The Great Plains

Commercial Agriculture In

North Dakota and Nebraska

What is Commercial Agriculture?

• Commercial Agriculture is farming that is intended for sale off of the farm. In North America this is a large-scale production, also called AGRI-BUSINESS.

• Farmers grow crops on a large-scale for sale to food production companies.

• Let’s look at some seeds of crops grown in North Dakota.

You now have a set of these seeds in front of you. Can you match them to their names?

• Sunflower• Durum• Flax• Soybeans• Spring wheat• Summer wheat• Canola• Oats• Corn• Field peas• Barley• rye

How well did you match?

These are crops that are grown in North DakotaSome statistics: The most staggering statistic-

90% of the land in N.D. is farmed and would cover 12 million city blocks.

This is what canola looks like.

This is what flax looks like.

Looking at these scenes of canola and flax fields, what is the

difference between LDC and MDC farming?

SCALE

Let’s switch to wheat. North Dakota is the 4th state from the left. Nebraska is two states down from North Dakota. Notice the

difference in wheat production in the two states.

Much of the wheat grown in the Great Plains is stored by our government and sometimes sent to ease hunger in LDCs.

These are combines that reap the grain to take to the grain elevators.

One farmer’s farm in Makato, North DakotaThe farmer was an accountant and his wife was a teacher in an all grades school house

for the town of Makato, population 100. Farming his 3,000 acres was a side job.

Looking at the clues of the previous slide as to the spatial distribution of

farming, what is the spatial analysis of commercial farms in the Great Plains

of North America?

Rural - Dispersed

Grains are grown, reaped with combines and then taken to the grain elevator to be refined where it is

then taken to the market.

Another view of the grain elevator.

Grains taken from the elevator to a vehicle for shipment.

What type of economic activity is farming?

• In Less Developed Countries, when people farm for themselves or for their villages then it is a primary economic activity. Their countries are more agricultural than industrialized. They are in stage 2 of the demographic transition model.

BUT when you refer to agriculture in More Developed Countries, this is a large-scale production, commercial agriculture.

What type of economic activity is farming in an MDC?

• Farming in MDC’s is considered a multi-faceted production.- Farmers are extracting from the earth= a primary economic

activity-Farmers process their crops or cattle= a secondary activity-Farmers sell it= a tertiary activity-Farmers use high-tech equipment to follow yields, use research

to develop and use high-tech pesticides and fertilizers, and use computers to analyze their profit margins= quaternary economic activities

…………..In other words, Agriculture in MDCs is BIG BUSINESS…and a combination of all types of economic activities. When a farm controls all facets of production it is called VERTICAL INTEGRATION.

What’s the difference?

More Developed Countries• In MDCs, only 2% of the

workforce are farmers yet the farms use more land.

• In MDCs, farming is big business called agri-business. Most farmers farm for a food processing company. The gov’t can subsidize and pay you to grow specific crops to manage crop prices.

Less Developed Countries• In LDCs, 60% of the

workforce are farmers.• In LDCs, farming is done for

the family to eat and survive.

• Farm size is small.• LDCs can be used for

plantation farming by MDCs. Buy “fair trade” products to support LDC workers

A quiz on economic activities for farming in New Zealand and the United States. Determine which type of economic activity each section of the

commodity chain is for beef production.

Let’s see if you correctly answered the first piece. In New Zealand the first piece of the commodity chain is finance. Finance would be a service, would

fall under a tertiary economic activity more specifically a quaternary economic activity. Remember tertiary includes quaternary and quinary

economic activities, they are more specialized.Now complete the rest of the chain for New Zealand by yourself.

Maize or Corn

• Like wheat corn moves from a few production areas to a small number of consumption zones

• Corn differs from wheat in that most of it is not consumed directly by humans

• Many industrial uses of corn oil and sweeteners.

• New interest in corn as fuel additive

US Corn Belt

• Historic pattern of growing grain to feed livestock ( cattle, hogs, poultry)

• Crops grown in rotation. – First corn and small grains and alfalfa – Now corn and soybeans

• Separation of grain and animal production

Corn raised to feed cattle:Grain and mixed livestock

2008: Corn raised for ethanol production for alternative fuel

Industrial production• A large expansion in ethanol production is

underway in the United States, spurred by high oil prices and energy policies.

• Although corn is the primary feedstock used to produce ethanol in the United States, market adjustments to the ethanol expansion extend well beyond the corn sector.

• Adjustments in the agricultural sector to

increased demand for bio-fuels will continue as interest in renewable sources of energy grows.

Anticipated growth

• U.S. ethanol production climbed to almost 5 billion gallons in 2006, up nearly 1 billion gallons from 2005.

• Despite the speed and magnitude of this increase, the industry is stepping up the pace of expansion, with production expected to top 10 billion gallons by 2009.

Projected growth

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/mexico_2008/

Production in the past

New industrial landscape

Geography of Cattle

• Distribution of cattle highly regionalized• Concentration in India results from cultural

patterns• Nomadic herding patterns still visible in the

geography of cattle.• Ranching areas in colonial zones still visible

Different ways to determine the spatial distribution of cattle

Beef cows

Dairy farming

How has dairy farming changed??Small family farms to agribusiness

US milk consumption/capita is declining

Cheese consumption/capita increasing

Demand for time-saving convenience foods is a major force behind this growth in cheese consumption

• 2001, Americans consumed 30 pounds of cheese per person, 8 times more than they did in 1909 and more than twice as much as they did in 1975.

