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RURAL GEOGRAPHY
Classifying Economic Activities
• Primary activities– Hunting and gathering– Farming– Livestock herding, fishing, forestry, and lumbering– Mining
• Secondary activities– conversion of raw materials
• Tertiary activities– Service industries
• Quaternary (and quinary) activities– Information and exchange of money or capital– Quinary: spheres of research and higher education
The Persistence of Agriculture
• The United States in late 1994 had fewer than 2 million farmers
• Agriculture still remains strong in other countries
Ancient Livelihoodsin a Modern World
• Before farming– Hunting and gathering (sometimes fishing)– Early human existence
• Larger communities than today’s hunter and gatherers
• Learned to specialize to some extent in some area of production
• Some groups found better environments than others
Ancient Livelihoodsin a Modern World
• Terrain and tools– Landscape awareness– Understanding of resource use– Tool evolution– The controlled use of fire
• Fishing– ~ 12,000 to 15,000 years ago– Permanence achieved by combining hunting
and fishing with some gathering– Invention of a wide range of tools to aid in
catching or trapping fish
Ancient Livelihoodsin a Modern World
The First Agricultural Revolution
• Plant domestication– The First Agricultural Revolution– Carl Sauer’s plant domestication proposal– Agriculture developed later in Americas than
SE/SW Asia
• Animal domestication– Nostratic proto-language link– Livestock follows crops– Regional association– Dispersal of domesticated animals is blurred
(e.g., llamas and camels)– Lots of animals suitable for domestication
inhabited Eurasia– ~ 40 species of higher animals have been
domesticated worldwide
The First Agricultural Revolution
Subsistence Farming
• Growing only enough food to survive
• Shifting cultivation
• In many areas of the world subsistence farmers cannot migrate
Subsistence Agriculture
Slash & Burn
Subsistence farming• Marginalization of subsistence farming
– Farming the European colonial way• Forced cropping schemes for-profit• If new land was unavailable, must give up food crops
for cash crops
– Results of forced cropping– Changing attitudes = destructive effects on
society – Subsistence land use changing to more
intensive farming and cash cropping– Subsistence areas with modernized
mechanized farming
Second Agricultural Revolution
• Began slowly in Middle Ages– Productivity amplified, meeting demands of growing
cities
• Agriculture and the Industrial Revolution– Helped sustain the Second Agricultural Revolution– Cultural landscape modification by agriculture– Middle American plantations close to subsistence
farms
• Understanding the spatial layout of agriculture– Colonial decisions led to plantations– Von Thünen's Spatial Model of Farming
Von Thünen’s Theory
LANDSCAPES OF RURAL SETTLEMENT
What’s Important?
• Shelter ranks high on the list of human needs– Dwellings serve many functions– Tells much about a region and its culture– Layout and function (e.g., “snout houses”)– Construction materials
• Spacing of housing– Dispersed settlement– Nucleated settlement– Village ground plans often telling of a culture– House arrangement takes many different forms
Housing and Landscape
• Our early ancestors– Lived in small bands from a dozen to 50 or 60– Perhaps lived in holes covered with branches and
leaves
• Functional differentiation– Communal living begets single family dwellings– “Leader” probably had a larger and more imposing
residence– Food storage & livestock cover necessary
Housing and Landscape
• Environmental influences– Abundant evidence as early as 100,000 years
ago– Buildings reflect environmental adaptations– Nomadic people needed lightweight
transportable shelters such as tents– Complicated by migration– Reconstructing has been difficult
Changing Residential Traditions
• Unchanged-traditional– Layout, construction,
and appearance have not been significantly altered by external influences
– 3 types in US
Changing Residential Traditions
• Modified-traditional dwellings– No fundamental alteration to the original structure or
its layout• Modernized traditional dwellings
– Modifications involve building materials, a floor plan, and general layout
• Modern dwellings– Reflects advanced technology– “Ranch” style house took root in California– Technology important, not style– Tradition remains strongest in the domestic
architecture of rural areas
Structure and Materials
• From holes to caves– Some people still live in caves
Structure and Materials
• From caves to mansions– Dwellings are still built from sticks, branches,
grass, and leaves in some part of the world– Housing characteristics can be regionally
located
Structure and Materials
• Building materials– Wood– Brick– Stone– Wattle– Grass and brush
Diffusion of House Types
• Carried by migrants– From East Coast to
the west and southward
– Western style houses diffused from west to east across the United States
– Composite cultural landscape
• Maladaptive diffusion
Villages
• Settlements– Smallest clusters are known as hamlets
• Village forms– Traditional farmers or provide services to
farmers– Today’s villages…
Villages
• Regional contrasts– Modernization vs. little/no change– Subsistence vs. commercial agriculture– All have common qualities
• Social ladders• Differentiation of types of buildings
• Functional differentiation in villages– Protection of livestock and storage of harvested crops
• Constructed with as much care as the house
– Functional differentiation of buildings is most fully developed in Western cultures
An Ancient Hamlet?
