AGRICULTURE BASICS
What is the science of growing plants and raising animals?
Answer: Agriculture
What term describes all business activities connected to agriculture?
Answer: Agribusiness
What is another name for corn?
Answer: Maize
Who invented the cotton gin?
Answer: Eli Whitney
What revolution involved the domestication of plants and animals?
Answer: First Agricultural Revolution
What are products sold to other countries called? What are the products brought into a country called?
Answer: Exports; Imports
What career area focuses on growing plants?
Answer: Horticulture
What are the Three Sisters?
Answer: Corn, beans, and squash
Who established the principles of genetics?
Answer: Gregor Mendel
What revolution is also called the Green Revolution?
Answer: Third Agricultural Revolution
What is the term for buying and selling commodities between countries?
Answer: International trade
What career area focuses on managing forests?
Answer: Forestry
What nutrient provides energy and includes starches and sugars?
Answer: Carbohydrates
What invention made it easier to separate cotton fibers from cotton seeds?
Answer: Cotton gin
What revolution involved increased mechanization and commercialization? Which similar revolution happened during this time in the world?
Answer: Second Agricultural Revolution; Industrial Revolution
Explain the difference between subsistence farming and intensive farming.
Answer: Subsistence farming produces mainly enough food or goods to meet the needs of the farmer's family, while intensive farming is large-scale commercial farming that uses heavy inputs and mechanization to maximize production and financial return.
Explain the difference between olericulture, pomology, and floriculture.
Answer: Olericulture focuses on vegetables, pomology focuses on fruits and nuts, and floriculture focuses on flowers and greenhouse crops.
Explain what stewardship means in agriculture and why it is important.
Answer: Stewardship means managing natural resources responsibly for both present and future generations. It is important because agriculture depends on resources such as soil, water, and air.
Explain how the mechanical reaper changed American agriculture.
Answer: The mechanical reaper made harvesting grain much faster and reduced the amount of manual labor needed to harvest crops, helping farmers produce more with less labor.
Explain how mechanization changed the number and size of farms in the United States.
Answer: As farms became more mechanized, fewer farms were needed to produce agricultural products, so the number of farms decreased while the average farm size increased.
Explain how agriculture affects people's quality of life and why agriculture is important beyond simply producing food.
Answer: Agriculture provides basic human needs such as food, clothing, and shelter, while also providing jobs, products, raw materials, and economic opportunities that contribute to people's overall quality of life.
Explain how supplies and services and marketing and processing are both parts of agribusiness.
Answer: Supplies and services provide farmers with things they need to produce agricultural products, such as equipment, seed, fertilizer, and services. Marketing and processing take agricultural products and turn them into products that consumers can use and purchase.
Explain the difference between carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water in the human body.
Answer: Carbohydrates provide energy, proteins support growth and repair, fats provide energy and help with energy storage, vitamins and minerals help regulate body functions, and water helps transport substances such as nutrients throughout the body.
Identify the three major agricultural developments associated with 1862 and explain why they were important to American agriculture.
Answer: The USDA, Homestead Act, and Morrill Act. The USDA supported American agriculture, the Homestead Act encouraged settlement and farming of western land, and the Morrill Act provided land for colleges that helped develop agricultural and mechanical education.
Explain the major changes that occurred during the Green Revolution and how those changes increased agricultural production.
Answer: The Green Revolution used high-yield crop varieties, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and improved technology. These developments allowed farmers to produce much larger amounts of food from agricultural land.