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?