COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE

Agribusiness: An industrialized, corporate formOf agriculture, organized into networksOf agricultural product controlled by asmall number of large corporations (agricultureas business).

Production Controls:

-law of supply and demand-production costs (fuel, fertilizer, labor costs,equipment, transportation)

Examples:– wheat with a minimum protein content– popping corn with certain features– potatoes demanded by fast food chains

like McDonald’s

Globalization of Farming (1/2)

• “Contract” farming: an agreement between a buyer and farmers, It establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product(s). Example: the farmer agrees to provide established quantities of a specific agricultural product, meeting the quality standards and delivery schedule set by the purchaser. In turn, the buyer commits to purchase the product, often at a pre-determined price. In some cases the buyer also commits to support production through, for example, supplying land preparation, providing technical advice and arranging transport of produce to the buyer’s premises.

• often core country agribusinesses • the largest companies are U.S. companies (ConAgra, Delmonte, Green Giant)

Globalization of Farming (2/2)

– Can be helpful to small (foreign) farmers:• advice• seeds• fertilizers• machinery• profit

Deforestation

• Removal of a forest or trees where the land is then converted to a no forest use. Examples: conversion of forestland to agriculture or urban use.

• The term is often misused to describe any activity where all trees in an area are removed.

Subsidy (AKA a subvention)

• A form of financial assistance paid to a business or economic sector.

• Most are made by the government to producers (or distributors) in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase (to control) in the prices of its products (sugar).

• Examples:

1. subsidies to encourage the sale of exports (wheat).

2. subsidies on some (rice) to keep down the cost of living,

3. subsidies to encourage the expansion of farm production and achieve self-reliance.

                                         

      "Once, many companies owned silos in Paraquay," says Angelica Ramirez. "Now they are all Cargill."

Three US firms - United Brands, Castle and Cooke and Del Monte , control 61 per cent of the global banana trade.

Specialty Crops

- Crops that specialize in one (or two or…) products.

-It is intensive farming, away from city centers

-EXs:

1. “Mediterranean” agriculture: grapes, olives, oranges, figs, some vegetables.

2. “Plantation” crops: rubber, tea, cane sugar, coffee, bananas (mostly coastal-why?).

Intensive Commercial Agriculture …

-post-WW II (and even prior to) mass production (heavymachinery, chemicals, irrigation).

-Truck farms: commercial gardening & fruit farming,usually of highly perishable products, so named becauseTRUCK was a MIDDLE ENGLISH word meaningbartering or the exchange of products or commodities (agood for which there is demand across a market ).Examples: ???

(BTW…RE: “livestock-grain farming” … W. Europe andUS provide 75% of all crops feed livestock!)

Extensive Commercial Agriculture:

• -cheaper land, larger farms, distance from city

• EX: wheat farming (#1 extensively farmed crop, accounts for 20% of all calories consumed by people)

• “spring” harvest (Dakotas, E. Montana, and Canada)

• “winter” harvest (Kansas, Argentina, Kazakhstan, W. Siberia, W. Australia)

What is a model?

A description of a system, theory, or phenomenon.

Examples: atom model, airplane model, and…

Model of Agricultural LocationVon Thünen’s Model (1/2)

AKA Von Thunen’s Ring. First proposed in 1826;later modified. He was a German farmer.

Thesis: A (commercial) farmer first thinks aboutwhich crops to cultivate & which animals to raisebased on market location.

Von Thünen’s Model (2/2)

Model components:

-concentric (having a common center) land use rings around urban centers

-as distance from the market increases, land valuedecreases

-perishable crops are closest to the market or city

-the higher the transport cost, the lower the rent

El Fin (for now …)

Eastern Woodlands Indian (Algonquian) Life