5.1 Global Agricultural Systems and Environmental Interdependence

Module 33 Glossary of Key Terms 

Agriculture

The planting and harvesting of domesticated plants and the raising of domesticated animals for food.

Arid Climate

A dry climate that receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain annually.

Cash Crop

A crop raised specifically to be sold for profit rather than for consumption by the farmer's family or livestock.

Cereal Grains

Seeds from a wide variety of grasses cultivated globally, including wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, oats, and maize.

Climate

The average pattern of weather for a particular region, typically calculated over a 30-year period.

Commercial Agriculture

Farming oriented exclusively toward the production of agricultural commodities for sale in the market.

Domesticated Plant

A plant deliberately planted and cared for by humans that is genetically distinct from its wild ancestors.

Extensive Agriculture

Systems of crop cultivation and livestock rearing that require little hired labor or monetary investment relative to the land used.

Feedlot

A fenced enclosure used for intensive livestock feeding to limit movement and maximize weight gain before slaughter.

Grain Farming

A highly mechanized commercial system specializing in cereal grain production, often requiring large land units and synthetic inputs.

Intensive Agriculture

Agricultural systems that require high levels of labor and capital investment relative to the size of the landholding.

Intercropping

The agricultural practice of planting multiple different crops together in the same clearing.

Livestock Ranching

The commercial practice of using extensive tracts of land to rear herds of livestock for the sale of meat, hides, or wool.

Market Gardening

A small-scale farming system producing a diverse mixture of vegetables and fruits, primarily for local and regional markets.

Monocropping

The process of growing the same single crop on the same piece of land every year.

Monsoon

A seasonal reversal of winds, bringing heavy onshore rains in the summer and offshore flows in the winter.

Nomadic Herding

Also known as pastoralism; a system of breeding and rearing domesticated animals by moving them across expansive open pasturelands.

Paddy Rice Farming

A system of wet rice cultivation on small, level fields bordered by watertight dikes, common in humid tropical and subtropical Asia.

Peasants

Small-scale farmers in the developing world who own their fields, rely on family labor, and produce crops for both subsistence and market sale.

Plantation

A large landholding devoted to capital-intensive, specialized production of a single tropical or subtropical crop for the global market.

Root Crops

Vegetables that form below the ground and must be dug at maturity, such as cassava, yams, and potatoes.

Shifting Cultivation

The cultivation of a plot of land until it becomes less productive, followed by a move to a new plot cleared by slash-and-burn methods.

Subsistence Agriculture

Food production primarily for the consumption of the farming family and local community.

Topography

The arrangement of physical shapes and landforms (mountains, plains, valleys) on the Earth's surface.

Transhumance

A vertical or horizontal pattern of moving livestock between different elevations or regions according to seasonal availability of pasture.

Truck Farm

A large-scale version of market gardening with more acreage and less diversity, focused on national or global markets.

Weather

The day-to-day atmospheric conditions that influence short-term daily decisions.