RURAL GEOGRAPHY

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RURAL GEOGRAPHY

• Global Agricultural Systems

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Agriculture

• Part of a complex system
• Operates at different levels of intensity in
  different parts of the world, and for different
  purposes
• Interaction of hydrosphere, atmosphere and
  biosphere, human and economic factors
• Has changed, and continues to change, as a result
  of developing technologies, especially the Green
  Revolution of the latter 20th century
• Different types of agriculture have distinctive
  human landscape with its own pattern of
  settlement and communications characteristic
  population density, structure and distribution.

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GMTs

• Analysis of
• Land use data and crop yield in map and
  diagrammatic form
• The results of farm surveys
• Annotation of field sketches and photographs of
  rural landscapes

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Types of Agriculture

• Arable farming crops
• Most favourable areas in terms of relief, soil
  and climate.
• Pastoral farming livestock
• Response to difficult conditions in terms of
  height, slope and rainfall (both high and low)
• Mixed farming crops livestock

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Types of Agriculture

• Subsistence farming to feed local people
  without having a surplus
• May lack capital and modern technology, but
  methods involve high degree of skill and
  ingenuity.
• 2. Commercial farming to produce surplus for
  sale, either locally or distant
• Capital intensive, dependent upon technology
  (mechanical, chemical biological) and dependent
  on efficient transport links

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Types of Agriculture

• Shifting cultivation (usually subsistence)
• Low population density, therefore low demand for
  food must be plenty of land available to allow
  people to move cultivated plots and settlements
  as necessary.
• Sedentary cultivation (usually small/ large scale
  commercial)
• Permanent cultivated land and settlements

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Types of Agriculture

• Intensive agriculture
• High level of capital and artificial inputs
  (fertiliser, pesticides) resulting in high yields
• e.g. battery poultry units/ dairy farming
• Extensive agriculture
• Low level of capital and artificial inputs
  resulting in lower yield, but often involving
  large areas of farmed land.
• e.g. large grain farm/ cattle ranching

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Farm System

• INPUTS
• Physical
• Human/ cultural
• Economic/ political
• DECISIONS
• OUTPUTS
• Profit
• Stability
• Loss
• Lack of investment and stagnation

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Question

• CORE HIGHER
• PAGE 255 QUESTION 1
• Diagram 8.5 is on page 233

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SHIFTING CULTIVATION
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SHIFTING CULTIVATION

• Example of Extensive Subsistence Agriculture
• Found in areas with low population densities
• Humid tropics of South America, Africa and South
  East Asia
• Globally supports as many as 300 million people

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Shifting Cultivation Characteristics(summarise
in spider diagram)

• Settlement usually small and temporary
• Settlement lifespan is determined by the rate of
  decline in soil fertility and the productivity of
  the cultivated clearings around it
• Remote areas, and thinly populated areas of
  Amazon Basin
• Low population densities because of
• Isolation, poor communications and lack of
  economic development
• The inability of shifting cultivation to support
  a larger population once the population reaches
  its threshold a small break off group will set
  up a new group

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Shifting cultivation and low population densities
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Shifting Cultivation Characteristics

• Core Higher, Page 242, Diagram 8.18
• Draw and annotate field sketch of typical single
  house settlement
• Remember the title

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Shifting Cultivation

• Extensive system large land area available, low
  input of labour and low output
• Year long growing season helps cultivation
• (Fig 8.21, Page 243)
• gardens of cultivated land around traditional
  single house
• Crops include manioc, bananas, yams (high
  carbohydrate)
• Sustainable form of agriculture, although it
  requires large amounts of land to make it
  possible. Is it sustainable globally when it
  involves the destruction of primary rainforest??
• Best cultivated with less than 8 crops for 2yrs
  then left fallow (unused) for 10yrs during which
  time it will revert to secondary rainforest and
  the soils recover fertility.
• If no new land is available, or the population
  increases, the garden can be continuously
  cultivated but requires frequent applications of
  fertiliser.

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Shifting Cultivation The Clearing Process

• Un-cleared rainforest floor has thick humus layer
  with rapid organic decomposition
• Slash and burn cultivation vegetation slashed
  and cleared using machetes, then burned to
  finally clear area and also to enrich soil by
  input of phosphorus and potassium from burning
  the vegetation.
• However, the soils (latisols) are basically of
  low fertility and when rainforest is cleared the
  soils are left open to high rainfall
• Nutrients are leached down through the soils
• Soil fertility is reduced
• Productivity is reduced
• Garden is abandoned
• New clearing is made in a new part of the forest
  and the process begins again.

