INTRO TO AGRICULTURE 1 Agriculture numbers 45 of

INTRO TO AGRICULTURE 1

Agriculture numbers • 45% of the world population work in agriculture • In North America, only 23% of the population is employed in agriculture • In parts of Asia and Africa, up to 80% of the population is employed in agriculture 2

Types of Agriculture • can be classified into two categories: • Subsistence agriculture • Commercial agriculture (also called as cash cropping) 3

1. Subsistence Agriculture • Farming where people provide only enough food for themselves and their family to survive • These farmers can only use what they can grow • Dominant form in developing countries • Can be further classified into three categories: • Shifting cultivation • Intensive crop cultivation • Nomadic herding 4

a) Shifting cultivation • Occurs mostly in tropical areas • Forests are cut and burned which releases nutrients into the soil • Crops are grown until the soils loses these nutrients, which only takes a couple of years after which farmers move to another tract of forest 5

6

b) Intensive Crop Cultivation • Occurs where good land for agriculture is scarce • The land must produce a large amount of food for its small size • Very labour-intensive and costly • Examples would be rice paddies in China 7

c) Nomadic Herding • Occurs in places where the land is not very fertile • Farmers and their families move with their animals from location to location 8

2) Commercial farming (or Cash Cropping) • People farm more than they need personally and sell their surplus crops • Sometimes the farmers may not use any of the products they grow or raise 9

Farming can be described as either INTENSIVE or EXTENSIVE farming 1) Intensive Farming • Involves farming a relatively small amount of land in a concentrated fashion with the use of large amounts of labour and capital in order to apply the chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, and the purchase and maintenance of planting, cultivating, and harvesting machinery. • Will produce higher crop yields per unit of land than extensive farming 10

Examples • Fruit and vegetable growing • Vineyards where grapes for wine are produced • Livestock feedlots where animals are penned in a small field area and fattened 11

2) Extensive Farming • Uses large amounts of land with limited amounts of labour and capital • Produces a lower yield per unit of land, it requires large amounts of land to be profitable • Examples: Grain and oil-seed farming, Ranching 12

Cash cropping Subsistence farming Intensive: less land Extensive: more land 13

Label the following farms on the chart. • Alberta cattle ranch • Okanagan vineyard • Bangladesh Family’s Rice Field • Annapolis valley apple orchard • Hobby farm in BC • Manitoba sunflower field • Saskatchewan wheat field • Cattle feed lot • Industrial chicken house • The family cow, Bolivia • Goat and Sheep Herding (North Africa) 14