The History of Agriculture
Period during which the early domestication and diffusion of plants and animals and the cultivation of seed crops led to the development of agriculture
First Agricultural Revolution
Area located outside of towns and cities; all the space, population, and housing not included in an urban area
rural area
Extreme scarcity of food
famine
The act of mixing different species or varieties of plants or animals to produce hybrids
crossbreeding
The average pattern of weather over a 30-year period for a particular region
climate
Area in Southwest Asia that includes the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates; the earliest center for domestication of seed plants
Fertile Crescent
A tightly bunched farm settlement that has anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred inhabitants
clustered settlement or farm village
Area with limited access to fresh, nutritious foods
Large corporation that provides a vast array of goods and services to support the agriculture industry
agribusiness
The arrangement of shapes on Earth's surface
The long-term process through which humans selectively breed, protect, and care for individuals taken from populations of wild plant and animal species to create genetically distinct species
domestication
Explains how the demand for and price of land decrease as its distance from the central business district increases
bid-rent theory
Sections of a body of water where there is very little aquatic life
dead zones
A series of links connecting a commodity's many places of production, distribution, and consumption
commodity chain
The interaction and widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, disease, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Columbian Exchange
Seeds that come from a wide variety of grasses cultivated around the world, including wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, oats, and maize
cereal grains
Systematic documentation of property ownership, shape, use, and boundaries
cadastral survey
Consequence of overuse of fertilizer; occurs when excess nutrients seep down into groundwater or are carried into nearby waterways as runoff
nutrient pollution
Seeds that are developed and entirely owned by a company
proprietary seeds
intensive agriculture
The U.S.-supported development of high-yield seed varieties that increased the productivity of cereal crops and accompanying agricultural technologies for transfer to less developed countries
Green Revolution
A climate located along the equator that experiences rain every day of the year
The concentration of dissolved salts in the soil
soil salinization
Arrangement between an independent farmer and an agribusiness company to produce a crop; the agribusiness provides the farmer with all the supplies needed to produce a crop in exchange for a guaranteed price and buyer
contract farming
A system of breeding and rearing herd livestock, such as cattle, sheep, or goats, by following the seasonal movement of rainfall to areas of open pasturelands
nomadic pastoralism