Agricultural Systems of the World – UGC NET – Notes

Agriculture is the most fundamental form of human activity. It includes not only the cultivation of crops, but also the domestication of animals. It is practised in different regions of the world, particularly, in river valleys and where irrigation is possible; it is also practiced under multiple combinations of physical and socio-economic conditions, which gives rise to different types of agricultural system.

An area or region with similar functional attributes is termed as agricultural system as a widen term which emphasize on the functional attributes. An agricultural system may be single farm or group of interrelated farms having similarities of agricultural attributes.

Definitions

Definition of Agriculture:

“Agriculture is defined as the purposeful tending of crops & livestock.” –M. Carty & Limberg

Definition of Region:

“Region is that place on the earth surface which has some homogenous critea.” –D. E. Jong

Definition of Agricultural Region:

“Agricultural Region is an uninterrupted area having some kind of homogeneity withspecifically defined outer limit.”—Whittlesey (1936)

Whittlesey World Agricultural Systems/Region

Whittlesey World Agricultural Systems/Region: An area with similar functional attributes is as an agricultural region. The demarcation of agricultural region is also seriously constrained by the none availability of reliable data on the various aspects of agricultural patterns. The first scientific attempt for the Whittlesey in his proper. Major agricultural regions of the Earth published in 1936 in the annals of Association of American geographers (vol.26: 199-240) Whittlesey in his monumental paper delineated the agricultural system of the earth on the following five characteristics of agriculture-

1. The crop livestock association
2. The methods used to grow the crops produce the stock
3. The intensity of application to the land of labor capital organization the out turn of product which results
4. The disposal of the products for consumption
5. The ensemble of structures used to house facilitate the faring operations.

With the Boris of above indicators Whittlesey has identified the following types of agricultural system regions-

1. Nomadic herding
2. Livestock ranching
3. Shifting cultivation
4. Rudimentary tillage
5. Intensive subsistence tillage (with paddy dominance)
6. Commercial plantation
7. Intensive subsistence tillage (without paddy dominance)
8. Mediterranean agriculture
9. Commercial grain farming
10. Commercial livestock and crop farming
11. Subsistence crop & livestock farming.
12. Commercial dairy farming
13. Specialized horticulture