Types of Agriculture

1. Types of Agriculture Local Issues, Global Trends

2. Subsistence Agriculture • Product of land is consumed locally • Only enough food grown to survive • Two types • Sedentary (in one place) • Shifting cultivation • Often damaging to environment • Slash and burn

6. Cash Crops • Product of farms largely sold for export out of region • Family farm • Plantation system • Agribusiness • Can result in a monoculture • One type of plant predominating • Challenge to biodiversity

9. Think About • How do we figure out what the best agricultural land use is given competing crops? • In particular, how close or far from a market center do we need to be?

10. Agricultural Land Use Von Thünen’s Model

11. What’s the Issue? • Geographers are concerned with space and distance • How are various agricultural crops distributed across space?

12. Johann Heinrich von Thünen • 1783-1850 • German • The Isolated State (1826) • Spatial Economics • Economic Rent • What one would be willing to pay to be in a particular location

13. Assumptions • A featureless (isotropic) plain • Central city in isolation • Farmers transport goods to market by oxcart over land • there are no roads • Location will be a function of crop value, costs of production and distance to market

14. Bid Rent • R = Y(p-c) – YFm • R = bid rent • Y = crop yield • p = price of crop • c = costs of production • F = Freight costs • m = mileage to market

15. Per Y = 1, m = 1 - 5 Peppers p = $20 c = $10 F = $2 Wheat p = $16 c = $8 F = $1 Examples: Plot the LinesR=Y(p-c)-YFm

16. Bid Rent Curves

17. Land Use Zones

18. Land Use Zones