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11.1 - Agricultural systems and food production - content
11.1 - Agricultural systems and food production - content
Factors (physical, social, economic, political) affecting agricultural land use and practices on farms: the roles of irrigation, land tenure, the nature of demand and distance from markets, and agricultural technology.
The concept of an agricultural system with inputs, throughputs, subsystems and output: one arable system and one pastoral system.
Intensive and extensive production and agricultural productivity.
Issues in the intensification of agriculture and the extension of cultivation.
Von Thunen's theory of Agricultural Location
Von Thunen's theory of Agricultural Location
The agricultural location theory was first presented by Johann von Thünen in 1826 in a book. The theory is based on the concept of Economic Rent which is prevalent in farm market distance relationships. The agricultural location theory is one of the earliest attempts to explain the pattern of land use in economic terms. Von Thunen’s location theory on agriculture is based on the study of an agriculture field in Germany.
The main aims of the Von Thunen Model of Agriculture were to explain why and how agricultural land use pattern varies when we go away from the market. It also explains the hierarchy of agricultural crops based on profit-making capacity.
Von Thunen - Assumptions
Von Thunen - Assumptions
The Von Thunen Model, like all models, made certain basic assumptions, these were:
1. There is a single market place with no connections; this theory was called the isolated state. Is this a likely real-life situation?
2. Homogeneous physical environment (isotropic surface)
3. Uniform labour costs
4. Transportation is equally possible in all directions
5. Transportation costs are directly related to distance
6. Farmers are rational and opt for those types of agriculture that produce the greatest locational rent
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