GEOG 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Overgrazing, Crop Insurance, Export Subsidy
Document Summary
Agriculture: the deliberate modiicaion of the earth"s surface through culivaion of plants and rearing of animals to obtain sustenance or economic gain. Modern humans have been around for at least 200,000 years: agriculture for 10-20,000 years. Cultural factors: preference for permanent setlements, increasing populaion, feasing model, increased knowledge of how plants and animals develop, discovery of advantages of culivaion. Nikolai i. vavilov looked for centers of diversity, which he believed were also centers of domesicaion. R. harlan deined three centers: the near east, northern china, and meso america. Three non-centers: se asia, s. america and africa. Most people today get most of their calories from grains: corn, wheat, rice. Subsistence vs commercial agriculture: purpose: consumpion vs of-farm sale, farm size: small vs large, percentage of farmers: majority vs minority of populaion, machinery: mostly hand vs mostly mechanized. Tractors, culivators, milking machines: farms and other industries: mostly isolated vs highly integrated.
