domesticated tl1 e llama and alpaca, with tl1e diffusion of industrialized agriculture and the
along with a species of pig and the turkey. goal of constan tly increasing production botl1 to feed
Some species of animals may have been domesti- growing populations an d to sell more agricultural goods.
cated almost simultaneously in different places. T he water The U nited States and other industrialized coun tries
buffalo, for example, was probably domesticated in botl1 sought to move farmers "beyond" subsistence into indus-
Southeast and South Asia during tl1e same period. Camels trialized production as part of development programs
were domesticated in botl1 western and eastern ends of begun in the 1960s (see Chapter 10).
Southwest Asia. T he pig was domesticated in numerous A return to subsistence agricul ture has taken hold in
areas. Different species of cattle we re domesticated in parts of the world where far mers feel production for the
regions other than Soutl1 Asia. Dogs and cats attached global market has not benefited them either financially or
themselves to human settlements very early (they may cul turally. For example, indigenous people in the southern
374 (hapter II Agriculture

~ield Note
"Attempts to tame wildlife started in ancient times, and domestic animals (goats) were combined with wild gazelles,
still continue. At Hunter's Lodge on the Nairobi-Mombasa all penned together in a large enclosure. This was not work-
road, we met an agricultural officer who reported that an ing well; all day the gazelles seek to escape. By comparison,
animal domestication experiment station was located not these eland were docile, manageable, and in good health.
far into the bush, about 10 miles south. On his invitation, Importantly, they also were reproducing in captivity. Here,
we spent the next day observing this work. In some herds, our host describes the program."

- Figure 11.5
Nairobi, Kenya. © H.J. de Blij.

Mexican states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guerre ro have turn the soil, and try again. Shifting cultivation gave ancient
largely returned to subsistence agriculture. Tbe ation farmers opportunities to ex'Periment with various plants, to
reported in 2010 that Zapatista farmers have "in effect learn the effects of weeding and crop care, to cope with envi-
chosen to withdraw from the national econ omy, some ronmental vagaries, and to discern the decreased fertility of
weaning themselves off expensive chemical fertilizers and soil after sustained fanning.
subsisting on corn they can grow, harvest, and barter." ' iVith shi fting cultivation, parcels of land are worked
Some subsistence fanners are sedentary, living in one successively. The farmers first clear vegetation from a par-
place throughout the year, but many othe rs move from place cel of land. Next they plant crops that are native to the
to place in search of better land. T he latter engage in a form region: rubers in the humid, warm tropical areas, grains in
of agriculture known as shifting cultivation. This type of the more humid subtropics, and vegeta bles and fruits in
agriculture is found primarily in tropical and subtropical cooler zones. 'iVhen the village grows too large and the
zones, where traditional fanners had to abandon plots ofland distance to usable land becomes too great, part of the vil-
after the soil becan1e infertile. O nce stripped of their natura] lage's population may establish a new settlement some
vegetative cover and deprived of the constant input of nutri- distance away. Population densities in areas of shifting agri -
ents from decaying vegetative matter on the forest floor, soils culture cannot be very high; tl1erefore, shifting cultivation
in these regions can quickly lose their nutrients as rain water continues only in areas where population densities are low.
leach es out organic matter. Faced with these circumstances, One specific kind of shifting cultivation is slash-and-
farmers move to another parcel of land, dear the vegetation, burn agriculture (also called swidden, milpa, or patch
 How Did Agriculture Change with lndustrializationl 375
agriculrure), reflecting the central role of the controlled use
thousands of people worlcing in factories instead of in
of fire in places where this technique is used. Trees are cut
agricultural fields. Li ke the Industrial Revolution, the
down and all existing vegetation is burned off. In slash-and-
Second Agricultural Revolution was composed of a series
bum, farmers use tools (machetes and knives) to slash down
of innovations, improvements, and techn iques, in this
trees and tall vegetation, and then burn the vegetation on
case initially in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denma rk,
the ground. A layer of ash from the fire settles o n the ground
and other neighboring couno·ies.
and contributes to the soil's fertility.
By the seventeenth and eig hteenth centuries, European
As we djscuss in the next section, agriculwre has fun-
F.m ning tmdenventsignjficant changes. ew crops cameinro
damentally changed since shifting cultivation was the
Europe from trade with the Americas, including corn <md
global norm, but hundreds o f millio ns offarmers continue
potatoes. Many of the new cro ps were well swted for the cli-
to practice som e form of subsistence agriculnu·e.
mate and soils of western Europe, bringing new lands (previ-
ously defined as marginal) into cultivation.
The govern ments ofEurope helped create the condi-
tions necessary for the Second Agriculrural Revolution by
passing laws such as G reat Br itain's Enclosure Act, whjch
encouraged consolidation of fields into large, single-owner
Settling down in one place, a rising population, and the holdings. Farmers increased the size of their farms, pieced
switch to agriculture are interrelated occu rrences in human together more contiguous parcels of land, fenced in their
history. Hypothesize which of these three happened first, land, and instituted fi eld rotation. Methods of soil prepara-
second, and third and explain why. tion, fertilizati on, crop care, and harvesti ng improved.
New technologies improved production as well. The
seed drill enabled farmers to avoid wasting seeds and to
plant in rows, malcing it sim pler to distinguish weeds fro m
HOW DID AGRICULTURE CHANGE crops. By the 1830s, farmers were using new fertiljzers o n
crops and feeding artificial feeds to livestock. Increased
WITH INDUSTRIALIZATION? agriculmral output made it possi ble to feed much larger
For the Industrial Revo lutio n (see C h3pter 12) to urban populations, enabl ing the growth of a secondary
take root, a Second Agricultural Revolution had to take (i ndusn·ial) economy. In 183 1, Cyrus M cCormick, a
place-one that would move agriculture beyond subsis- farmer in Lexington, Virginia, perfected his father 's design
tence to generate the kinds of surpluses needed to feed fo r a mechanica l reaper (Fig. 11.6). At the time, farmers

- Figure 11.6
Midwest, United States. Pioneers in 1870
used the mechanical reaper designed by Cyrus
McCorm ick to cut and bundle grain on the prairie.
Pulled by horses, the mechanical reaper sped up har-
vesting and diffused around the world. © Hulton-
Deutsch Collccrion/ CORBIS.
376 ChapterII Agriculture

were limited in their production not by what they could one commodi ty or crop gave way to ano tl1er. H e also
sow (plant), but what they could reap (harvest) because noted that this process occurred witl1o ut any visible
harvesting required much more time and labor than plant- change in soil, cli mate, or terrain. \¥ hen he mapped this
ing. Harvesting involved laborers cutting g rain with a pattern, he found that each town o r market center was
scythe followed by mo re laborers who bundled the grain surrounded by a set of more-or-less concentric r ings
into bales. McCormick's mechanical reaper, which was within which particular commodi ties or cro ps dominated.
pulled by horses, both cut and bundled gra in. His inven- Nearest the town, farmers prod uced commodities
tion took off in the 1840s purportedly increasing yields of that were perishable and commanded high prices, such as
individual farmers by at least ten times. McCormick's com- dairy products and strawberri es. In this zone, much effo rt
pany eventually became International Harvester and now would go in to prod uction in part because of the value of
Case HI, one of the largest agriculture implement compa- the land closer to tl1e city. In von T hiinen's time, tl1e town
nies in the world today. was sti ll surrounded by a belt of fo rest that provided wood
Advances in breeding livestock enabled farm ers to for fuel and building; but immediately beyond the forest
develo p new breeds that were either strong milk produc- tl1e ring-like pattern of agriculture continued. In the next
ers o r good for beef. T he most common breeds of dairy ring crops were less perishable and bulkier, including
cattle found in Nortl1 America today o·ace their lineage wheat and other grains. Still farther out, livestock raising
back to tl1e Second Agricultural Revolutio n in E urope. In began to replace field cro ps.
the 1700s and 1800s, European farmers bred dairy cattle Von T hiinen used tl1ese o bservatio ns to build a
to adapt to diffe rent climates and topography. For exam- model of tl1e spatial disoibution of agriculn1ral activities
ple, tl1e black and white Holstein dairy cow came from the aroun d settlements (Fig. 11. 7). As with all models, he had
I etl1erlands and is well suited to graze on grass and pro- to make certa in assumptio ns. For example, he assumed
duce high quantities of milk. Scottish fa rmers bred tl1e red that the terrain was Aat, that soils and o ther environmen-
and white Ayrshire breed of dairy cattle to prod uce mil k tal conditions were th e same everywhere, and that there
well suited for butter and cheese and tO forage fo r food in were no barriers to transportation to market. Under such
ro ugh, rocky topography. circumstances, he reasoned, transport costs would govern
Innovations in machinery that occurred witl1 the
Industrial Revo lution in tl1e late 1800s and early 1900s
helped sustain tl1e Second Agricultural Revolution. The - Figure 11.7
rai lroad helped move agriculture into new r egions, such Von T hiinen's Model. @> I I.J. de Blij, P. 0 . J\lullcr, 3ndjohn Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
as the U nited States' G reat Plains. Geographer J ohn
Hudson traced the major role railroads and agriculn1re
played in changing tl1e landscape of that region from open
prairie to individual farmsteads. T he railroad companies
advertised in Europe to attract immigrants to the G reat
P lains region, and the railroads took tl1e new migra nts to
their new towns, where they would transfonn lands from
prairie grass to agricultura l fields. Later, the internal com-
bustible engine made possible the invention of tractors,
combines, and a multitude of large farm equipment. New
banking and lending practices helped farmers affo rd tl1e
new equipment.

