chapter 10 agriculture. quick review primary economic activities: closest to the ground, for...

Chapter 10

Agriculture

Quick ReviewPrimary Economic Activities: Closest to the ground, for example—agriculture, ranching, fishing, mining etc.

Secondary Economic Activities: take a primary product and manufacture it…change it into something else such as toys, ships, processed food, buildings…etc.

Tertiary Economic Activities: Part of the service industry. Bankers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, salespeople etc.

First Agricultural Revolution

•The planned cultivation of seed crops.

•Sowing, watering, harvesting

•Fertile Crescent

Subsistence Agriculture in the Modern World

What does subsistence farming mean?

• In the strictest sense—only grow enough to survive

• Today we use it to describe societies where farmers, with small plots sometimes sell a few pounds of grain on the market, but where poverty is a way of life

Second Agricultural Revolution

• Similar to the Industrial Revolution in that this was composed of a series of innovations, improvements, and techniques that would generate the kinds of surpluses needed to feed thousands of people who worked the factories instead of the fields.

Von Thünen's Model of Land Use

• Early in the 19th century Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1783-1850) developed a model of land use that showed how market processes could determine how land in different locations would be used.

• Von Thünen was a skilled farmer who was knowledgeable in economics.

Think of a bulls eye!

• Nearest the town, farmers produced commodities that were perishable and commanded high prices, such as dairy products and strawberries.

• At this level, Von Thunen believed agriculture would be produced with a high level of intensity.

It is simplest to explain von Thünen's model in terms of agricultural land use but it is not limited to that land use.

Suppose the land surrounding a city market can be used for:

•truck farms for growing tomatoes

•orchards for growing apples

•wheat farms

The costs for transporting the crops from these uses differ. Let bx be the cost for transporting the product of one acre of land use x a distance of one mile. Furthermore, suppose

b tomatoes> bapples > bwheat

Let us now plot a graph in which the horizontal axis is the distance from the city and the vertical axis is the land rent that a user can pay.

Consider first the land rent tomato growers can pay at various distances from the city.

Farmers at greater distances can pay only a lower rent because of the higher transportation costs for hauling their product to the city.

Intensive or Extensive?

• Tomatoes

• Corn

• Dairy products

• Wheat

• Strawberries

• Potatoes

Pros and Cons of Genetically Modified Food

genetically-modified foods: food plants that have been genetically altered by the addition of foreign genes to enhance a desired trait.

Benefits

•Crops

•Enhanced taste and quality

•Reduced maturation time

•Increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance

•Improved resistance to disease, pests, and herbicides

•New products and growing techniques

• Animals

• Increased resistance, productivity, hardiness, and feed efficiency

• Better yields of meat, eggs, and milk

• Improved animal health and diagnostic methods

•Environment

•"Friendly" bioherbicides and bioinsecticides

•Conservation of soil, water, and energy

•Bioprocessing for forestry products

•Better natural waste management

•More efficient processing

•Society

•Increased food security for growing populations

Controversies

•Safety

•Potential human health impacts, including allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unknown effects

•Potential environmental impacts, including: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity

•Access and Intellectual Property

•Domination of world food production by a few companies

•Increasing dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries

•Biopiracy, or foreign exploitation of natural resources

•Ethics

•Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values

•Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species

•Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa

•Stress for animal

•Labeling

•Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)

•Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts

•Society

•New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries

Agribusiness: a company that exists to make money off of

Agriculture

The End……or is it?

Definitely watch the Bill Nye Video, and for fun watch “Store Wars” and “The Meatrix”