Agriculture

Weeks 21 - 24

Essential Questions

• How are agricultural practices influenced by the physical environment and climatic conditions?
• What is the difference between intensive and extensive farming, and what types of practices are involved with each?
• How do specific agricultural practices shape different rural land-use patterns?
• What are the different rural settlement patterns, and how are rural surveys conducted?
• Where are the early hearths of the domestication of plants and animals?
• How do patterns of diffusion, such as the Columbian Exchange, result in the global distribution of various plants and animals?
• What is the relationship between new technology and increased food production in the second agricultural revolution?
• What positive and negative consequences did the Green Revolution produce for both human populations and the environment?
• How are agricultural production regions defined?
• What is the difference between intensive and extensive agricultural practices?
• Why are large-scale commercial agricultural operations replacing small family farms?
• How do complex commodity chains link production and consumption of agricultural products?
• How has technology increased economies of scale in the agricultural sector and the carrying capacity of the land?
• How does Von Thunen's model help explain rural land use?
• Why have some countries become highly dependent on on or more export commodities?
• What are the main elements of global food distribution networks, and how are they affected by political relationships, infrastructure, and patterns of world trade?
• What are some of the environmental and societal effects of agriculture?
• What are the challenges of feeding a global population, and how is humanity trying to counter these challenges?
• Why does the role of females in food production, distribution, and consumption vary throughout the world?

I can...

• Explain the connection between physical geography and agricultural practices.
• Identify different rural settlement patterns and methods of surveying rural settlements.
• Identify major concepts of domestication of plants and animals.
• Explain how plants and animals diffused globally.
• Explain the advances and impacts of the second agricultural revolution.
• Explain the consequences of the Green Revolution on food supply and the environment in the developing world.
• Explain how economic forces influence agricultural practices.
• Describe how the Von Thunen model is used to explain patterns of agricultural production at various scales.
• Explain the interdependence among regions of agricultural production and consumption.
• Explain how agricultural practices have environmental and societal consequences.
• Explain challenges and debates related to the changing nature of contemporary agriculture and food-production practices.
• Explain geographic variations in female roles in food production and consumption.

Standards

• SS.Geog3.a.h - Assess how and why consumption of resources (e.g., petroleum, coal, electricity, steel, water, food) differs between developed and developing countries now and in the past.
• SS.Geog5.b.h - Hypothesize how changes in human behavior (e.g., organic agriculture, Genetically Modified Organisms, ecotourism) can result in changes that have effects on a global scale.