Understanding the Spatial Layout of Agriculture

\iVh en commercial agriculture is gea red to producing
food for people who live in a nearby town or city, a geo-
graphichal pattern of land use based on tl1e "pe1ishabi lity"
of products and cost of transportation often emerges. In
the 1800s, J ohann Heinrich von T hiinen (1783-1850) • Central City
experienced the Second Agricultural Revolu tion first- D Market gardening and dairying
hand: he farmed an estate not fa r from the town of
• Forest
Rostock, in northeast Germany. Sn1dying the spatial pat-
terns of farming around towns such as Rostock, von
0 Increasingly extensive field crops, grains
• Ranching, livestock
T hiinen noted that as o ne moved away from tl1e town,
 How Did Agri!ulture (hange with Industrialization? 377
the use of land. He r easoned that the greater the distance philanthropists fu nded research on maize (corn) produc-
to market, the higher the transport costs tha t had to be tio n in Mexico, trying to find a hybrid seed that would
added to the cost of producing a crop o r commodi ty. g row better. They did, and by 1960 Mexico was no longer
T he Von Thiinen model (including the ring of for- impo rting corn because production wi thin the counny
est) is often described as the first effort to analyze the spa- was high enou gh to meet demand . In tl1e 1960s, tl1e focal
tial char acter of economic activity. The T hiin ian patterns point of tl1e G reen Revolution shifted to India, when sci-
discerned in many parts of the world are not solely the entists at a research institution in tl1e Philippines crossed a
result of the forces modeled by von Thiinen. D iffe rences dwarf Ch inese va riety of rice with an Indonesian variety
in climate type and soil quality weigh heavily o n the kinds and produced IRS. T his new rice plant had a number of
of goods produced in a place. Yet if you drive east o ut of desirable pr operties: it developed a bigger head of g rain,
Denver, heading for Nebraska, you cannot miss a certain and it had a sn·onger stem tl1at did not collapse under the
concentric zonation that puts dairying and market ga r- added weight of the bigger head. IRS produced much bet-
dening nearest the city, cash grains such as corn (plus soy- ter yields than either of its parents, but the researchers
beans) in the next " ring," more extensive g rain farming were not satisfied. In 19S2 they produced IR36, bred from
and livestock raising beyond, and cattle ranching in the 13 parents to achieve genetic resistance aga inst 15 pests
outermost zone. and a growing cycle of 110 days under warm conditions,
Geographer Lee L iu studied the spatia l pattern of thus maki ng possible three crops per yea r in some places.
agricultural productio n in o ne province of C hi na, giving By 1992, IR36 was tl1e most widely grown crop on Eartl1,
careful consideration to the intensity of the prod uction and in September 1994, scientists developed a sn·ain of
methods and the amount of land degradation. Liu fo und ri ce that was even more productive tl1an IR36. In addition
that the farmers living in a village would fa rm lands close to improving the production of rice, the G reen Revolution
to the village as well as lands fa r away from the village with brought new high-yield varieties of wheat and corn from
high levels of intensity. However, the methods used va ried the United States to other parts of the world, particularly
spatially, r esulting in land improvements close to the vil- South and Southeast Asia.
lage and land degradation farther fro m the village. In Coming at a time of growing concern about global
lands close to the village, farmers improved lands th ro ugh hunger, the increased yields o f tl1e G reen Revol ution were
"decades of intensive care," in particular putti ng organic truly extraordinaty . In subsequent decades, most fa mines
material onto the fields, which made the grasslands close resul ted from political instabi li ty rather than fail ure in
to the village "fertile and productive." In lands more production. India became self-sufficient in grain produc-
remote fro m the village, farm ers tended to use more tion by tl1e 19SOs, and Asia as a whole saw a two-thirds
"chemical fertili zer, pesticides, and herbicides" and fewer i ncrea~e in ri ce production between 1970 and 1995 . T hese
conservation tactics, resulti ng in land degradation, drastic increases in prod uction stemmed not only fro m
whereby "the o riginally fertile remote land became new seed varieties but also from the use of fe rti lizers, pes-
degraded." Liu argued that this pattern in modern C hina ticides, irrigation in some places, and sig nificant capital
occurs in large part because farmers live in the village, not improvements.
in the remote fields, and therefore put most of their time T he geogra phical impact of the Green Revolution
and energy into the fields closest to them. is hi ghl y variab le, howeve r. Its traditio nal focus o n ri ce,
Even when agricultural productio n does not conform wheat, and corn means that it has had only limited
to the concentric ri ngs of von Thi.inen's model, his under- impact throughout much o f Africa, where agriculture is
lying concern with the interplay of land use and transpor- based on diffe rent crops and where lower soil fertility
tation costs frequently still explains agricultura l patterns. makes agriculture less attractive to foreign in vesnn ent.
The fresh flowers grown in tl1e Caribbean for sale in New But innovations are contin ual ly being developed.
York City could be viewed as the application of the von Researchers at th e Internatio nal Rice Resea rch Institute,
T hiinen model o n a larger scale, for it is less expensive to fo r example, are working to breed a ge netica lly modified
grow flowers in the Caribbean and ship them to New York "super rice" tl1at will not have to be n·a nsplanted as seed-
City than it is to grow tl1em in otl1er locatio ns. lings but can be seeded directly in tl1e paddy soil. It may
yield nearly tw ice as much ri ce per acre tha n the ave rage
fo r strains in current use. The charting of the genome of
rice (the 12 chromosomes tl1at carry all of tl1e plant's
The Third Agricultural Revolution characte ristics) may make it possible to transform rice
T he Third Agricultural Revolution, also called tl1e genetically so that it will continuously acqu ire more
G r een Revolution, dates as far back as the 1930s, when desirab le properties. No t o nly cou ld yields im prove; so
agricultural scientists in tl1e Am erican Midwest began coul d resistance to diseases and pests.
experimenting with technologically m anipulated seed Increasingly, researchers are mrni ng tl1eir attention
varieties to increase crop yields. In the 1940s, Ame ri can to new agricultural products, and tl1is could expand the
378 Chapter11 Agriculture

geographical impact of the Green Revolution. Research genetically modified grains and a virtual monopoly of the
has already led to methods for producing high-yield cas- needed chemical inputs can have tremendous power over
sava and sorghum-both of which are grown in Africa. the agricultural production process. In addition, the need
Beyond Africa, research on fattening livestock faster and for capital from the West to implement Green Revolution
improving the appearance of fruits is having an impact in technologies has led to a shift away from production for
North and South America. local consumers toward export agriculture. In the process,
The promise of increasing food production in a local places become subject to the vicissitudes of the
world in which almost a billion people are malnourished global economy, where a downward fluctuation in the
has led many people to support genetically engineered price of a given crop can create enormous problems for
foods. Others, however, question whether gene manipula- places dependent on the sale of that crop.
tion could create health risks and produce environmental
hazards. E nvironmentalists have speculated about the
impacts of pollen dispersal from genetically modified New Genetically Modified Foods
plants and the potential for disease-resistant plants to spur
An enti re field of biotechnology has spnmg up in con-
the evolution of super-pests. Moreover, the large-scale
junction with the T hi rd Agricultural Revolution, and the
monocropping that is often part of Green Revolution
development of genetically engineered crops (GE) or
agriculture can make farms vulnerable to changes in cli-
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is its principal
mate or the infestation of particular pests. One vocal
target. Since the origin of agriculture, people have ex'Peri-
opponent of the Green Revolution in India, Vandana
mented with hybrid crops and cross-breeding of animals.
Shiva, argues that
Today, according to the G rocery Manufacturers of
America, genetically modified organisms are found in 75
[t}be Green Revolution bas been a failm·e. It bas led to
percent of all processed foods in the United States. The
reduced genetic divrrrsity, increased vulnembility to pests,
. United States leads the world in the production of geneti-
soil e'rosion, water sbortages, reduced soil fe'rtility, micronu-
cally engineered crops, with 88 percent of all acres in corn
tril!'lzt deficiencies, soil contamination, reduced availability
(up from 2 5 percent in 2000) and 94 percent of all acres in
ofnutritiousfood cropsjo1· the local population, the displace-
soybeans (up from 54 percent in 2000) sown with geneti-
11ll!'lzt of vast nmnbi!'I"S of small fanni!'IJ from tbeb· land,
cally engineered seeds.
mml impoverishment rmd increased tensions and conflicts.
Some regions have embraced genetically engineered
The beruifidm·ies have been tbe agrochmtical indust1)',
crops, and others have banned them. Many of the poorer
large pen·ochm1ical companies, manufamtrl!'l-s of agtiCIII-
tumlmacbirll!'l)', dam builder-s and lmge landowni!'I"S. countries of the world do not have access to the necessary
capital and technology. Moreover, ideological resistance
to genetically engineered foods is strong in some places-
It is no easy matter to weigh the enormous increases in
particularly in western Europe. Agricultural officials in
food production that have occurred in places that have
adopted Green Revolution approaches against the types most west European countries have declared genetically
of social and environmental issues highlighted by Shiva. modified foods to be safe, but in man y places, the public has
a strong reaction against them based on combined concerns
There is growing concern that higher inputs of
chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides associated about health and taste. Such concerns have spread to less
with Green Revolution agriculture can lead to reduced affluent parts of the world as well. In many poorer regions,
organic matter in the soil and to groundwater pollution. seeds are a cultural commodity, refl ecting agricultural
lessons learned over generations. In these regions, many
Moreover, the Green Revolution has worked against
resist the invasion of foreign, genetically engineered crops.
the interest of many small-scale farmers who lack the
resources to acqui re genetically enhanced seeds and the
necessary chemical inputs to grow them.
A 2005 report in Scientific Ame1·icmz expl~ns that the
Regional and Local Change
G reen Revolution has done little to alleviate poverty in Recent shifts from subsistence agriculture to commercial
areas where most farmers still work small plots of land: agriculture have had dramatic impacts on rural life. Land-
"The supply-driven strategies of the Green Revolution, use patterns, land ownership arrangements, and agricul-
however, may not help subsistence farmers, who must tural labor conditions have all changed as rural residents
play to their strengths to compete in the global market- cope with shifting economic, political, and environn1ental
place. The average size of a family farm is less than four conditions. In Latin America, dramatic increases in the
acres in India, 1.8 acres in Bangladesh and about half an production of export crops (or cash crops such as fruits and
acre in China." Smaller farmers are in a poor competitive coffee) have occurred at the expense of crop production
position, and their position is further undermined by the for local consumption. In the process, subsistence farming
fact that a few large corporations with the seed patents for has been pushed to ever more marginal lands. In Asia,
Guest
rield Note
Gambia
I am interested in women and rural develop-
ment in Subsaharan Africa. In 1983, I went to
Gambia to study an irrigated rice project
that was being implemented to improve the
availability of rice, the dietary staple. What
grabbed my attention? The donors' assur-
ance that the project would benefit women,
the country's traditional rice growers. Imag-
ine my surprise a few months after project
implementation when I encountered hun-
dreds of angry women refusing to work
because they received nothing for their
labor from the first harvest.
In registering women's traditional rice
plots as "family" land, project officials effec- - Figure 11.8
tively sabotaged the equity objectives of the Gambia.
donors. Control now was concentrated under
male heads of household who reaped the
income produced by female labor. Contemporary economic strategies for Africa depend increasingly upon labor intensifi-
cation. But whose labor? Human geography provides a way of seeing the significance of gender in the power relations that
mediate culture, environment, and economic development.
Credit: judith Carney, University af California, Los Angeles

where th e Green Revolution has had the grea test impact, ro und ri ce production. T his transformation created ten-
the productio n of cereal c rops (grains such as rice and sions within rural households by converting la nds women
wh ea t) has increased for both fo reign and domestic mar- traditionally used fo r family subsistence into commercial-
kets. Agriculrural pro ductio n in t his region re mains rela- ized fa rming plots. In addition, when rice production was
tively small in scale and quite dep endent o n manual labor. turned into a yea r-row1d occupation, women found them-
In Subsah aran Africa, total commerciali zed agriculmre selves with less tim e for othe r activities crucial for house-
has increased, but overall agric ulrural exports have ho ld mainte nance.
d ecreased. As in Asia, farm uni ts in Subsaharan Africa T his sin1ation underscores tl1e fact tl1a t in Africa, as
have remained relatively sma ll and dependent on intensi- in much of tl1e rest of the less industrialized world, agri-
fied manual labor. cu lmral wo rk is ove1-whel ming ly carri ed ou t by women. In
\~h at this regio nal -scale ana lys is does not tell us is Subsaharan Africa and South Asia, 60 percent of all
how these changes have affected local rural co mmunities. employed females work in the agriculture secto r. A geo-
These c hanges can be environme ntal, economic, and graphi cal pe rspective helps to shed light on how changes
social. A recent smdy in th e small cou n try of Gambia in agricu lrura l practices througho ut tl1e world not only
~est Africa) by Judi th Carney has shown how changing alter rural landscapes but also affect family and commu-
agriculrural practices have altered not only the rural e nvi- nity relationships.
ronment and econ omy, but also relations between men
a nd women (Fig. 11.8). Over the last 30 years, interna-
tional developmental assistance to G ambia has led to The Impacts of Agricultural Modernization
ambitious projects desig ned to convert wetlands to irri-
gated agriculrural lands, making p ossible production of
on Earlier Practices
rice year-round. By the late 1980s, virrually all of the In the modern world , hunter-gathe re rs live in the context
country's suitable we tlands h ad been converted to year- of a g lo balized economy and exp erience pressures to

379
380 (hapter11 Agriculture

OCEA '-
20 ·-.