Patterns of Settlement and Land Use
• Influence of physical environment
• Property inheritance– Primogeniture
• Cadastral system– Rectangular survey system– Metes and bounds survey– Long-lot survey
COMMERCIALIZATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF
THE RURAL SECTOR
Roots of Modern Commercial Agriculture
Global Patterns of Commercial Agriculture
• Cash crops and plantation agriculture– Caribbean economies depend cash crop exports
• E.g., Grenada 1/3 of world’s nutmeg!
– NOT in a good position to dictate price• Importing countries fix tariffs, quotas, & demand
– Cuba: case in point– Collective action is difficult– Plantation agriculture
• Cash crops are grown on large estates
Cash Crops & Plantations• Cotton
– Production expanded during the Industrial Revolution
• Rubber– Initially collected from rubber-producing trees– Invention of the automobile...– World War II synthetic rubber
• Luxury crops– Coffee
• First domesticated in the region of present-day Ethiopia, but now in Central and South America
– Tea• Tea was first grown in China perhaps 2000 years ago• Consumed in greater amounts than coffee in the areas where it is
grown
Cash Crops & Plantations
• Cocoa (chocolate)
Global Patterns of Commercial Agriculture
• Commercial livestock, fruit, and grain agriculture– Livestock ranching
• von Thünen pattern possible with livestock ranching on the periphery
• Rice growing– US = world's leading exporter of rice!
• Mediterranean agriculture– Mediterranean agriculture occurs only in areas with
that type of climate
• Illegal drugs– Often more profitable to cultivate poppy, coca, or
marijuana
Environmental Impacts of Commercial Agriculture
• Significant changes– Deforestation in Mediterranean Europe– More intense use– Impacts very severe as commercial
agriculture expands into margins– Impact of fast-food chains
The Third Agriculture Revolution
• The Green Revolution– Began in the 1960s with “IR36”– Disastrous famines of the past have been
avoided– Asian rice production greatly increased– New hybrids often require special treatment– Capital from the West leads toward export
agriculture
The Third Agriculture Revolution
• New genetically modified foods– Genetically modified “super” crops– High-yield cassava and sorghum– Gene manipulation, health risks, and
environmental hazards– China = more & more genetically modified
crops– Poorer countries lack capital and technology
• Agribusiness
Readings
• AgricultureDomesticationSCI07– A short article from Science about plant
domestication
• VonThünen– A quick overview of his life and work
Discussion…
In most countries where subsistence agriculture still forms the way of life, governments often seek ways to “improve” these families’ lives
• Why do governments feel they need to do this?
• What methods have been used to convert subsistence crops into cash crops?
• What are the rewards—and risks—to the subsistence farmers?
Discussion…
Why is it difficult for producing countries in the periphery to create and sustain cooperative cartels (business groups) that might protect their joint interests on markets of countries in the global economic core?
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