13.2.6: Agriculture around the world

Agriculture around the World

Farming outside North America is different, but still subject to the same climatic constraints and market logics that shape agriculture in the US and Canada. Some foreign agribusinesses compete with farmers in North America, but the majority of farmers in the world engage only in subsistence agriculture, a type of farming designed to feed only the farmer’s family, rather than the international marketplace. In some parts of Africa and Asia, over 80% of the population is engaged in subsistence farming. Still, food shortages are common in many parts of the world. By comparison, in the US, agricultural workers account for only 2% of the workforce, yet food is somewhat abundant, leaving the rest of the population to pursue other activities.

Agricultural success and failures are easy to find. Food shortages occur in many countries because the population of many regions has exceeded the local carrying capacity of the land. Unfortunately, too many people live in regions of the world where poor soils and harsh climates limit agricultural productivity. Despite harsh climates and poor soils, farmers in some developing countries, have developed highly efficient farming techniques uniquely adapted to local conditions. Agricultural economists have suggested that some techniques, including slash-and-burn, and wet rice farming are more productive per acre or unit of energy than the best US farms.

Herding and Ranching

In the places where there is not enough rain or it’s too cold for field crops, livestock production predominates. Many regions focus on cattle ranching as we do in the drylands of the US, but sheep ranching is more popular in regions where the British colonial influences linger. Pastoralism is a nomadic herding alternate to ranching occupying large stretches of our planet’s lands ill-suited for crop agriculture. Nomadic herding requires those who tend herds of animals (e.g., cattle, sheep, reindeer, etc.) to move frequently in search of grazing pastureland. Without constant migration, herds may overgraze the land, causing livestock and people to starve. Pastoralism can only support a small population, so it is the world’s most land-extensive form of agriculture.

Wet Rice Cultivation

Rice feeds more people on earth than any other crop. Billions rely on rice as the main staple of their diet. The great rice production areas of the world are in South and East Asia, where the seasonal monsoons and quality soils make it a logical agricultural option. Americans grow rice too, mainly on irrigated acreage in California and the Mississippi Delta, using advanced machinery, and even airplanes, for seeding. Not only is most Asian rice still planted, weeded, harvested, and processed by hand, but there is also a significant amount of manual labor involved in the maintenance of the rice paddies to keep water in the fields at an ideal depth to ensure that rice matures properly. Luckily, for those who depend on rice for sustenance, it is a wildly productive plant, capable of massive caloric yields per acre. In the last two generations, thanks to scientific advancements in rice genetics and fertilizer science, known as the Green Revolution, rice farmers in Asia often harvest fields twice or even three times per year, vastly increasing yields over the levels known in the 1940s. Asian rice cultivation remains exceptionally labor-intensive and land-intensive– making it the opposite of nomadic pastoralism which requires few people and supports few.

Figure: Cambodia. Agricultural laborers work to plant rice in a flooded "paddy". The water functions mainly to inhibit weed growth. Sometimes fish are intercropped in the field, helping control mosquitoes and providing protein.

Because rice provides only carbohydrates, people living in wet rice regions must supplement their diets to remain healthy. So many Asians, even those living in big cities, maintain intensively cultivated vegetable gardens. Paddy rice farmers also practice a type of intercropping by introducing fish and other forms of aquaculture into fields. By putting fish that eat bugs into rice paddies, farmers can reduce both pesticide and fertilizer costs while adding dietary protein and a commodity they can sell at local markets. As a bonus, fish also eat mosquito larvae, helping reduce the instance of mosquito-borne diseases, like malaria.

Rice Paddies and Math Tests

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The story of success. Hachette UK, 2008.

RICE AND MATH SCORES

Paddy rice farming may also contribute to the success of Asians on math tests as well. At least that’s the argument forwarded by Malcolm Gladwell a journalist who writes best selling books that explain a variety of cultural phenomena with statistical analyses, and often, the spatial logic of geography. One theory Gladwell forwards is that Asians may be good at math because many Asian societies have long engaged in labor-intensive wet rice cultivation. The theory goes that over centuries wet rice cultivation taught Asians cultural lessons about the value of burdensome work in the rice paddies. The intense work ethic embraced by communities living in wet rice regions can be applied to other burdensome activities, like learning math. Alternatively, people from regions where agricultural abundance traditional comes without intense effort, it became easier to not recognize the relationship between effort and reward. This theory is an attempt to replace a racial or genetic narrative with a narrative about cultural practice. Geographers often argue that cultural and physical environments have a significant influence upon each other, but the specter of environmental determinism continues to prohibit many geographers from fully embracing ideas like Gladwell’s. It’s a reminder to keep in mind the logical pitfalls associated with the ecological fallacy.

Slash-and-Burn – Shifting Cultivation

Very different from wet rice farming is slash and-burn agriculture, also known as swidden or milpa farming. Whereas wet rice farming predominates in monsoonal climates, requires good soils, a substantial labor force, and is capable of feeding millions, slash and burn farming is practiced exclusively in equatorial rainforestclimates where poor soils support only small populations.

Slash-and-burn is practiced in rainforest areas because soils there are leached by excessive rainfall, a process that removes soil nutrients essential for farming. To add nutrients, farmers cut down patches of forest, allow the felled vegetation to dry, then burn the logs and debris. The ashes of the burnt plants are worked into the depleted soil as fertilizer. Each burnt field remains somewhat fertile for a few years before the rains once again leach away soil nutrients. When soils grow infertile, farmers must begin the process anew in a nearby field. Farmers must leave exhausted fields fallow for several years so the forest can regrow. Eventually, farmers can return to the regrown patches of forest and begin the process once again. This type of farming requires much land, but luckily very little labor, so it is characterized as a land rotation system (rather than a crop rotation system), and it is an example of land extensive farming. Remarkably, because slash and burn farming requires so few laborers, and minimal effort to produce a crop, this kind of farming is characterized as exceptionally caloric efficient.

Figure: Quiche Guatemala - Typical of the three sisters field cropping system. Corn (maize), beans and squash grow in this field. Note the way in which weeds have also grown along the walkway where squash leaves have not shaded them to death. Source: Wikimedia

Slash and burn farming has also proven to be sustainable in locations where the population relying on it remains small. For thousands of years, people living in the rainforests of Asia, Africa, and Latin America used slash-and-burn agriculture without seriously threatening the ability of the fragile soils to produce food. However, explosive population growth in many of these regions threatens precious rainforest reserves as farmers burn ever larger patches of forest and shorten fallow intervals. Inga Alley Cropping, or planting crops between rows of nitrogen-fixing Inga trees, offers an intriguing alternative to slash and burn, that preserves forest cultures.

Figure: India – Farmers recently cleared this land for cropping. Done occasionally, it’s OK, but population growth makes this practice unsustainable. Source: Wikimedia.

In the Americas, slash and burn farmers often plant within the same field the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash. These plants offer an ingenious solution to a variety of agricultural and dietary problems. Corn provides carbohydrates to the diet and supports bean plant vines. Beans provide protein to the diet, often deficient in poor regions of the world where fish and/or game are scarce. Beans also are nitrogen fixers, meaning they help fertilize the soil for the corn and squash. Vitamins and minerals are provided by the squash, and the broad leaves of squash plants help preserve soil moisture while discouraging weed growth. Some also believe that when intercropped (planted together in the same field), the three sisters create a sort of natural pesticide. After the harvest, farmers plow dying plants back into the ground to fertilize the poor soils.