11' Equator

20 Trcr.c: ol C<oncorn

WORLD REGIONS OF PRIMARY

SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE
tn the shaded areas, subSIStence crop fatmitl&
1s the fead·ng way of lde.ln an average year.
lrttle sur·prus can be sold on markets.

- Figure 11.9
~'orld Regions of Primarily Subsistence Agriculture. Definitions of subsistence farming
vary. On this map, India and China are not shaded because farmers sell some produce at markets;
in Equatorial Africa and South America, subsistence farmi ng allows little excess, and thus little
produce is sold at markers. ©E. H. Foubcrg, A. B. Murphy, H. j. de Blij, 3ndjohn \Viley & Sons, Inc.

change their livelihoods. In many cases, the state places Basin, the sedentary farmers of Africa's savanna areas, vil-
pressures on hunter-gatherers to settle in one place and lagers in much of India, an d peasants in Indonesia, subsis-
farm. Cyclical mig ration by lumter-gatherers does not tence is not only a way of life but a state of m ind.
mesh well with bounded, territorial states. Some nongov- Experience has taught farm ers and their families that sub-
ernmental organi za tions encourage settlement by digging sistence farming is often precarious and tl1at times of
wells or building medical buildings, permanent houses, o r comparative plenty will be followed by times of scarcity.
schools for hunter-gatl1erers. Even humer-gatl1erers who Subsistence farming has been in retreat for centu-
continue to use their knowledge of seeds, roots, fruits, ries. From 1500 to 1950, European powers sought to
berries, insects, and animals to gather and trap tl1e goods "modernize" the economies of tl1eir colonies by ending
they need for survival do so in tl1e context of tl1e world- subsistence far ming an d integra ting farmers into colonial
economy. systems of production and exchange. Som etimes their
Unlike hunting and gathering, subsistence farming metlwds were harsh: by demanding that farmers pay some
continues to be a relatively co mmon practice in Mrica, taxes, they forced subsistence farmers to begin selli ng
M iddle America, tropical South America, and parts of some o f their produce to raise the necessary cash . They
Soutl1east Asia (Fig. 11.9). The system of cultivation has also compelled many subsistence farmers to devote some
changed little over thousa nds of yea rs. The term subsis- land to a crop to be sold o n the world market such as cot-
tence can be used in the strictest sense of tl1e word-that is, to n, thus bringing them into the commercial economy.
to r efer to farmers who grow food only to sustain them- The colonial powers encouraged commercial farming by
selves and their families, and find building materials and conducting soil sunreys, building irrigatio n systems, and
firewood in tl1e natural environment, and who do not establishing lendi ng agencies that provided loans to farm-
enter into the cash economy at all. This definition fits ers. The colonial powers soug ht to make profits, yet it was
farmers in remote areas of Soutl1 and .M iddle America, difficult to squeeze very much from subsistence-fa rmin g
Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Yet many farm fam- areas. Forced cropping schemes were desig ned to solve
ilies living at tl1e subsistence level sometimes sell a small this problem. If farmers in a subsistence area cultivated a
quanti ty of produce (perhaps to pay taxes). T hey are no t certa in acreage of, say, co rn, they were r equired to grow a
subsistence farmers in the strict sense, but th e term subsis- specified acreage of a cash crop as well. vVh etl1er this crop
tmce is surely appl icable to societies where farmers with ·would be grown on old land that was formerly used for
small plots periodically sell a few pounds of grain on tl1e grain or on newly cleared land was the farmers' decision.
market but where poverty, indebtedness, and tenancy are If no new lands were available, the fa rmers would have to
ways of life. For tl1e indigenous peoples of tl1e Amazon give up food crops for the compulsory cash crops. L1 many
 What Imprint Doe1AgricultureMake on theCulturalLandmpe? 381
areas, severe famines resulted and local econom ies were systems circle around a pivot, p rovid ing irrigation to a
disru pted. circle of crops. T he checkerboard pattern on the land-
Subsistence land use contin ues to give way to more scape reflects the pattern of land su rvey system and land
intensive fanning and cash cropping-eve n to mecha- ownership in much of the coun try.
n ized farming in whi ch equipment does much of the The pattern of land ownershi p seen in the landscape
actual work. In the process, societies from Sout h America reflects the cadastral system- the method of land su rvey
to Southeast Asia are being p rofound ly affected. Land th rough wh ich land ownership and property li nes are
that was o nce held communally is being parceled o ut to d efined. Cadastral systems were adopted in places where
individuals for cash cropping. In the process, small land- settlement could be regulated by la w, and land surveys
owners are often squeezed out, leaving the land in the were crucial to th eir implementation . T he prevailing sur-
hands of wealthier farmers and the own ers of commercial- vey system throug hout much of the U nited States, the one
ized farming operations. that appea rs as checkerboa rds across agricultural fields, is
For too lo ng, the questio n has been how "to tempt the rectangular survey system. T he U .S. govern ment
[subsistence farme rs] into wan ti ng cash by the ava ilability adopted the rectangu lar survey system after the American
of suitable consumer goods," as A. N. Duckham and G. B. Revolution as par t of a cadastral system known as the
Masefield wrote i11 Fanning SysU"'IIS of tbe Wodd in 1970. township-and-range system. D esigned to facili tate the
In the interests of "progress" and " modernization," sub- movement of n on-Indians evenly across fa rml ands o f
sistence farmers were pushed away from their traditional the Un ited States interio r, the system imposed a rigid grid
modes of livelihood even thoug h many aspects o f subsis- like pattern on the land (Fig. 11.10). T he basic unit was
tence farming may be worth preserving. Regions with the 1 square mi le section-and land was bought and sold in
shifting cultivation do not have neat rows of plants, care- who le, half, o r quarter sections. T he section's lines were
fully turned soil, o r precisely laid-out fi elds. Yet shifting drawn without reference to the terrain , and they thus
cultivation conse rves both forest and soil; its harvests are imposed a remarkable unifo rmity across the land. U nder
often substantial g iven enviro nmental limi tations; and it th e Homestead Act, a homesteader received one section
requi res better o rganization than one mig ht assume. It of land (160 acres) after livi ng on the land for fi ve yea rs
also requires substantially less energy than mo re modern and making improvemen ts to it. T he pattern of farms on
techniques of fa rming. It is no surprise, then, that shifting the landscape in the in terior of the U nited States reflects
cultivation and specifically slash-and- burn agricultun:: the township-and- range system, w ith fa rms spaced by sec-
have been a sustained method of far ming for t ho usands tions, half sections, or quarter sections.
of years. T he imprim o f the rectangular survey system is evi-
dent in Canada as well , where t he government adopted a
similar cadastral system as it sought to allocate land in the
Prairie Provinces. In portions of th e U nited States and
Canada d ifferent cadastral patterns p redominate, how-
ever (Fig. 11. 11 ). T hese patterns refl ect particular notions
of how land should be divided and used. Among the most
Many arguments have been raised about the impacts of significan t are the metes and bounds s urvey app roach
the Green Revolution, both pro and con. How might the adopted along the eastern sea board, in which natural fea-
scale at wh ich the Green Revolution is examined affect tures were used to demarcate irregular parcels of land.
the arguments that are made about it? What ty pes of fac- One of the most distinct regional approaches to land d ivi-
tors are likely to be considered if the question is, "has the sio n can be found in the Canadian Maritimes and in parts
Green Revolution been good for Asia" as opposed to "has of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas where a long-lot survey
the Green Revolution been good for a village or a part icular system was implemented. T his system di vided land into
agricultural community in India?" narrow parcels stretching back from r ivers, roads, or
canals. It reflects a particular approach to smveying that
was common in French America.
Ma ny parts of the world d o not have cadastral sys-
WHAT IMPRINT DOES AGRICULTURE MAKE tems, so field patte rns are irregular. But whether regular
or irregular, societi es with property ownership have par-
ON THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE? cels of land divided in to neat, clearly demarcated seg-
F lying fro m the West Coast o f th e U nited States to ments. T he size and o rder of those parcels are heavily
the East Coast, if you have a window seat you will see the influenced not just by land partiti on schemes, but also by
major imprint agri cultu re makes on the America n cultural ru les about property inheritance. In systems where one
landscape. T he g reen circles standing out in the grain child inherits all of the land-such as the o·aditional
belts of the country are places where center- pivot irrigation Germani c practice o f primogeniture in which all land
382 (hapter 11 Agriculture

I, .:
' ' ' '• '• ' • ' • <". ,, . ' ' > • ·•• - ' I''> • ~' • • ·, ' •'

- Figure 11.10
Willamette Valley, Oregon. The township-and-
range system has left its imprint on the landscape
near Eugene, Oregon, where the grid pattern of six
mile by six mile townships and the sections of one
square mile each are marked by property lines and
roads. © Alexander B. ,\ lurphy.

120'1'1 IIO'W

~ ---- --T(---------r-----t _....r.___ _

l i \ ' . "'-_--.
·---,~ 1 . . ' '-
'\ --
··-f ----
}-------). ~-· tl

~ -,L _r:-i [__ -(---~\- -r'·

/ I
: , ·-:----_L_
I
_L _____ ~
. --- \I .
\ . .
' J- ' 'I \
. .
~

\ -. -- iL,-#----d,- -- --1----
~ :I i""'l :
---{...._ J ~
·"-.--l_r-- _____ ,

D Federal rectangular grid

• Irregular d'rvision in large estates 0 200 400 600 800 1000 KDnole<1

D Irregular rectangular division

D Rectangular grid of states
and land companies
0 200 400 600 Moles

Land settled and subdivided

D by townships

- Figure 11.11
Dominant Land Survey Patterns in the United States. Dntn from: Price, Edward. Dividing rbt Land:
Early A111trimn Brginningr ofOur Privlllr Propn1y Alornk. C hicago: Uni versity of C hic:tgo Press, 1995, p. 8 and several other
sources.
 What Imprint Does AgricultureMake on theCultural Landscapel 383
passes to the eldest son- parcels tend t o b e la rger and towns is a m ix of far m ers and people who commute to
farmers work a sing le p lot of land. T his is the norm in wo rk in urban a reas.
Northern E urop e and in the principal areas of Northe rn T rad itionally, the people who lived in villages either
European colonizatio n-the Americas, South Africa, farmed the surro und ing land or provided services to those
Australia, and New Zealand. who did the fa rming . T hus, they we re closely con nected
In areas where land is d ivided among heirs, however, to the la nd, and m ost o f the ir livelihoods depended,
conside rable frag me ntation can occur over time. T he lat- directly or indirectl y, o n the cultivation o f nearby farm -
te r is the no rm throughout much o f Asia, Africa, a nd la nd. As such , tl1ey tended to refl ect h istorical and envi-
Southern Europe, as well as most of the allott ed Indian ron m e ntal conditions. Houses in J a panese fa nni ng
reservations in t he U nited States, m ea ning that fa rmers villages, for exam ple, are so tightly packed together tl1at
living in villages in th ese areas tend a variety of sca ttered only t he narrowest passageways remain between them.
small p lots of land. In some places, land reform in iti atives T his village fo rm reflects tl1e need to allocate every possi-
have consolidated landholdings to som e degree, but frag- ble squa re foot of land to fa rm ing; villages must not use
m entation is still common in m any parts of the world. land where crops could grow.
U nlike J apan, in the United States M idwest ind ivid -
ual farmhouses lie qu ite far apart in what we call a dispersed
Villages settlement pattern; tl1e land is intensively cultivated but by
Throughout this book we ta ke note of va rious core- machin e rather than by hand. In tl1e populous Indonesian
periphery contrasts o ur wo rld presents. Such contrasts island of J ava, villages a re located every half mile or so
are promine nt in rural as well as urban areas. T rad itio nal alo ng a rural road, a nd settleme nt there is defin ed as
farm-village life is still commo n in I ndia , Subsa haran nucl eat ed. Land use is just as inte nse, but the work is done
Afri ca, China, and South east Asia. In India, fa rmin g, by people and an imals. Hence, when we con sider tl1e den-
much of it su bsistence farming, sti ll occupi es over 60 sity o f human settlemen t as it relates to tl1e inte nsity of
percen t of the populatio n. As we h ave seen , however, in land use, we sh ould keep in mind tl1e way the land is cu lti -
the world's core a reas agricu lture has taken on a very dif- vated. Nucleated settlemeut is by fa r the most prevale nt
fere nt form , and t rue farm villages, in which farm ing o r rural residential patte rn in agricultural areas (Fig. 11 .12).
providing services for farme rs are the dominant activi- \Vhen ho uses are grouped togethe r in ti ny clusters o r
ties, are disappea ring. In th e U ni ted States, whe re farm- hamlets, or in slig htly larger clusters we call villages, th ei r
ing o nce was t he lea ding economic activity, o nl y so m e spatial arrangem e nt also has significance.
2 percent of th e labor force re mains e ngaged in ag ric ul- In the hilly regions of Europe, villages freque ntly a re
ture, and the population of m ost rural villages a nd cl ustered o n hills, leavi n g the level land for farming . Ofre n

