Agriculture: Key Issue 2

Where Are Agricultural Regions in Less Developed

Countries?
Rubenstein, p. 314-322

SHIFTING CULTIVATION
1. In what climate does shifting cultivation predominate? What are its two
characteristics?
Worlds humid low-latitude, or A, climate regions. Needs relatively high
temperatures and abundant rainfall.

2. Identify the two distinctive features of shifting cultivation.

(a) Farmers clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and burning
the debris (shifting cultivation is sometimes called slash-and-burn
agriculture.)

(b) Farmers grow crops on a cleared field for only a few years until soil
nutrients are depleted and then leave it fallow (nothing planted) for many
years so the soil can recover

3. Regarding a swidden
(a) what is it?
The cleared area ready for planting

(b) What is potash?

Potassium from burning the debris

(c) How long are swiddens used?

Usually 3 years or less

4. List crops typical of shifting cultivation.

The predominant crops include upland rice in Southeast Asia, maize (corn)
and manioc (cassava) in South America, and millet and sorghum in Africa.
Yams, sugarcane, plantain, and vegetables are also grown in some regions.

5. CASE STUDY: A Kayapo swidden field in Brazils Amazon region.

Make notes and draw a diagram to illustrate the description given

in the text.
 MAP
PACK
ET
5. How is land owned in a typical village that practices shifting cultivation?

6a. What percentage of the worlds land area is devoted to shifting

cultivation?

6b. What percentage of the worlds people work it?

7. Identify THREE economic activities that are replacing shifting cultivation.

8. Describe the pros and cons of shifting cultivation, or the arguments

made for it and criticisms leveled against it, in the spaces below.
PROS CONS
New pieces of clear land for farming Destroying perfectly good environment

Get to grow new crops Only have that land for a few years

Making new land from before Can only grow certain crop one year

Have great land for a couple of years Contributes to deforestation

Lots more environment so dont Polluting the environment, and not getting
worry about cutting it down many nutrients from burning debris

PASTORAL NOMADISM

8. What is pastoral nomadism?

A form of subsistence agriculture based on the herding of domesticated
animals.
9. In what type of climate is it usually found?
It is adapted to dry climates, where planting crops is impossible.

10. What regions of the earth are currently occupied by this practice? What
percentage of the worlds land area is occupied by pastoral nomads?
Pastoral nomads live primarily in the large belt of arid and semiarid land that
includes Central and Southwest Asia and North Africa. These people occupy
20% of Earths land area.

11. How do pastoral nomads obtain grain (several ways)?

Some pastoral nomads obtain grain from sedimentary subsistence farmers in
exchange for animal products. More often, part of a nomadic group-perhaps
the women and children-may plant crops at a fixed location while the rest of
the group wanders with the herd. Other nomads might sow grain into recently
flooded areas, and then eventually return to harvest.

12. What animals are chosen, and where?

The choice depends on the relative prestige of the animals and the ability of
the species to adapt to a particular climate and vegetation. People like
camels, horses, goats, and sheep for different parts of the world.

13. Describe territoriality among pastoral nomads.

Every group controls a piece of territory and will invade another groups
territory only in an emergency or if war is declared. The goal of each group is
to control a territory large enough to contain the forage and water needed for
survival.

14. What is transhumance?

Seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pasture
areas.

15. In what ways is pastoral nomadism currently threatened by modern

governments?
Governments force groups to give up pastoral nomadism because they want
the land for other uses. In some instances, the mining and petroleum
industries now operate in dry lands formerly occupied by pastoral nomads.

INTENSIVE SUBSISTENCE FARMING

16. What is meant by intensive?

Farmers must work intensively to subsist on a parcel of land.

17. Where is intensive subsistence agriculture practiced? Why there?

In densely populated East, South, and Southeast Asia, most farmers practice
intensive subsistence agriculture. Because the agricultural density-the ratio
of farmers to arable land-is so high in parts of East and South Asia, families
must produce enough food for their survival from a very small piece of land.

18a. What is wet rice?

The practice of planting rice on dry land in a nursery and then moving the
seedlings to a flooded field to promote growth.
18b. What is a sawah? A paddy?
It is the flooded field.

19. Wet rice requires a flat field, but it has continued to expand. Why has rice
cultivation expanded? How has additional land been brought into cultivation?
The pressure of population growth in parts of East Asia has forced expansion
of areas under rice cultivation. One method of developing additional land
suitable for growing rice is to terrace the sides of river valleys.

20. Where is double-cropping more common? Less common?

It is common in places that have warm winters, such as South China and
Taiwan, but it is relatively rare in India, where most areas have dry winters.

21. In areas of intensive subsistence agriculture where wet rice is not

dominant, what is the major crop?
Normally double cropping involves alternating between wet rice, grown in the
summer when precipitation is higher, and wheat, barley, or another dry crop,
grown in the drier winter season.

22. How are multiple harvests made possible in these less mild regions?
Through crop rotation, which is the practice of rotating use of different fields
from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting all the soil.

23. Using the map on pp. 312-313, identify regions outside of Asia where
wet-rice not dominant intensive subsistence agriculture is practiced.
Central America, South America, North Africa, Southern Africa, Southwest
Asia, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

24. Make some notes about intensive subsistence farming in communist

China.

Agriculture in Communist China (since 1949 Revolution)

Agriculture following the Agriculture in Communist
communist revolution, China today, post-commune.
communes.
China has therefore dismantled the Since the Communist Revolution in
agricultural communes. The 1949, private individuals have owned
communes still hold legal title to little agricultural land in China.
agricultural land, but villages sign Instead, the Communist government
contracts entitling them to farm organized agricultural producer
portions of the land as private communes, which typically consisted
individuals. Chinese farmers may sell of several villages of several hundred
to others the right to use the land people. By combing several small
and to pass on the right to their fields into a single large unit, Chinas
children. Reorganization has been government hoped to promote
difficult because irrigation systems, agricultural efficiency-scarce
equipment, and other infrastructure equipment and animals and larger
were developed to serve large improvement projects, such as flood
communal farms rather than small control, water storage, and terracing,
individually managed ones, which could be shared. In reality,
cannot afford to operate and productivity did not increase as much
maintain the machinery. But as the government has expected
production has increased greatly. because people worked less
efficiently for the commune than
when working for themselves.

PLANTATION FARMING

25. Define/describe plantation farming by filling in the table below

PLANTATION
Climate Continents
Tropics and subtropics Latin America, Africa, Asia

Situated in Owned and operated by Workers

Generally situated in Often owned and operated Plantation managers try to
LDCs by Europeans and North spread the work out
Americans evenly. They import
workers and provide them
with food, housing, and
social services.
Types of crops Definition
Among the most A large farm that specializes in one or two crops.
important crops grown on
plantations are cotton,
sugarcane, coffee, rubber,
and tobacco. Also
produced in large
quantities are cocoa, jute,
bananas, whereas Asian
plantations may provide
rubber and palm oil. Crops
such as tobacco, cotton,
and sugarcane, which can
be planted only once a
year, are less likely to be
grown on plantations than
in the past.