Unit 5: Chapter 10 Vocabulary

Front 1

Agribusiness

Back 1

Commercial agriculture characterized by the integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.

Front 2

Agriculture

Back 2

The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth's surface through the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain.

Front 3

Cereal Grain

Back 3

A grass yielding grain for food.

Front 4

Chaff

Back 4

Husks of grain separated from the seed by threshing.

Front 5

Combine

Back 5

A machine that reaps, threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field.

Front 6

Commercial Agriculture

Back 6

Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm.

Front 7

Crop

Back 7

Grain or fruit gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season.

Front 8

Crop Rotation

Back 8

The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.

Front 9

Desertification

Back 9

Degradation of land, especially in semiarid areas, primarily because of human actions like excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and tree cutting.

Front 10

Double Cropping

Back 10

Harvesting twice a year from the same field.

Front 11

Grain

Back 11

Seed of a cereal grass.

Front 12

Green Revolution

Back 12

Rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers.

Front 13

Horticulture

Back 13

The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

Front 14

Hull

Back 14

The outer covering of a seed.

Front 15

Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

Back 15

A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.

Front 16

Milkshed

Back 16

The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied.

Front 17

Paddy

Back 17

Malay word for wet rice, commonly but incorrectly used to describe a sawah.

Front 18

Pastoral Nomadism

Back 18

A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.

Front 19

Pasture

Back 19

Grass or other plants grown for feeding grazing animals, as well as land used for grazing.

Front 20

Plantation

Back 20

A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country.

Front 21

Prime Agricultural Land

Back 21

The most productive farmland.

Front 22

Ranching

Back 22

A form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area.

Front 23

Reaper

Back 23

A machine that cuts cereal grain standing in the field.

Front 24

Ridge Tillage

Back 24

System of planting crops on ridge tops in order to reduce farm production costs and promote greater soil conservation.

Front 25

Sawah

Back 25

A flooded field for growing rice.

Front 26

Shifting Cultivation

Back 26

A form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for a relatively few years and left fallow for a relatively long period.

Front 27

Slash-and-Burn Agriculture

Back 27

Another name for shifting cultivation, so named because fields are cleared by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris.

Front 28

Spring Wheat

Back 28

Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer.

Front 29

Subsistence Agriculture

Back 29

Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family.

Front 30

Sustainable Agriculture

Back 30

Farming methods that preserve long-term productivity of land and minimize pollution, typically by rotating soil-restoring crops with cash crops and reducing inputs of fertilizer and pesticides.

Front 31

Swidden

Back 31

A patch of land cleared for planting through slashing and burning.

Front 32

Thresh

Back 32

To beat out grain from stalks by trampling it.

Front 33

Transhumance

Back 33

The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures.

Front 34

Truck Farming

Back 34

Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because truck was a Middle English word meaning bartering or the exchange of commodities.

Front 35

Wet Rice

Back 35

Rice planted on dryland in a nursery and then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth.

Front 36

Winnow

Back 36

To remove chaff by allowing it to be blown away by the wind.

Front 37

Winter Wheat

Back 37

Wheat planted in the autumn and harvested in the early summer.