- Figure 11.12
Acquitaine, France. T he agricultura l landscape
of Aquita ine demonstrates th ree featu res of rural
France: people livi ng in nucleated villages, a highly
fragmented land ownership pattern, and land divided
according to the F rench long-lot system. © Alexander
B. Murphy.
384 (hapter II Agriculture

ROUND VILLAGE

D
VILLAGE FORMS

• Dwelling, Barn

""- Road

Field Boundary

- Figure 11.13
Village Forms. Five different repre-
D Garden

sentative village layouts are shown here. D Fa rmland

Adapred with permission from: J. E. Spencer and
W. H. Thomas, lntrodnring Culmrnl Gtogrnp!~)'· New
tM cdolie d from Spencer & Thomas. 1978)
York: j ohn vVilcy & Sons, Inc., 1978, p. 154.

an old castle sits atop tl1e hill, so in earlier times the site (Fig. 11.13D) sti ll exist in rmal areas of many countries-
offered protection as well as land conservation. In many reminders of a tu rbulent past.
low-lying areas of western Europe, vi llages are located o n More modern villages, notably planned ru ral settle-
dikes and levees, so mat they often take o n linear charac- ments, may be arranged on a grid pattern (Fig. ll. l3E).
teristics (Fig. ll. l3A). Villages o riented alo ng roads also G rid patterns are not, however, a t\ve ntietl1-century
have this characteristic. W here mere is space, a ho use and invention. Centuries ago me Spanish invaders of iVI.iddle
outbuildings may be smrounded by a small garden; tl1e America laid outg7'id villnges and towns, as did other colo-
farms and pasturelands lie just beyond. In o tl1er cases, nial powers elsewhere in tile world. In urban Africa, such
a village may take o n me characteristics of a cluster imprints of colonization are pervasive.
(Fig. 11.13B). It may have begun as a small ham let at me Although tile t:wentietll century has witnessed unprec-
intersection of two roads and then developed by accre- edented urban growili throughout the world, half of the
tion. The Europea n version of the East African circular world's people still reside in villages and rural areas. As total
village, witll its central cattle corral, is tl1e round village o r world population increases, total population in rural areas
mndling (Fig. 11.1 3C). This layout was first used by Slavic is increasing in many parts of the world (even iliough me
farmer-herdsmen in eastern E urope and was late r modi- proportion of me total population in rural areas may be
fied by Ge rmanic settlers. stagnant or declining). In Cruna alone, approximately 50
In many parts of tl1e world, far m villages were forti- percent of me more man 1.3 billion people live in rural
fied to protect tl1eir inhabitants aga inst marauders. Ten areas. In Inrua, with a population over 1 biiUon, about 70
thousand yea rs ago, m e first farme rs in tl1e Ferti le percent of tile people Uve in places the government defines
Crescent faced attacks from tl1e horsemen of Asia's steppes as nonmban. Small rural settlements are home to most of
and clustered togetl1er to ward off tl1is danger. In N igeria's me inhabitants of Indo nesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan , and
Yorubaland, m e farmers would go out into tl1e surround- oilier countries of the global economic periphery, includ-
ing fields by day but reo·eat to m e protection of walled ing those in Africa. The agrarian vi llage remains one of me
villages at night. Villages, as well as larger towns and cities most common forms of settlement on Ea rili.
in Europe, we re frequen tly walled and surrounded by In some places, rural villages have chan ged as the
moats. When m e populatio n became so large mat people global economy has changed. For example, Mexico has
had to build houses o utside tl1e original wall, a new wall experienced rapid economic change since passage of tl1e
would be buj Jt to protect tl1em as well. Wnlled villnges Norm American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) in 1992. Along
 What Imprint Does Agrimlture Make on the CulturalLandscapel 385
with major shifts in industrial production (see C hapter 12), tion of buildings. T he range in size and quality of houses,
major changes in agricultural production and village life representing their owners' weal th and standing in the com-
have occurred in Mexico. Before the passage of NAFTA, munity, reflects social strati fication. Material well-being is
the Mexican government protected corn production the chief determinant of stratification in Western commer-
because white corn in a staple crop used to make tortillas, cial agricul tural regions, where it translates into more elab-
the main bread source, in Mexico. Through protection, orate homes. In Africa, as in most other places, a higher
Mexico's corn prices were higher than in the United States. social position in the community is associated with a more
With the passage of N AFTA, Mexico entered a 15-year impressive house. T he house of the chief or headman may
transition away from protecting its corn production. not only be more elaborate than others but may also be in a
Economists believed the price of corn in Mexico would fall more prominent location. In India, caste sti ll strongly in flu-
and in turn Mexicans would produce less corn. ences daily life, including village housing; the manors of
What happened instead is that corn prices in Mexico landlords, often compr ising large walled compow1ds, stand
fluctuated over time, tortilla prices rose, and then produc- in striking contrast to the modest houses of domestic ser-
tion of corn in Mexico increased. Tortilla prices rose in vants, farm workers, ca rpenters, and craftspeople. The
response to higher prices for corn in the Uni ted States as a poorest people of the lowest castes live in small one-room,
result of corn being used for fuel. M exican farmers wattle-and-thatch dwellings. In Cambodia, the buildings in
increased corn production both because o f a higher stilt villages bui lt tl1roughout the Mekong Basin look simi-
demand for corn in the United States and Mexico and also lar (Fig. 11.14). The building along tl1e pond i11 the left
because indigenous farmers in the south switched to sub- foreground of Figure 11.14 has a different function-it is
sistence farming of corn to provide for their families and an outl1ouse. Its location on tl1e pond accounts fo r a major
to remove themselves fro m the fluctuating global agricul- part of the pollution problem in tl1is village: waste from the
ture market and the uncer tainties ofNAFTA. outlwuses drains directly into the pond, which has become
mosquito-infested and severely polluted.
T he functional differentiation (li ke tl1e functional
Functional Differentiation within Villages zonation of cities whereby different areas of the village play
Villages everywhere display certain conunon qualities, different roles and function differently) of buildings witlun
including evidence of social stratification and differentia- fa rm villages is more elabora te in some societies than in

- Figure 11.14
Siem R eap, Cambodia. A stilt vi llage in the Mekong
Basin of Cambodia. © Barbaro A. \-\'cightman.
386 Chapter 11 Agriculture

- Figure 11.15
W inthrop, Minnesota. T he modern Am erican
farm typically has a two-story farm house surrounded
by several outbuildi ngs. © Erin H. Fouberg.

others. Protection of livestock and storage of harvested

crops are primary functions of farm villages, and in many
HOW IS AGRICULTURE CURRENTLY
villages where subsis tence farming is the prevailing way of ORGANIZED GEOGRAPHICALLY, AND
life, the storage place for grains and other food is con-
structed with as much care as the best-built house. Moisture
HOW HAS AGRIBUSINESS INFLUENCED
and vermin must be kept away from stored food; containers THE CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHY
of grain often stand on stilts under a carefully thatched roof
or behind walls made of carefully maintained sun-dried
OF AGRICULTURE?
mud. In India's villages, the paddy-bin made of mud (in U nderstanding global agricultural patterns requi res
which rice is stored) often stands inside the house. Similarly, looking at more than market location, land use, and tra ns-
livestock pens are often attached to houses, or, as in Africa, portation costs-the factors analyzed by von T hiinen. We
dwellings are built in a circle surrounding the corral. must also consider the effects of differe nt climate and soil
T he functional differentiation ofbui ldings is greatest conditions, variations in farming methods and technol-
in W estern cultures, where a single farmstead may contain ogy, the role of governments and social norms, and the
as many buildings as an enti re hamlet elsewhere in th e lasting impacts of history. D ecisions made by colonial
world. A prosperous North Am erican fa rm is likely to powers in E urope led to the establishment of plantations
include a two-story farmhouse, a stable, a barn, and va rious from Middle America to Malaysia. The plantations grew
outbuildings, including a garage for motorized equipment, crops not for local markets but fo r consum ers in E urope;
a workshop, a shed for tools, and a silo for grain storage sim ilarly, U.S. com panies founded huge plantations in the
(Fig. 11 .15). The space these structures occupy can exceed Americas. O ver the past few centuries, the im pact of this
that used by entire villages in J apan , C hina, and other plantation system transformed the map of world agricul-
agrarian regions where space is at a greater premium. ture. T he end of colonial ru le did not signal the end o f the
agricultural practices and systems that had been im posed
on the fonner colonial areas. Even food-poor coun tries
must continue to grow commercial crops for export on
some of their best soils where their own food could instead
be harvested. Long- entrenched agricultural systems and
patterns are not quickly or easily tran sformed.
Think of an agricultural region where you have visited or Commercial far ming has come to dom ina te in the
lived. Descri be the impri nt of agricult ure on the landscape world's economic core, as well as some of the places in
a nd consider what the cultural landscape t e lls you about the semi-periphery and periphery. C ommercial fanning is
how agricult ure is pro duced in this re gio n o r how produc- the agriculture of large-scale grain produce rs and cattle
t ion has c hanged ove r t ime. ranches, mechanized equipment and factory-type labor
 How Is Agriculture CurrentlyOrganized Geographically, and How Has Agribusiness Influenced the Contemporary Geography of Agriculture? 387

rield Note
"The technology of refrigeration has kept
pace with the containeri;zation of seaborne
freight traffic. When we sailed into the port
of Dunedin, New Zealand, I was unsure of just
what those red boxes were. Closer inspection
revealed that they are refrigeration units, to
which incoming containers are attached.
Meats and other perishables can thus be kept
frozen until they are transferred to a refrig-
erator ship."

