The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography - Chapter 10 Key Terms

Agribusiness

Commecial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in food processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.

Agriculture

The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth's surface through the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain.

Cereal grain

A grass yielding grain for food.

Chaff

Husks of grain separated from the seed by threshing.

Combine

A machine that reaps, threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field.

Commercial agriculture

Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm.

Crop

Grain or fruit gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season.

Crop rotation

Practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.

Desertification

Degradation of land especially in semiarid area, primarily because of human actions like excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and free cutting.

Double cropping

Harvesting twice a year from the same field.

Grain

Seed of a cereal grass.

Green revolution

rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers.

Horticulture

The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

Hull

The outer covering of a seed.

Intensive subsistence agriculture

Farmers must expend a relative large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.

Milkshed

The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied.

Paddy

Malay word for wet rice.

Pastoral nomadism

Form of agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.

Pasture

Grass grown for feeding grazing animals.

Plantation

A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale.

Prime agricultural land

The most productive farmland.

Ranching

A form of agriculture in which livestock graze over an intensive area.

Reaper

A machine that cuts grain in a field.

Ridge tillage

A system of planting crops on ridge tops to reduce farm production costs, promotes soil conservation.

Sawah

A flooded field of growing rice.

Seed agriculture

Reproduction of plants through annual introduction of seeds.

Slash and burn agriculture

Another name for shifting cultivation, fields are cleared by slashing vegetables and burning debris.

Shifting cultivation

People shift actively from one field to another.

Spring wheat

Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer.

Subsistence agriculture

Designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family.

Sustainable agriculture

Farming method that preserves long-term productivity of land and minimizes pollution.

Swidden

A patch of land cleared for planting through slash and burn.

Thresh

To beat out grain from stalks by tramping it.

Transhumance

The seasonal migration of livestock between mountain and lowland pastures.

Truck farming

Commercial gardening and fruit farming named because truck meaning bartering.

Vegetative planting

Reproduction of plants by direct downing from existing plants.

Wet rice

Rice planted on dry land in a nursery then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth.

Winnow

To remove chaff by allowing it to be blown away by the wind.

Winter wheat

Wheat planted in the fall then harvested in the early summer.