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Abandoned clearing Current clearing(reverting
to secondary rainforest) Virgin Rainforest
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Pressure on Shifting Cultivation in The Amazon

• Figure 8.25, page 245
• Discuss sustainability
• Question 11, page 256,
• 2. Read page 245
• Create a spider diagram detailing the main
  threats and pressures on traditional shifting
  cultivation practices

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Pressure on Shifting Cultivation in The Amazon
Extensive areas of rainforest cleared for large
scale cattle ranching to provide beef for huge
urban population of SE Brazil
Extensive areas of rainforest cleared for mineral
(iron ore, gold, copper, bauxite) and timber
resource exploitation
Extensive areas of rainforest cleared for large
scale Hydro Electric schemes to provide power
eg Tucuri Dam Project, Brazil
Population pressure in , for example, NE Brazil
results in immigration by colonists on a large
scale to take up holdings along new roads within
the Amazon Basin. These colonists come from
different environments and lack the knowledge of
the native people in farming in a sustainable way
so ever increasing amounts of land need to be
cleared
Clear felling of large areas of rainforest for
heavily fertilised, single crop agriculture
rather than sustainable gardens of traditional
shifting cultivation. As soil productivity
decreases more and more land has to be cleared.
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RICE CULTIVATION IN KEDAH STATE, MALAYSIA

• Example of Intensive Peasant Agriculture
• Very high population densities (low death rate,
  high life expectancy)
• Humid tropics of South East Asia
• Traditionally subsistence agriculture but recent
  changes have led to increasing yields and have
  changed system to commercial agriculture
• Small holdings as land is at a premium, only
  one-two hectares often in scattered plots often
  some distance away from kampoongs (villages
  either along embankments or on islands within
  padis)
• (Figure 8.28, page 248)

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RICE CULTIVATION IN KEDAH STATE,
MALAYSIAREQUIREMENTS FOR CULTIVATION

• All year round growing season equatorial
  climate with monsoon influence provides a wet
  season in which rice grows and a dry season in
  which it ripens and can be harvested.
• High temperatures and small temperature range
  (difference between highest and lowest
  temperature)
• (Figure 8.30, Page 250)
• Flooded padi fields or sawahs to grow rice
• Dry months of January and February allow padi
  fields to dry out and rice to ripen
• Irrigation from Muda Irrigation Project allows
  padi fields to be flooded during dry season and
  allows two rice crops per year to be grown under
  more intensive modern cultivation.

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CLIMATE OF TRADITIONAL RICE CULTIVATION
Traditional one crop per year cultivation New
rice breeds allow two crops per year nowdadays
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Bunds small raised earth walls between padis
Transplanting rice plants by hand into flooded
padi fields
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Transplanting rice plants by hand into flooded
padi fields
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Growing rice in flooded padi during wet season
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Rice ripens during dry months of January and
February
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Ripe rice is harvested and dried before use
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Commercial Rice Cultivation

• Recent changes in cultivation have increased
  yield
• and rice cultivation is now and example of
• Intensive Peasant Commercial Agriculture.
• Using the information on Page 249 250 of Core
• Higher
• Summarise these changes in a spider diagram or as
  bullet points
• Summarise the effects of these changes on
• (i) the farming in Kedah and
• (ii) the lives of the rice farmers

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The Green Revolution

• Began in 1960 as a result of
• Research carried out at the International Rice
  Research Institute (I.R.R.I.) in the Philippines.
• Involved the development and use of short-stem
  (do not get damaged or flattened), high yielding
  cereals (rice, maize, wheat) with short growing
  seasons which enables two crops to be grown per
  year.
• Early success with IR8 rice, which has since been
  further improved.
• Increased and improved mechanisation
• Increased and improved irrigation and drainage
• Increased use of agro-chemicals
• Increased yields

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The Green Revolution

• Core Higher Page 254 Figure 8.38
• What were the main (i) aims and (ii) results of
  the
• recent rice breeding program at the I.R.R.I
• 2 In a table, summarise the main advantages
  (successes) and disadvantages (failures) of the
  Green Revolution, in terms of productivity,
  equability and sustainability.

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The Green Revolution

• The future Green Revolution must be
• Sustainable
• Accessible to all needy people in the Developing
  World, and
• Environmentally friendly
• Sustainability can be achieved by a variety of
  agricultural technologies
• Using Figure 8.39 on Page 255 detail some of
  these technologies

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GRAIN FARMING ON NORTH AMERICAN PRAIRIES

• Example of Extensive Commercial Farming
• Extends from northern Mexico through midwestern
  USA and into Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and
  Alberta)
• As you move northwards the growing season gets
  shorter (300 in the south to less than 100 days
  in Canadian Prairies)
• Rainfall decreases westwards
• Farm size increases westwards, because the
  climate becomes more difficult so more land has
  to be farmed in order to maintain yields.
• Crops from south to north are cotton winter
  wheat maize spring wheat in the north

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Grain Farming on North American Prairies

• Very geometric settlement/ landscape pattern
• Major immigration 120yrs ago and settlers were
  given a 64 hectare plot. At this time agriculture
  was intensive, however now farms have been
  amalgamated into larger units and Plains
  agriculture is now extensive.

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Grain Farming on North American Prairies

• Marginal climate for farming because of short
  growing season and low variable annual rainfall.
• Droughts are common
• Very cold winters, temps of -15 to -20ºC not
  uncommon.
• Irrigation is necessary
• By early 20th Century many farms had failed

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Grain Farming on North American Prairies

• Early 20th Century
• Farm sizes had increased extensive agriculture
• Improved agricultural technologies
• Steel plough, disc harrow, reaper, binder
• Pumps and windmills made irrigation easier as
  water was pumped from aquifers (underground water
  reserves within permeable rocks)
• New strains of fast growing spring wheat were
  imported from Steppes of Russia (Russian wheat
  growing plains)