- Figure 11.16
Dunedin, New Zealand. © H.J. de Blij.

forces, of plantations and profit. It is a world apart from

the traditional farms of Asia and Africa.
The World Map of Climates
T he spatia l expansion of modern conunercial agri- Before we can study the distribution of agriculture in the
culture began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries world today, we need to examine Figure 11 . 17, the distri-
when Europe became a market for agricultural products bution of cli mate zones. All of the elements of weather,
from arow1d the world: Moreover, E uropean countries absorption of the sun's energy, rotation of the Earth, cir-
manufactured and sold in their colonies the finished prod- culation of the oceans, movement of weather systems, and
ucts made from imported raw mate rials. Thus, cotton the jet stream, produce a pattern of climates represented
grown in Egypt, Sudan, India, and other countries colo- in the map-and those cl imate patterns have a profound
nized by Europe was bought cheaply, imported to impact on what can be grown where. We owe this remark-
European factories, and made into clothes-many of able map to \ iVIadimir Koppen (1846-1940), who devised
which were then exported and sold, often in the very colo- a scheme called the Koppen climate classification
nies where the cotton had been grown in the first place. system for classifyi ng the world's climates on the basis of
Major changes in transportation and food storage, temperature and precipitation.
especially refrigeration, further intertwined agricultural Koppen's map provides one mea ns of understanding
production and food processing regions around the world the distribution of climatic regions (areas with similar
during the twentieth cenmry (Fig. 11.16). T he beef indus- climatic characteristics) across the planet. The legend
try of Argenti na, for example, secured a world market looks complicated, but it really is not; here is one of those
when the invention of refrige rated ships made it possible maps worth spending some time on. For present pur-
to transport a highly perishable commodi ty over long dis- poses, it is enough to get a sense of the distribution of the
tances. European colonial powers required farmers in their major types of climate. The letter categories in the legend
colonies to cultivate specific crops. One major impact of give a clear indication of the conditions they represent.
colonial agriculture was the establishment of monocul- The (A) climates are hot or vety warm and generally
ture (dependence on a single agriculmral commodity) humid. The "no dry season" (Af) regions are equnto1·inl
throughout much of the colonia l world. Colonies became miufm·est regions. T he "short dry season" (Am) climate is
known for certain crops, and colonizers came to rely on known as the monsoon climate. And if you can envisage an
those crops. Ghanaians still raise cacao; Mo<;ambiquans African savanna, you know what th e (Aw, snvmmn) desig-
still grow cotton; and Sri Lankans sti ll produce tea. The nation means.
production of cash crops in poorer cotmtries is still per- Once you realize that the yellow and light brown
petuated by loan and aid requirements from lending coun- colors on the map represent dry climates (BW, dese1·t and
tries, the World Trade Organization, the International BS, steppe), it becomes clear how much o f the world has
Monetary Fund, and the World Bank (see C hapter 10). limited water availability. Nonetheless, some very large
388 (hapter11 Agriculture

WORLD CLIMATES
After Kiippen-Geiger

A HUMID EQUATORIAL CLIMATE

No dry season

Short dry season

l Aw I Dry winter
40
B DRY CLIMATE
ATLANTIC
[ill Somi•rid } h=hot OCEAN
k=cold
IBW I Arid Troc>oe of Cancer

c HUMID TEMPERATE CLIMATE

No dry season

Dry winter a=hot PACIFIC

summer
ECJ~>tcr
lliJ Dry summer b=cool
summer OCE t\.\
c=short, cool
D HUMID COLD CLIMATE
summer
No dry season d=very cold
winter
Dry winter

E COLD POLAR CLIMATE

• Tundra and ice

H HIGHLAND CLIMATE

[ [ ] Unclassified highlands

0 1000 2000 3000 Kllometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

- Figure 11.17
World C limates. T he Koppen map of world climates, as modified by R. Geiger. These are
macroclimatic regions; microclimates are set within these but ca nnot be shown at this scale.

population clusters have developed in these water- southeastern Australia, and a large part of southeastern
deficient regio ns, especially at lower (and warmer) lati- Soutl1 America.
tudes. T he world faces a long-term water crisis, and the T he "dry summer" (C) climates are known as
Koppen map helps show why. Mediterm nenn climates (tl1e small s in Cs means that sum-
T he (C) climates also have familiar names. T he (Cf) mers are dry). T his mi ld climate occurs no t only ar o und
climate, represented by dark green, prevails over the tl1e Mediterranean Sea, and tlms in the famo us wine coun-
south eastern U nited States. If you know the local climate tries of F rance, Italy, and Spain, but also in C alifo rnia,
in Atlanta o r Nashville o r J acksonville, you u11derstand C hile, Soutl1 Africa's Cape, and southern parts of
why this climate is often called "humid temperate." I t is Australia. So you know what kind of climate to exp ect in
moist, and it does not get as cold as it does in Canada or as Ro me, San F rancisco, Santiago, Cape Town , an d Adelaide.
warm (continuously, anyway) as in tl1e Amazon Basin. If Farther toward the poles, the planet gets rather cold.
you have experi enced this kind of climate, the map gives Note tl1a t tl1e (D) climates dominate in the U nited States'
you a good idea of what it's like in much of eastern C hina, upper Midwest and Canada, but it gets even colder in
 How Is Agri(u[ture Currently OrganizedGeographi(a[[y,and How Has Agribusiness lnfluen(ed the ContemporaryGeography of Agri(ulture? 389

OCEAN
TroPtt of Clnctr

INDIA I\
OCEAN
A TL AN T/ C
Am
OCEAN

Trop< ol Caoucorn

Siberia. T he "milder" (Da) climates (here the key is the climates means temperatures are cold throughout the
small a, which denotes a warm sum mer) are fou nd on ly in yea r. As a result, plant life does not break down and no ur-
limited par ts of E urasia. ~Ti n ters are very cold in nil the ish the soil during th e yea r, and also a layer of permafrost
(D) climates and downrig ht frigid (a nd long) in the (Dfb) (frozen ground) exists year ro und.
and (Dfc) regions. (D ) climates are generally continental,
o n the interior of continents, instead of o n coasts.
Continental locations make (D) climates generally drier
than (C) climates. T he continentali ty of (D) climates also
The World Map of Agriculture
contributes to the large range of temperatures fou nd When comparing the world map of agriculture (Fig. 11.18)
across the yea r because land heats and cools much faster with the distribution of climate types across the world
than wa ter. (Fig. 11.1 7), we ca n see the correlation between climate
Polar climates, where rundra and ice prevail, are and agri culture. For example, drier lands rely on livestock
found poleward of (D) climates. T he polar location of (E) ranching, whereas moister climates are marked with grain
390 Chapter ll Agticulture

40

WORLD AGRICULTURE Tropoc of Cancer

?I
1 Dairying

[ } ] Fruit, Truck and Specialized Crops

3
Mixed Livestock and Crop PAC I F I C
Farming
[iJ Commercial Grain Farming Equator ....
[ } ] Subsistence Crop and Livestock
Farmmg O C EAN
• Mediterranean Agriculture
r7l Diversified Tropical Agriculture
L.!....J -chiefly plantation 20
1'01 Intensive Subsistence Farming Trop•c of Capucorn
~ -chiefly rice
Intensive Subsistence Farming
• -chiefly wheat and other crops
[IQ] Rudimentry Sedentary Cultivation

[ill Shifting Cultivation

Livestock Ranching
Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic
Herding
160' 140 120 80 60 40'
D Nonagricultural Areas
60 60

-..,.._·
A
- ~~
0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

- Figure 11.18
\Vorld Agriculture. D ifferent kinds of agricultural areas are shown throughout the world.
Adoptrd with prrmission from: Hommond, Inc., 1977.

production. Understanding the major agri cultural zones exports (sugar having been ino·oduced by the European col-
shown in Figure 11.18 requires looking at both environ- onists in the 1600s). T hese island countries wish to sell the
mental and social variables. suga r at the highest possible price, but they are not in a posi-
tion to dictate prices. Sugar is produced by many countries
in various parts of the world, as well as by farmers in the
Cash Crops and Plantation Agriculture global economic core (Fig. 11. J8). Governments in the core
Colonialism profoundly shaped nonsubsistence farmiJ1g in place quotas on im ports of agricultural products and subsi-
many poorer com10·ies. Colonial powers implemented agri- dize domestic production of the same commodities.
culture systems to benefit their needs, a practice that has Occasionally, producing countries consider forming
tended to lock poorer couno·ies into production of one or a cartel in o rder to present a united fro nt to the importi ng
two "cash" crops. Cash farmiJ1g continues to provide badly countri es and to gain a better price, as oil-producing
needed money, even if the conditions of sale to the urban- states did during th e 1970s. Such collective action is dif-
industrial world are unfavorable. In the Caribbean region, ficul t, as the wealthy importing countries can buy prod-
for example, whole national economies depend on sugar ucts from countries that are not members of the cartel.
 How Is Agriculture Currently Organized Geographically, and How Has Agribusiness Influencedthe Contemporary Geography of Agriculture? 391

4
0" OCEAN
40

PAC I F I C
Trop1c of Cancer
20

. OCEAN

TrOPIC of Capncorn

OCEAN

40 40•
~I

...

60
o· 20 40• 60 100 120• 140 160•
SOUTHERN OCEAN
Anlarcbc Circle ~J >- ' ~-~
~-'""' -'

Also, the withholding of produce by exporting countries agriculture (7 in the legend) continues in Middle and
may stimulate domestic production among importers. South America, Africa, and South Asia. Laid out to pro-
For example, altho ugh cane sugar accou nts for more than duce bananas, sugar, coffee, and cocoa in Middle and
70 percent of the commercial wo rld sugar crop each yea r, South America, rubber, cocoa, an d tea in West and East
farmers in the U nited States, E urope, and Russia produce Africa, tea in South Asia, and rubber in Southeast Asia,
sugar from suga r beets. In Europe and Russia, these beers these plantations have outlasted tl1e period of decoloni-
already yield 25 percent of the annual world suga r har- zation and continue to provide specialized crops to
vest. CoUective action by countries producing sugarcane wealthier markets. Many of the most productive planta-
could easily cause that percentage to increase. tions are owned by E uropean or Am er ican individuals or
vVhen cash crops are grown on large esta tes, we use corporations.
the term plantation agriculture to describe th e produc- M ultinational corporations have tenaciously pro-
tion system. P lantations are colonial legacies that persist tected t11eir economic interests in plan tations. In the 1940s
in poorer, primarily tropical, countries along with su b- and 1950s, the Guatemalan government began an agrarian
sistence far ming. Figure 11. 18 shows that plantation reform program. The plan entailed renting unused land
392 (hapter 11 Agri(u[ture