• Most of increase due to use of Italian cheese in pizza pie

• More than half (about 55 percent to 65 percent) of our cheese now comes in commercially manufactured and prepared foods (including for food service), such as fast food sandwiches and packaged snack foods.

• New products, such as re-sealable bags of shredded cheeses, have also raised consumption.

U.S. per capita consumption of ice cream reached an all-time high of 23 pounds (more than 20 quarts per

person) in 1946

Tastes in ice cream changed

– As more prepackaged ice cream was sold through supermarkets, traditional ice cream parlors and soda fountains started to disappear.

– Also during this period, average consumption of other frozen dairy products, such as sherbet and reduced-fat ice cream, increased.

– Since 1988, Americans, on average, have been eating a little less ice cream overall but more of the higher priced, higher milkfat premium and super premium ice creams as well as frozen yogurt and other frozen dairy products.

Organic milk major growth factor

• Dairy cows– 1992 12, 893– 2002 67,207– 2005 87,082

• Rate of change– 199201997 469%– 1997-2002 421%– 2002-2005 30%

There are several ways to raise cattle or herds for meat consumption in North America.

www.themeatrix.com

Themeatrix.com

This picture was taken near Lincoln, Nebraska as an example of MDC farming. What elements do you see?

Irrigation, haystacks, and corn fields as far as the eye can see. What you can’t imagine is the horrific smell. It was the smell of silage, a food grown to feed cattle, yet there

were no cows in sight! Silage is green corn ground up mixed with molasses, put in silos or put in a rectangular hole in the ground which is called a silage pit. It is opened at

the top and one end, when it rains, the water mixes with the silage and sometimes it runs out. A tarp is put over the pit and the heat from the sun causes the silage to

ferment and rot. Farmers with more money use silos, farmers with less money dig pits. That is what you smell. Imagine the worst bathroom in a national park smell and

then amplify it about 10 times.

BUT LOW AND BEHOLD, we drove up 100 yards and look what we found!! This is a feedlot: A large-scale production designed to

pen up cattle to fatten for slaughter. (Hence the silage smell)

This is the same feedlot showing the facility. These are silos that the silage is stored in.

What happens here?

• Cattle are kept in feedlots, raised on grain grown to feed them, and then slaughtered and sold to food companies. This is a large-scale production and just a snapshot of one company or family’s operation. Yes, there are small farms that grow cattle and crops for a much smaller-scale production, where the animals are treated more humanely.

Genetically Engineered Foods What are they? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/programs/28gm_harvest.html

Teacher’s Guide to “Harvest of Fear” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/

• U.S. farmers have rapidly adopted genetically engineered (GE) soybeans, cotton, and corn with herbicide tolerance (HT) and/or insect resistance (Bt) traits over the 12-year period following commercial introduction

Industrial crops best suited to GE

• In the U.S., adoption of HT soybeans has expanded faster and more widely than that of other GE crops, reaching 91 percent of soybean acreage in 2007.

• The second most widely adopted GE crop, HT cotton, was planted on 70 percent of cotton acreage.

Biotechnology

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/27/purple-tomatoes.html

WORLDWIDE IMPACT

• More than 250 million acres of biotech crops with HT and/or Bt traits were planted in 22 countries in 2006,

• U.S. accounting for about 54 percent • Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India, China,

Paraguay, and South Africa together accounting for nearly 43 percent.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/08/soil-food-crisis.html

Response to biotechnology:Organic Farming

• Organic farming has been one of the fastest growing segments of U.S. agriculture for over a decade.

• The U.S. had under a million acres of certified organic farmland when Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

• By the time USDA implemented national organic standards in 2002, certified organic farmland had doubled, and doubled again between 2002 and 2005. Organic livestock sectors have grown even faster.

Rapid growth on small base

• While adoption of organic farming systems showed strong gains between 1992 and 2005 and the adoption rate remains high, the overall adoption level is still low—only about 0.5 percent of all U.S. cropland and 0.5 percent of all U.S. pasture was certified organic in 2005..

National Trend

• In 2005, for the first time, all 50 States in the U.S. had some certified organic farmland.

• 4.0 million acres of farmland in organic production in 2005

• 1.7 million acres of cropland• 2.3 million acres of rangeland and pasture

• California remains the leading State in certified organic cropland, with over 220,000 acres, mostly for fruit and vegetable production.

• Other top states for certified organic cropland include North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Texas, and Idaho.

• USDA lifted restrictions on organic meat labeling in the late 1990s, and the organic poultry and beef sectors are now expanding rapidly.

Grass fed organic beef boom

• Over 40 States also had some certified organic rangeland and pasture in 2005,

• 4 states—Alaska, Texas, California and Montana—had more than 100,000 acres

Many U.S. producers are embracing organic farming

• to lower input costs, • conserve nonrenewable resources, • capture high-value markets,• boost farm income

Barriers to Diffusion

• high managerial costs• risks of shifting to a new way of farming,• limited awareness of organic farming systems,• lack of marketing and infrastructure,• inability to capture marketing economies.

Tastes good, more natural, costs more!

Resources• De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken,

NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. • Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, 2010. The

Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

• Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, 2008. Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

• Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, 2008. World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York.

• Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

• Benewick, Robert, & Donald, Stephanie H. (2005). The State of• China Atlas. Berkeley: University of California Press.