Geography Glossary - Agriculture

Agribusiness	Large scale, intensive commercial farming.
Amalgamated Farms	Small farms joined together to make one large agricultural unit.
Arable Farm	Specialised in producing crops, e.g. wheat.
Buying in bulk	Negociating low prices by offering to buy very large quantities.
CAP	A policy used by the EU to control farming (Common Agricultural Policy)
Capital	Money available to invest.
Capital intensive	Activity which requires a lot of money.
Cash crop	Crops sold in the market for cash; often applied to crops grown in LEDCs which are exported to MEDCs.
Cereals	Crops where the seeds are the main product. E.g. wheat, corn, barley, oats …
Commercial farming	Farming for a profit.
Common Agricultural Policy	A policy used by the EU to control farming (CAP)
Compensation	Money paid to someone for loss of something or injury.
Contour ploughing	Ploughing to minimise down-slope run-off to prevet soil erosion.
Co-operative	Group of farmers which have joined together to share costs.
Crop rotation	Avoiding growing the same crop in the same field constantly.
Crops	Cereals, vegetables and fruit grown by people.
Cultivation	The growing of crops.
Dairy farm	Specialises in milk products.
Diversification	Trying not to specialise in only one product by offering other services, such as a farm shop, to make money.
Economies of scale	Savings gained by large scale production.
Environmentally sensitive areas	Set up as the result of concern over the influence of agriculture can have on the landscape, wildlife and historic features.
Extensive farm	One with low capital inputs; it usually covers a large area and has low output per hectare.
Factory farming	Keeping animals in intensive artificial conditions, indoors.
Fallow	A field left for a year with just grass.
Famine	A shortage of food causing malnutrition and hunger.
Farm Inputs	The investment necessary on a farm to produce food.
Farm Outputs	The product of a farm.
Feedback	The link between farm output and input, i.e. reinvestment of some of the profits, to buy new seed.
Fertiliser	Nutrients supplied to the soil.
Fodder	Crops grown to feed animals.
Free range	Allowing animals to move about a sizeable area.
Green revolution	The improvement of crop productivity in LEDCs.
Harvest	Recollection of the crop.
Herbicide	Poisonous chemicals applied to crops to kill weeds.
Hybrids	A new high yielding plant variety obtained by the cross pollination of different plants.
Intensive farming	One with high capital and/or labour outputs, small area of land and high outputs.
Irrigation	The artificial watering of land.
Labour-intensive	Where many workers are required.
Land degradation	The deterioration of the land due to soil erosion, desertification or salinisation.
Livestock	Animals for food production.
Marginal land	Land of poor quality.
Mixed farms	One which produces crops and animals.
Monoculture	A farming system where a single crop is grown continuously in the same field.
Nomadic farmer	Livestock farmers who move around for at least a part of the year.
Over-cultivation	The excesive use of farmland causing productivity to fall due to soil exhaustion.
Overgrazing	The destruction of the protective vegetation cover by having too many animals grazing upon it.
Paddy field	Flooded field where rice is grown.
Peasant farming	Small scale farming in LEDCs.
Pesticide	Poisonous chemicals applied to crops to kill pests.
Plantation	Large farming in the tropics where one main cash crop is grown.
Ploughing	Process of turning the soil over to be able to seed.
Poultry farming	Bird farming.
Process	The activity that takes place on a farm. E.g. harvesting.
Quotas	Restriction on the ammount that can be produced.
Ranching	Production of beef on a large scale.
Reclaimed land	An area of drained land.
Salinisation	The accumulation of salts in the soil often caused by irrigation and can make the land useless.
Sedentary farmer	Farmers remain in the same place throughout the year.
Shifting cultivation	Moving to a new area once the soil becomes infertile.
Slash and burn	The clearing of large areas of trees in the rainforest.
Subsidies	Money paid to farmers for producing certain crops.
Subsistence farming	Farming which uses simple technology, and low capital investment, and in which the production of food for the individual family is the priority.
Surplus	Too much of a product.
Sustainable farming	Farming which avoids soil erosion and polution.
Terraces	Fields on steep hillsides.
Trampling	Process caused by overgrazing, where soil becomes compacted by animals.
Weeds	Unwanted vegetation.
Yield	How many crops a particular field, farm, or area of land produces. It also applies to milk from dairy cows.