from foreign corporations to land less citizens at a low domesticated animals for tl1e production of meat and by-
appraised value. The United Fruit Company, an American products, such as leatl1er and wool. In addition to the large
firm with extensive holdings in the country, was greatly cattle-ranching areas in the United States, Canada, and
concerned by this turn of events. The company had close Mexico, much of eastern Brazil and Argentina are devoted
ties to powerful individuals in the American government, to ranching, along with large tracts of Australia and New
including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, CIA Zealand, as well as South Africa. You may see a Thiinian
director Allen Dulles (the two were brotl1ers), and Assistant pattern here: Livestock ranching on the periphery and con-
Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs John Moors sumers in tl1e cities. Refrigeration has overcome the prob-
Cabot. In 1954, the United States supported the over- lem of perishability, and high volume has lowered the unit
throw of the government of Guatemala because of stated cost of transporting beef, lamb, and other animal products.
concerns about the spread of communism. This ended all
land reform initiatives, however, leading many commenta-
tors to question the degree to which the United Fruit Subsistence Agriculture
Company was behind the coup. Indeed, witl1 the exception The map of world agriculture labels wee types of subsis-
ofPresident Dwight Eisenhower, every individual involved tence agriculture: subsistence crop and livestock farming;
in the decision to help topple Guatemala's government had intensively subsistence farming (chiefly rice); and inten-
ties to the company. This example illustrates the inextrica- sively subsistence farming (chiefly wheat and other crops).
ble links between economics and political motivations- In some regions that are labeled as subsistence, that label
and it raises questions about tl1e degree to which multina- does not tell the whole story. For example, in Southeast
tional corporations based in wealthy countries influence Asia, rice is grown o n small plots and is labor-intensive, so
decisions about politics, agriculture, and land reform in that subsistence and exp ort production occur side by side.
other par ts of the world. Despite tl1e region's significant rice exports, most
Southeast Asian farmers are subsistence farmers. Thus,
Soutl1east Asia appears on the map as primarily a subsis-
Commercial Livestock, Fruit, tence grain-growing area.
and Grain Agriculture
As F igure 11.18 shows, by far tl1e la rgest areas of commer-
cial agriculture (1 through 4 in tl1 e legend) lie outside the Mediterranean Agriculture
tropics. Dairying (1) is widespread at the northern mar- Only one form of agriculture mentioned in the legend
gins of the midlatitudes-particularly in the northeastern of Figure 11. 18 refers to a particular climatic zone:
U nited States and in northwestern E uro pe. Fruit, truck, Mediterranean agriculture (6). As tl1e map shows, this
and specialized crops (2), including the market gardens kind of specialized farming occurs only in ar eas where the
von Thiinen observed around Rostock, are found in the dry summer Mediterranean climate prevails (Fig. 11.1 7):
eastern and southeastern U nited States and in widely dis- along tl1e sho res of the Mediterranean Sea, in parts of
persed small areas where enviromnents are favorable. In California and Oregon, in central Chi le, at South Africa's
Central Asia and the Sahara, major oases stand out as Cape, and in parts of southwestern and southern Australia.
commercial agriculture on the map. Farmers here grow a special combination of crops: grapes,
Mixed livestock and crop farming (3) is widespread in olives, citrus fruits, figs, certain vegetables, dates, and o th-
the more humid parts of the midlatitudes, including much of ers. From tl1 ese areas com e many wines; these and other
the eastern United States, western Europe, and western commodities are exported to distant markets because
Russia, but it is also found in sma ller areas in U ruguay, Brazil, Mediterranean products tend to be popular and command
and South Africa. Commercial grain fanning (4) prevails in high prices.
the drier parts of the midlatitudes, including the southern
Prairie Provinces of Canada, in the Dakotas and Montana in
the United States, as well as in Nebraska, Kansas, and adja- Drug Agriculture
cent areas. Spring wheat (plamed in the spring and harvested T here are important agricu ltura l activities that cannot
in the SUI11ffier) grows in tl1e no rthern zone, and winter easi ly be mapped at the global scale and therefore do not
wheat (planted in the autumn and harvested in the spring of appea r in Figme ll.L 8. One of th ose is tl1e cultivation of
the following year) is used in the southern area. An even crops tl1at are turned into illegal drugs. Because of the
larger belt of wheat farming extends from Ukraine tlu-ough hi gh demand fo r drugs-particularly in tl1e global eco-
Russia into Kazakhstan. The Argentinean and Australian nomic core-farmers in the periphety often find it more
wheat zones are smaller in area, but their exports are an profitable to cultiva te poppy, coca, or marijuana plants
important component of world trade. than to grow standard food crops. Cultivation of these
Even a cursory glance at Figure 11.18 reveals tl1e wide plants has increased steadily over tl1e past several decades,
distribution of livestock ranching (12), the raising of and tl1ey now constitute an impo rtant source of revenue
 How I! Agriculture Currently Organized Geographically,and How Ha.s Agribusinm lnfluemed the Contemporary Geography of Agriculture? 393
for parts of the global economic periphery. Coca, the Colombia. W ith this crackdown, much of the drug pro-
source plant of cocaine, is grown widely in Colombia, duction and n·afficlcing moved north to northern Mexico.
Peru, and Bolivia. Over half of the world's cul tivation of In June 2005, the Ecouomist quoted one American official
coca occurs in Colombia alone. as reporting that "Mexican criminal gangs 'exer t more
Heroin and opium are derived from opium poppy influence over drug n·afficlcing in the U.S . than any other
plants, grown predominantly in Southeast and Soutl1 Asia, group. ' Mexicans now control 11 of the 13 largest drug
especially in Afghanistan and Myanmar. In the 2008 markets in the United States." Marijuana and opiun1 pro-
World Drug Report, the U nited Na tions reported that 92 duction in Mexico is on the rise, and the U nited States
percent of the world's opium production took place in Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is concerned about the
Afghanistan. The U nited States- led overthrow of the high potency of marijuana coming out of Mexico and
Taliban in Afghanistan in 200 1 created a power vacuum in Canada. Although more than 90 percent of the world's
the country and an opportunity for illega l drug produc- opium production is in Afghanistan, most heroin (which is
tion to quickly rebow1d (the austere Taliban government derived fro m opium) coming into the United States comes
had virtually eradicated opium production in Afghanistan from Mexico or Colombia. T he heroin consumed in the
by 2001). Most opium production in Afghanistan today western U nited States comes from opiun1 grown in
occurs in five unstable southern provinces. Mexico, whereas the heroin consum ed in eastern United
United States government policies have affected States comes from opium grown in Colombia.
production of illegal drugs in Latin Am erica. During the Drug cartels tl1at oversee the drug trade have
1980s and 1990s, the U .S. government worked with local brought crime and violence to the places where they
authorities to crack down on coca production 111 hold sway (Fig. 11.19). There are areas in Rio de Janeiro

I
lOS• 100' 95'

MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL

REGIONS OF INFLUENCE
- - Federation Zones
The "federation· is a term widely used to descibe
alliances formed between several major organizations.

25•
Gulf of Mexico 25"

1 Queretaro
2 Hidalgo
3 Mexico
4 Morelos
5 Tlaxcala
6 Aguascalientes
7 Guanajuato
8 Mexico City
(Distrito Federal)
9 Colima

115' 110° l ong•tude West of Greenwich 105° 100' 95•

- Figure 11.19
Mexican Drug Cartel R egions of Influence in Mexico. Com1esy of Food and Agriculrure
Service. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/ row/RL342 15.pelf
394 Chapter 11 Agriculltlre

where the officia l police have Little control, and drug of literally billions of people. Even city dwellers in many
lords have imposed reigns of terror over swaths of the parts of the world are involved in small-scale agricultural
countryside in parts of Central and South America, activities-cultivating or raising livestock in sma ll plots
Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. The of land around their dwellings, on rooftop gardens, or in
drug trade depends on the voracious appetite for mind- community gardens. Such practices are encouraged in
altering substa nces in No rth America and Europe in some places-notably China-but more often they are
particular. ignored, or even discouraged. Yet the contr ibution urban
The supply of marijuana in the United States tra- agriculture can make to the food security of city dwellers
ditionally comes from Mexico and Canada, as the DEA is attracting grmving attention, and it is likely to grow in
has reported. But an increasing amount of marijuana importance in the coming years.
consumed in the U nited States is grown in the United
States. Since 1996, a total of 16 states in the U nited
States have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes.
In add ition to Alaska, H awaii, Michigan, Maine,
Political Influences on Agriculture
Vermont, New J ersey and Rhode Island, most of the As we noted above, the European colonial period provides
states with medicinal marijuana are in the western a stunning example of the impact of political circum-
U nited States. Marijuana production for legal and ill e- stances on agriculture. Consider, for example, one of the
gal consumption in the United States is estimated to be most significant contemporary cash crops: cotton.
"the largest cash crop in the United States." An April Colonialism encouraged the production of plantation-
2011 article in the Ne-t1J Ytwk Times valued marijuana scale cotton in many regions of the world (e.g., India), and
production at $40 billion, "with California, Tennessee, colonial powers established a trading network that led to
Kentuck)', Hawaii and ·w ashington the top five produc- the globalization of the cotton industry.
tion states," despite the fact that medicinal marijuana is Cotton cultivation expanded greatly during the
not lega l in Tennessee or Kentucky. nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution pro-
Marijuana production has more than a monetary duced machines for cotton ginning, spin ning, and weav-
impact. E nergy analyst Evan Mills distributed a study in ing that increased productive capacity, brought prices
April 2011 that estimates the energy consumed in pro- down, and put cotton goods within the reach of mass
ducing marijuana in the United States costs about $5 bil- markets. As with sugar, the colonial powers laid out large-
lion a yea r and accounts for 1 percent of all power con- scale cotton plantations, sometimes under irriga tion.
sumed in the United States. Marijuana grown outdoors Cotton cultivation was also promoted on a smaller scale
has much lower energy costs than marijuan a grown in numerous other countries: in Egypt's N ile Delta, in
indoors. Growers plant crops on public lands, especially the P unjab region shared by Palcistan and India, and in
in the west, because the remote location of public lands Sudan, Uga nda, Mexico, and Brazil. T he colonial pro-
makes detection less likely for growers. Also, the land is ducers received low prices for their cotton, and the
public and therefore not owned by any one person to European industries prospered as cheap raw materials
whom a crop could be traced. Marijuana grown indoors were converted into large quantities of items for sale at
consumes massive amounts of electricity. The cost of home and abroad.
indoor production includes grow lamps that are the vVealthier countries continue to buy cotton, and cot-
lcinds used in operating rooms, dehumidifiers, air condi- ton sales remain important for some former colonies. But
tioners, electric generators, water pumps, heaters, carbon they now compete with cotton being grown in the U nited
dioxide generators, venti lation systems, and electrical States, N ortheast C hina, and Centra l Asia. Moreover,
control systems. cotton is in competition today with synthetic fibers such
as nylon and rayon. As global supply and demand shifts in
response to changing markets and new alternatives, econ-
Informal Agriculture omies that have been built around cotton production can
Small-scale informal agricultural activities are also miss- go through wrenching adjustments.
ing from maps of global agricultural patterns, yet these Even as countries emerged from colonial control,
play an important role in the contemporary world. they were left with a legacy of large landholdings owned
Millions of people cultivate small plots of land in and or contro lled by wealthy individuals or business entities.
around th eir homes for domestic consumption or to T hat legacy contributed to uprisings among tl1e rural
trade informally with others. These activities are not poor in places such as Mexico, Cuba, and Guatemala.
captured by forma l agricultural statistics, but the food Efforts on the part of governmental autho rities in some
that is grown in this fashion plays a vital role in the lives ex-colonies to confront this situation provide a different
 How IsAgriculture Currently Organized Geographically, and How Has Agribusiness Influenced theContemporaryGeography of Agriculture? 395
example of the impact of politics on agriculture. In some reality of much coffee production in Latin America,
cases governments enacted policies that perpetuated however. In most cases coffee is produced on enormous,
preexisting inequalities; in others land reforms were foreign-owned plantations, where it is picked by local
introduced that served to redistribute land to individuals laborers who are hired at very low wage rates. Most cof-
or communities. The latter were common in parts of fee is sent abroad; and if the coffee pickers dri nk coffee,
Central and South America , lead ing to a substantial it is probably of the imported and instant variety.
reorganization of the rural landsca pe-sometimes Recently, however, coffee production has under-
spreading wealth more broadly. Pressure for land reform gone changes as more con sumers dema nd fair trade
continues in many countries, and land issues are at the coffee and more coffee producers seek fa ir trade certi-
heart of many social movements in th e global economic fication. CNN reports that "Retailers who are certi-
periphery and semi-periphery. fied Fair T raders return up to 40 percent of the retai l
A more mundane, but common, way in which gov- price of an item to the producer. " O nce a producer
ernments influence agriculture is through tax regu lations meets the requirements of organic coffee production
and subsidies favoring certain land uses. T he U.S. gov- and a few other criteria, that producer ca n be regis-
ernment currently spends more tl1an $ 10 billion subsidiz- tered on the International Fair Trade Coffee Register.
ing large-scale farmers. Pushed by a strong farm lobby, Coffee importers then purchase the fair trade coffee
these subsidies guarantee floor prices for staple crops and directly from the registered producers. Being regis-
protect farmers in bad years. They give large-scale agri- tered guarantees coffee producers a " fair trade price"
culture an advantage over smaller scale alternatives. But of$1.40 per pound of coffee (plus bonuses of $0 .30 per
in the past 60 yea rs perhf!ps the most dramatic examples po und for organic) . Over 1.2 million farmers and
of politics affecting agriculture have come from th e com- wo rkers in 58 countries, mainly in the periphery and
munist world. T he governments o f tl1e former Soviet semi-periphery, are connected to the 827 fair trade
Union, eastern Europe, and Maoist C hina initiated far- certified producer organi zations worldwide (Fig. 11 .20) .
reaching land reforms th at led to tl1e creation of large T he fair trade campaign pressured Starbucks into sell-
collective farms and agricultural communes. T his giant ing fair trade coffee, and in 2010, Starbucks committed
experiment resulted in the massive displacement of rural to doubling the amount of fair trade coffee it pur-
peoples and irrevocably altered traditional rural social chases, which accounts for 40 percent of the fai r trade
systems. Today farming privatization is under way in both coffee imported into the United States. Other retailers
Russia and China. have followed suit; for example, all espresso sold at
Dunkin' Donuts in North America and Europe is fair
trade certified. Fair trade coffee is available at large
Socio-cultural Influences on Agriculture
Agriculture is also affected by social and cultural factors.
As incomes rise, many people start consuming more meat
and processed foods, seek out better quality fr uits and
vegetables, or demand fres h produce yea r round.
Consider the case of coffee, one tl1e most important lux-
ury crops in tl1e modern world. Coffee was first domesti-
cated in the region of present-day Ethiopia, but today it is
grown primarily in Middle and Soutl1 America, where
approximately 70 percent of tl1e world's annual produc-
tion is harvested.
In the early eighteenth centu ry, coffee was virtually
unknown in most of tl1e world. Yet, after petroleum, cof-
fee is now the second most valuable legally traded com-
modity in the world. T he U nited States buys more than
half of all the coffee sold on world markets annually, and
western E urope imports most of the rest. A well-known - Figure 11.20
image of coffee production in North America is Juan Mount Elgon, Uganda. This fa ir trade coffee farmer in
Valdez, portrayed as a simple yet proud Colombian peas- Uganda picks coffee berries at her farm, which is one of 6,000
ant who handpicks beans by day and enjoys a cup of his small farms on Mount E lgon that sells directly to Cafedirect, a
own coffee by night. This image is qui te contrary to the British Fair Trade company. © Karen Robinson Panos Picmres.
396 (hapterll Agriculture

