Chapter 11 Vocabulary

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Organic agriculture

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Approach to farming and ranching that avoids the use of herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones, and other similar synthetic inputs.

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Agriculture

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The purposeful tending of crops and livestock in order to produce food and fiber.

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Primary economic activity

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Economic activity concerned with the direct extraction of natural resources from the environment-----such as mining, fishing, lumbering, and especially agriculture.

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Secondary economic activity

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Economic activity involving the processing of raw materials and their transformation into finished industrial products; the manufacturing sector.

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Tertiary economic activity

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Economic activity associated with the provision of services-----such as transportation, banking, retailing, education, and routine office-based jobs.

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Quaternary economic activity

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Service sector industries concerned with the collection, processing, and manipulation of information and capital. Examples include finance, administration, insurance, and legal services.

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Quinary economic activity

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Service sector industries that require a high level of specialized knowledge of technical skill. Examples include scientific research and high-level management.

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Plant domestication

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Genetic modification of a plant such that its reproductive success depends on human intervention.

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Root crop

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Crop that is reproduced by cultivating the roots of or the cuttings from the plants.

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Seed crop

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Crop that is reproduced by cultivating the seeds of the plants.

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First Agricultural Revoltion

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Around 10,000 B.C., the First Agricultural Revolution achieved plant domestication and animal domestication. It is also known as the Neolithic Revolution.

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Animal domestication

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Genetic modification of an animal such that it is rendered more amenable to human control.

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Subsistence agriculture

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Self-sufficient agriculture that is small scale and low technology and emphasizes food production for local consumption, not for trade.

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Shifting cultivation

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Cultivation of crops in tropical forest clearings in which the forest vegetation has been removed by cutting and burning.

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Slash-and-burn agriculture

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See shifting cultivation.

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Second Agricultural Revolution

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Dovetailing with and benefiting from the Industrial Revolution, the Second Agricultural Revolution witnessed improved methods of cultivation, harvesting, and storage of farm produce. (Around 1815 to 1880)

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Von Thunen model

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A model that explains the location of agricultural activities in a commercial, profit-making economy. A process of spatial competition allocates various farming activities into rings around a central market city, with profit-earning capability the determining force in how far a crop locates from the market.

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Third Agricultural Revolution

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Also called the Green Revolution, the Third Agricultural Revolution has as its principal orientation the development of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). (Around the 1960s to the present)

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Green Revolution

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The recently successful development of higher-yield, fast-growing varieties of rice and other cereals in certain developing countries, which led to increased production per unit area and a dramatic narorwing of the gap between population growth and food need. Also called the third Agricultural Revolution.

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Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

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Crops that carry new traits that have been inserted through advanced genetic engineering methods.

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Rectangular survey system

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Also called the Public Land Survey, the system was used by the U.S. Land Office to parcel land west of the Appalachian Mountains. The system divides land into a series of rectangular parcels.

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Township-and-range-system

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A rectanglar land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior. See also rectangular survey system.

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Metes and bounds system

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A system of land surveying east of the Appalachian Montains. It is a system that relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features such as streams or trees. Because of the imprecise nature of metes and bounds surveying, the U.S. Land Office abandoned the technique in favor of the rectangular survey system.

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Long-lot survey system

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Distinct regional approach to land suveying found in the Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals.

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Primogeniture

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System in which the eldest son in a family-----or, in exceptional cases, daughter-----inherits all of a dying parent's land.

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Commercial agriculture

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Term used to describe large-scale farming and ranching operations that employ vast land bases, large mechanized equipment, factory-type labor forces, and the latest technology.

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Monoculture

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Dependence on a single agricultural commodity.

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Köppen climate classification system

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Developed by Wladimir Köppen, a system for classifying the world's climates on the basis of temperature and precipitation.

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Climatic regions

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Areas of the world with similar climatic characteristics.

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Plantation agriculture

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Production system based on a large estate owned by an individual, family, or corporation and organized to produce a cash crop. Almost all plantations were established within the tropics; in recent decades, man have been divided into smaller holdings or reorganized as cooperatives.

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Livestock ranching

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The raising of domesticated animals for the prduction of meat and other byproducts such as leather and wool.

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Medditerranean agriculture

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Specialized farming that occurs only in areas where the dry-summer Mediterranean climate prevails.

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Luxury crops

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Non-subsistence crops such as tea, cacao, coffee, and tobacco.

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Agribusiness

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General term for the businesses that provide the vast array of goods and services that support the agriculture industry.

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Food desert

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An area characterized by a lack of affordable, fresh and nutritious food.

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Cash crops

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Crops grown for profit on a mass scale, such as cotton