Chapter 10 Key Issue 2

1. Chapter 10Key Issue 2 Where Are Agricultural Regions in Less Developed Countries?

2. Shifting Cultivation • Shifting cultivation is practiced in much of the world’s tropical regions. Farmers clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and burning the debris; this is called the slash and burn agriculture. • The cleared land is called swidden and crops grown will include rice (Asia), maize and manioc (South America), millet and sorghum (Africa). • Farmers will only grow crops on a cleared field for a few years until the soil nutrients are depleted and then they will leave it fallow (nothing planted) so that it can recover. • This type of agriculture occupies about one quarter of the world’s land area but only supports about 5% of the world’s population. • As rainforests are being cut, shifting cultivation is being cut; especially in the Amazon basin, shifting cultivation is being replaced by logging, cattle ranching, and cash crops.

3. Pastoral Nomadism • Pastoral nomadism is another type of extensive subsistence agriculture that involves nomadic animal husbandry. • It is practiced in the dry climates of the developing world. The livestock provide food, clothing, and shelter. • The animals will vary depending on cultural preferences and physical geography but many include goats, camels, horses, sheep, or cattle. • Pastoral nomads have a strong sense of territoriality which determines the land that they occupy. • Some pastoral nomads practice transhumance, which is the seasonal movement of livestock between mountains and lowland pasture areas. • Pasture is grass or other plants grown for feeding livestock, as well as land used for grazing. This type of agricultural system is on the decline as modern technology is resulting in the conversion of land from nomadic to sedentary agriculture.

4. Intensive Subsistence Agriculture • Some subsistence agriculture is intensive, where farmers work land more intensively to subsist. • Intensive subsistence agriculture is practiced in much of Asia on small plots and mostly by hand. • Wet rice is the dominant crop in Southeast Asia, including China. Wet rice is planted in dry soil in a nursery and then moved to seedlings in a flooded field. The flooded field is called a sawah (paddy is the Malay word for wet rice). • In parts of Asia farmers can get two harvests per year from one field. This is known as double cropping. • Where wet rice is not dominant in Asia, more than one harvest can be obtained each year through crop rotation, which is the practice of using different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid soil exhaustion.

5. Plantation Farming • Plantation agriculture is the only significant large-scale commercial agriculture in the developing world. • Plantations will specialize in crops that will usually be exported to other countries such as sugarcane and coffee. • They have typically been owned by foreign companies and are very labor intensive.