retail outlets and under corporate brands at Target, by contracting and working directly with four major poul-
vVal-Mart, and Sam's Club. try companies. In an article on modern agriculture, D avid
The push for fair trade production shows how social Lanegran summarized the impact of this transformation
movements can influence agriculture. And fair trade goes as follows:
beyond coffee. Dozens of commodities and products,
ranging from tea, bananas, fresh cut flowers, and choco- Today, cbickens an p1·oduced by lm·ge ag7·ibusiness com-
late to soccer balls, can be certified fair trade. According panies opemting hatcheries, feed mills, and p1·ocess-
to Fair Trade Labeling Orgaruzations International, con- ing plants. They supply chicks and feed to the fm711 -
sumers spent more than $4.84 billion on fair trade certi- en. Tbe fanne1·s m·e 1·esponsible f01· building a house
fied products in 2008. and maintaining p1·oper tempemture and wate1· mp-
People's changing tastes also shape the geography of ply. Once a 1veek the companies fill the feed bins f01· the
agriculture. Tea is a rather recent addition to the Western fm77urs, and guarantee them a p1·ice fo1· the binls. The
diet. It was grown in China perhaps 2000 years ago, but it companies even collect mm·ket-ready bi1·ds and take
became popular in Europe only during the nineteenth them away for· p1·ocessing and ma1·keting. Most of the
century. The colonial powers (mainly the British) estab- nations poult?)' supply is handled by a halfdozen ve1y
lished enormous tea plantations in Asia and thus began lm·ge corpomtions that cont1·ol the pr-ocess from chicks to
the fuJI-scale flow of tea into European markets. Tea pro- chicken pieces in stor·es.
duction, both the fair trade and the traditionally traded
varieties, is on the rise globally to meet the increasing L anegran goes on to show how selective breeding has
demand. produced faster growing, bigger chickens, which are
Even as social preferences shape agricultural pro- housed in enormous broiler houses that are largely
duction, the consumption of particular products can have mecharuzed.
social consequences. Just a few decades ago, city dwellers Broiler houses are concentrated in northwestern
in West Africa primarily consumed grains grown from Arkansas, northern Georgia, the Delmarva Peninsula
nearby fields. Over the past three decades, relatively cheap (Delaware, Maryland, and Vir girua) east of Washington,
imported rice from Malaysia and Thailand has become an D.C. , tl1e Piedmont areas of North Carolina, and the
important food source, and many locals came to prefer the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (Fig. 11.21). Lanegran
taste of the imported rice. This set of circumstances left shows that in many respects the "farmers" who man age
\iVest Africa vulnerable when the price of imported grains these operations are involved in manufacturing as much
skyrocketed in 2008. Local riots broke out and a food or more tl1an fa rming. They are as likely to spend their
crisis ensued. time talking to bank officers, overseeing the repair of
equipment, and negotiating with vendors as d1ey are tend-
ing their animals. As such, they symbolize the breakdown
Agribusiness and the Changing Geography between the rural and the urban in wealthier parts of tl1e
of Agriculture world-as well as the interconnections between rural
places and distant markets.
The commercialization of crop production and the T he poultry example is not unusual. During the
associated development of new agricultural technolo- 1990s, hog production on the Oklahoma and Texas pan-
gies have changed how agricultural goods are grown handles increased rapidly with the arrival of corporate
and have sparked the rapid growth of agribusiness. hog farms. J ohn Fraser H art and Chris Mayda described
Agribusiness is an encompassing term for the busi- the quick change wi th statistics. In 1992, the U.S. Census
nesses that provide a vast array of goods and services to of Agriculture counted just over 31,000 hogs marketed in
support the agricultural industry. Agri business serves to Texas County, Oklahoma, and just four years later "the
connect local farms to a spatially extensive web of pro- panhandle was plastered with proliferating pork places,
duction and exchange. At the same time, it fos ters the and Texas County alone produced 2 mill ion hogs. It was
spatial concentration of agricultural activities. Both of the epicenter of an area that produced 4 million hogs,
these trends are revealed in the development of the 4 percent of the national total and one-seventh as many
poultry industry in the United States. firushed hogs as the entire state oflowa." The availability
Early in tl1e twentieth century, poultry production in of both inexpensive water and natural gas on tl1e
tl1e U nited States was highly disaggregated, with many Oklahoma panhandle was enticing for corporate hog
farmers raisi ng a few chickens as part of a multifaceted farms, which require both. Hart and Mayda explain that
farming operation. Over the past 50 years, however, poul- the "reasonable" price of land and the accessibility to
try production has fundamentally changed. Today, the "growing metropolitan markets of the South and the
farmers on the Delmarva Peninsula account for 8 percent \i\Test" also made the region attractive for hog produc-
of poultry production in the United States, and they do so tion. Similar to poultry production, a corpora tion built a
 How Is Agriculture Currently Organized Geographically,and How Hu Agribusiness Influenced the Contemporary Geography of Agriculture! 397

BROILER CHICKEN SALES IN THE

UNITED STATES, 2007
One dot represents 1,000,000 broilers
The United States total is 8,914,828,122
0 200 400 600 800 I 000 Ktlometers

0 200 400
Modified after pubh<:at1on 07~AI61 U.S. Oepartment of Agrkulture,
Nat100al Agricultural Statistics Service.

,o
().
~s:>
HAWAI'I {;> , .P

- Figure 11.21
Broiler Chicken Sales in the United States, 2007. Courtesr of: United Stares Census of Agriculrurc,
l'ational Agriculrural Smtistics Senice.

processing plant, and production (both by farms owned

by the corporation and those owned privately) increased
Environmental Impacts of Commercial
to meet the dema nd (Fig. 11.22). Agriculture
Because of agribusiness, the range and variety of Commercial agriculture creates significa nt environmen-
products on the shelves of urban supermarkets in the tal change. The growing demand for protein-rich foods
United States is a world apart from the constant quest for and more efficient technologies are leadin g to overfish-
sufficient, nutritionally balanced food that exists in some ing in many regions of the world. In many places fish
places. A global network of farm production is oriented to stocks are declining at an alarming rate. From mid-cen-
the one-fifth of the world's population that is highly tury to the late 1980s, the fi sh harvest from oceans .an~
urbanized, wealthy, and powerfu l. Few farmers in distant seas increased fivefold, and there seemed to be no limn
lands have real control over land-use decisions, for the to it. Countries quarreled over fishing rights, poorer
better off people in the global economic core continue to countries leased fishing grounds to richer ones, and
decide what will be bought at what price. The colonial era fleets of trawlers plied the oceans. International attempts
may have come to an end, but, as the map of agr icultural to regu late fishing industries fai led. Then in the 1970s
regions reminds us, its imprint remains stron g. and 1980s, overfishing began destroying fish stocks. The
398 (hapter 11 Agrirulture

HOGS AND PIGS IN THE

UNITED STATES, 2007
One dot represents 20,000 hogs and pigs
The United States total is 67,786,318
0 200 400 600 800 1000 J<Dneters

0 200 400 600Mdes

Mod~.ed aher publoutJOn OHA149 U.S. Department of Aa11cuhute,

Naoonal Aar~tun~tal StaOs!ICs Ser\'ICt .

