Subsistence Agriculture
Farming primarily to feed the household with little or no market surplus.
Agriculture TypesCommercial Agriculture
Farming for market sale, often large-scale and mechanized.
Agriculture TypesIntensive Agriculture
High inputs (labor/capital/fertilizer) per unit of land to maximize yield; common near markets.
Agriculture TypesExtensive Agriculture
Low inputs per unit of land over large areas; common far from markets.
Agriculture TypesShifting Cultivation
Slash-and-burn farming that moves to new plots when soil fertility declines; common in tropical forests.
Agriculture TypesPlantation Agriculture
Large tropical/subtropical estates producing a single export cash crop — coffee, sugar, bananas.
Agriculture TypesPastoral Nomadism
Herders moving animals seasonally across arid/semi-arid regions in search of pasture.
Agriculture TypesMediterranean Agriculture
Grapes, olives, citrus, wheat in regions with mild wet winters and hot dry summers.
Agriculture TypesVon Thünen Model
Model predicting concentric rings of agricultural land use around a central market based on transportation costs.
Agricultural ModelsBid Rent Theory
As distance from market increases, land value decreases — explaining Von Thünen's rings.
Agricultural ModelsGreen Revolution
Mid-20th-century package of high-yield seeds, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation that dramatically raised food production.
Agricultural RevolutionsNeolithic Revolution
First agricultural revolution — transition from hunter-gatherer to settled farming ~10,000 BCE.
Agricultural RevolutionsColumbian Exchange
Transfer of crops, animals, diseases, and ideas between the Americas and Old World after 1492.
Agricultural HistorySecond Agricultural Revolution
18th-19th century transformation through crop rotation, new tools, and selective breeding enabling industrialization.
Agricultural RevolutionsAgribusiness
Corporate integration of multiple stages of food production, processing, and distribution.
Commercial AgricultureMonoculture
Cultivation of a single crop species over a large area — efficient but ecologically vulnerable.
Commercial AgricultureCash Crop
Crop grown primarily for market sale rather than direct consumption — cotton, coffee, tobacco.
Commercial AgricultureFood Desert
Area lacking access to affordable, nutritious food — often in low-income urban or rural areas.
Food SecurityFood Sovereignty
The right of peoples to define their own food systems rather than having them shaped by global markets.
Food SecurityPrecision Agriculture
Use of GPS, drones, and sensors to optimize crop management at a fine spatial scale.
Agricultural TechnologyGMOs
Genetically modified organisms with DNA altered to improve yield, pest resistance, or drought tolerance.
Agricultural TechnologyDesertification
Process by which semi-arid land degrades into desert-like conditions — from overgrazing, deforestation, climate change.
Environmental ImpactsOrganic Farming
Agricultural production without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or GMOs.
Agricultural Technology