,o
-o._
..
~

HAWAI'I C>
- Figure 11.22
Hogs and Pigs in the United States, 2007. Courtesy of: United St:ttes Census of Agriculture, !\"a tiona)
Agriculrurnl St:ttistics Scl'\ice.

cod fisheries on Canada's Grand Banks offNewfoundland terraces cut into the hills many centuries ago. The indus-
collapsed. In 197 5 biologists estimated the Atlantic blue- trialization and commercialization of agriculture has
fin tuna population at 250,000; today the western stock is accelerated the pace and extent of agriculture's impact on
listed as critically endangered, and the stock in the the environment in recent times. More land has been
Mediterranean is listed as endan gered. From ocean cleared, and the land that is under cultivation is ever more
perch and king crabs off Alaska to rock lobsters and intensively used.
roughies offNew Zealand, fis h and shellfish populations Signjficant agriculturally driven chan ges to the envi-
are depleted. The total annual catch is also declining and rorunent go far beyond the simple clearing of land. They
may already be beyond the point of recovery. Much of range from soil erosion to changes in tl1e orgaruc content
the damage has already been done, and fishing industries of soils to the presence of chemicals (herbicides, pesti-
in many parts of the world have reported dwindling har- cides, even antibiotics and growth hormones from live-
vests and missing species. stock feces) in soils and groundwater. In places where
If you travel to Medjterranean Europe today you will large commercial crop farms dominate, the greatest con-
see a landscape that reflects the clearing of forests in cerns often center on the introduction of chemical fertil -
ancient times to facilitate agriculture and trade. Look izers and pesticides into the environment-as well as soil
carefully at many hillslopes and you will see evidence of erosion. And, as we have seen, the movement toward
 How Is Agriculture CurrentlyOrganized Geographically, and How Has Agribu1inm lnRuenced the Contemporary Geography of Agriculture? 399
genetically m odi fi ed cro ps carries with it another set of widespread pover ty, food security looms as a signjficant
environmental concerns. issue fo r tl1e t:wenty- first centu ry.
T he g rowth of o rga nic fa rming (discussed at the As cities expand outwa rd, some of tl1e most ferti le,
beginning of the chap ter) and the move towa rd th e use prod uctive fa rmlands are lost to ho using and retajl devel-
of local foods in some comm un ities ca n benefi t the envi- opments (F ig. 11.2 3). Many cities were established amid
ronment. Yet such in itiatives have had o nl y modest productive farmlands that could supply the needs of tl1eir
impacts o n the majo rity of the worl d 's peoples and in habita nts. Now the cities are absorbing the productive
places. A telling sig n is that the o rganic movement has far mlands as tl1ey expand. Between 1987 and 1992, C hi na
had little effect on th e production of the staple foods on lost mo re than one million hectares of farmland to urban-
which billions o f people depend. Moreover, large cor- ization. In the United States, the An1erican Farmland
por ate entities are playing an incr easingly pro minent Trust, identified 12 U.S . areas wher e far mland was giving
ro le in the organic movemen t- ra ising con tr oversies way to urban uses at a rapid rate in tl1e 1990s, including
about standards and rende ring illusory the idea l of an Cali fo rni a's Centra l Valley, South Florida, California's
independent o rganic fa rmer engaged in "sustainable" coasta l zone, Tortl1 C aroljna 's Piedmo nt, and the Crucago-
agricul ture. Nonetheless, better regul ated o rganic Mjlwaukee-Madison triangle in Illinois-Wisconsin. T hese
farmi ng and loca l food initiati ves are clearl y on the rise. 12 areas represent only 5 percent of U.S. farmland, but
T heir proponents argue that they ar e priced out of the tlley produce 17 percent of total agricultural sales, 67 per-
market by subsidies favo ring large fa rms and by the failu re cent of all fruit, 55 percent of all vegetables, and one-
of most agribusiness to incorporate the enviro nmental quarter of all dairy products. Figures for other coun tries
and health costs of large-sca le, in tensive fa rm ing. And in the ri cher parts of the world (such as Japan) as well as
such argu men ts are ga ining traction. for poorer counn·ies (such as Egypt) prove mat urba n
The envir onmental im pacts of large-scale in tensive expansion into productive farm land is a global problem
agriculture can be particularly severe when agriculture with serious implications for the future.
moves into m ar ginal environments, as has happened with T he conversion of farmlands into housing develop-
the expansion of livestock herd ing in to ari d or semiarid ments is not confined to areas close to major cities that could
areas (see the m ap of world cl imates, Fig. 1 l. 17). T he nat- become suburbs. Expendable weal tl1 and tl1e desire to have a
ural vegeta tion in these areas cannot always sustain the place to "get away from it all " have led highly productive
herds, especially during prolo nged d roughts. As a result, commercial agricultura l areas to be converted into regions
ecological degradation and, in some areas, dese rtification for second homes. On the Delmarva Peninsula in the
(see Chapter 10) are the resu lt. United States, where pou lo-y production is concentrated,
In recent decades, the pop ularity of fast- food chains the price of land has risen as urba nites from Pennsylvania,
tha t serve hamburgers has led to the deforestation of \tVashington, D.C. , Maryland, and New York bought land
wooded areas in order to o pen up additi onal pastures fo r on tl1e eastern shore to build second homes. Many of the
beef cattle, notably in Ceno·al and South An1erica. new residents on the peninsula are demanding higher envi-
L ivestock ranchjng is an exo·emely land-, water- , and ronmenta l standards. Rising land prices and stricter envi-
energy-intensive process. Sig nificant land must be turned ronmental standards ar e placing a squeeze on tile cost of
over to the cul tivation of cattle feed, and the animals chicken production. Tyson Foods closed its production
themselves need extensive grazing areas. By so·ipping faci]jty in spring 2004, and the Washington Times reported
away vegetation, the animals can pro mo te the erosion of 650 lost jobs. As urban population continues to grow and
river banks, with implications for everything from water ex-pendable wealth increases for tl1e wealtiUest of tile popu-
qua lity to wildlife habitat. lation, more agricultural lands will be converted to housing
developments, especially lands in beautiful areas witl1 recre-
ational amenities such as the eastern sho re of Maryland (the
D elmarva Peni nsula) and its Chesapeake Bay.
The Challenge of Feeding Everyone Population g rowth and the loss of agricultural la nd
Food riots that brea k o ut in low-income countr ies and help to explain why global food prices have been on the
stories of famine in coun o·ies including Somal ia, Sudan, rise fo r more than a decade. Putting fu rther pressure o n
Malawi, and Z imbabwe remi nd us that food security food prices are consum ption increases in couno·ies
rema ins a challenge fo r millions of people around the experi encing rapid developments (e.g. Cruna) and a trend
globe. Although food prod uction has expanded in some towa rd using food crops for biofuel production. T hese
parts of the world, food production per capita has actually facto rs were behind an almost 50 percent surge in global
declined in Africa over th e past decade. Wo rl dw ide, nearly food prices between April 2007 and March 2008. Food
1 billion people are malnourished. C urrently, eno ugh riots broke out in some cities, and tl1e specter of large-scale
food is produced wo rldwide to feed Earth's population, fami ne grew. Another more rece nt spike in food prices
but in the face of in adequate distributio n systems and a was one factor in tile outbreak of revolutions in To rth
400 (hapter11 Agrirulture

I HIGH QUALITY FARMLAND IN THE PATH OF DEVELOPMENT I

~·
"' =t>SD
-- High quality farmland and
high development
High quality farmland and
low development

-
0
0
200km
f----r'--r-'
IOOmi

Figure 11.23
• 0
0 200
400 800 Kilometers
400 Miles

Farming on the Edge: High-Quality Fannland in the Path of Development, 2002. T his
D
D- Federal and Indian land
Urban areas
Other

map from American Farmland Trust, whose charge is to preserve farmland, highlights farm land
that is endangered of being suburbanized as cities expand into neighboring farmlands. Counesy of
Amcric:m Fam1 Trust, hnp://www.fannland.orglfanningonthcedge/maps.htm, last accessed l'\ovcrnbcr 2005.

Africa and Southwest Asia in spring 20 11. A con vergence work that went into the ingredien ts, when they get around
of changi ng land use, increasing use o f grains for fuel, cor- to consuming it.
rupt governments, and environmental impacts works As a result of the growing distance between fanne rs
aga inst the provision o f adequate food at reasonable prices and consumers, geographers have sought to draw attention
for the world 's poor. to food deserts, wh ich are areas with limited access to
D espite the severity of the situatio n, in today's world fresh, nutritious foods (Fig. 11.24). Urban food deserts are
it is possible for many people to put farming large ly o ut of typically found in low-income neighborhoods where con-
their minds. As a result of industrializa tion of agriculture swners have little access to medium-size and large grocery
and imp rovements in transportatio n, conswners come in stores and instead have access to small grocery stores filled
contact with farmers much less frequently tl1an did previ- mainly witl1 processed, energy-dense but nutrient poor
ous generations. O n a freezing cold winter day in food. British geographer Hilary Shaw foun d (2006) that
C inci1mati, Ohio, consum ers can purchase fresh straw- consumers in urba n food deserts were more likely to
berries grown in Chile. Conswners can also purchase purchase processed, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods
highly processed foods with lo ng shelf lives and forget because of the lower expense of these foods relative to fresh
where the item was purchased, much less think of the fa rm fruits and vegetables and also to avoid wasting food .
 lummary 401

C ] 0-21 - 65-86 - 130-151 - 195-216 • ZCTA centroids containing

D 21-43 - 86- 108 - 151 -173 CJ
County
large/medium supermarkets

173-195 ~Metro county

0 50 100km
- 43 - 65 - 108-130 -

- Figure 11.24
Food deserts in Oregon, 2010. Mean distance (km) from population-weighted ZIP Code
Tabulation Area (ZCTA) centroids containing large or medium supermarkets in Oregon. .\lap
rourttsyof: Aki ,\ !ichimi, 2011.

Geographers Akihiko Michimi and Michael Wimberly closed" and replaced with larger national chains in regional
found that rural food deserts lack not only access to larger trade centers. Michimi and Wimberly also found a differ-
grocery stores but also public transportation to reach larger ence between food deserts in metropolitan and nonmetro-
grocery stores. In their study of food deserts and access to politan areas of the United States. In metropolitan areas,
fruits and vegetables, the geographers fow1d that since the obesity rates increased and the rate of fruit and vegetable
1980s in rural areas of the U nited States a "restructuring of consumption decreased with increasing distance from gro-
food retail industries has occurred such that local grocery cery stores. They did not find the same correlation in non-
stores that once served small rural communities have been meo·opolitan areas, however.

~urn mary
Agricultural production has changed drastically since the F irst Agricultural Revolution.
Today, agricultural products, even perishable ones, are shipped around the world.
Agriculture has industrialized, and in many places, food production is dominated by
large-scale agribusiness. A major commonality between ancient agriculture and modem
agriculture remains: the need to change. Trial and error were the norms of early plant
and animal domestication. Agriculture makes distinct impressions on the cultural land-
scape, from how land surveys, to land ownership, to land use. In the globalized economy,
what is produced where depends on many factors, from climate and government regula-
tion to technology and worldwide demand for crops.
402 (hapterII Agriculture

Geograp~ic (oncepts
organic agriculture subsistence agriculture long-lot survey system
agriculture shifting cultivation primogeniture
primary economic slash-and-burn commercial
activity agriculture agriculture
secondary economic Second Agricultural monoculture
activity Revolution Koppen climatic
tertiary economic activity von Thiinen model classification
quaternary economic Third Agricultural system
activity Revolution climatic regions
quinary economic Green Revolution plantation agriculture
activity genetically modified livestock ranching
plant domestication organisms (GMOs) Mediterranean
root crops rectangular survey agriculture
seed crops system cash crops
First Agricultural township- and luxury crops
Revolution range-system agribusiness
animal domestication metes and bounds system food desert

learn More Online

About food production and development
http://www. food fi rst.org/media/ opeds/2 000/4-greenrev.h tmJ
About the preservation of agricultural lands
http:!/www.fannlancl.org/

Watch It Online
Guns, Germs, and Steel
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel
Loss of agricultural land to suburbanization in Chicago
http:/ /www.learner. org/resources/series 180 .h tml#program_descriptions
click on video on demand for program 24
Russia's Farming Revolution
http:/ /www.l earn er.o rg/ resources/series 180.h tm l#program_ d escri pti ons
click on video on demand for program 7
Sustainable agriculture in India
h ttp:l/www.learner.org/resou rces/series 180 .htrnl#program_descriptions
click on video on demand for program 17