Agricultural Geography

Ah, the countryside! In the US lexicon, the very word conjures up images of people in cowboy hats driving big green tractors through golden fields of grain. Large red barns full of adorable baby farm animals are bathed in fresh air under a bright sun.

Of course, this quaint image of the countryside can be deceiving. Agriculture is no joke. Being responsible for feeding the entire human population is hard work. What of agricultural geography? Is there an international divide, not to mention an urban-rural divide, in where farms are located? What are the approaches to agriculture, and which areas are most likely to encounter these approaches? Let's take a trip to the farm.

Agricultural Geography Definition

Agriculture is the practice of cultivating plants and animals for human use. Plants and animal species that are used for agriculture are usually domesticated, meaning they have been selectively bred by people for human use.

Fig. 1 - Cows are a domesticated species used in livestock agriculture

There are two main types of agriculture: crop-based agriculture and livestock agriculture. Crop-based agriculture revolves around the production of plants; livestock agriculture revolves around the maintenance of animals.

When you combine agriculture with geography (the study of place) you get agricultural geography.

Agricultural geography is a form of human geography that seeks to explore where agricultural development is located, as well as why and how.

Development of Agricultural Geography

Thousands of years ago, most humans acquired food through hunting wild game, gathering wild plants, and fishing. The transition to agriculture began around 12,000 years ago, and today, less than 1% of the global population still acquires the majority of their food from hunting and gathering.

The development of agriculture is tied to arable land, which is land that is capable of being used for crop growth or livestock pasture. Societies that had access to a greater quantity and quality of arable land could transition to agriculture more easily. However, societies with a greater abundance of wild game and less access to arable land would feel less of an impetus to stop hunting and gathering.

Examples of Agricultural Geography

Physical geography can have a profound effect on agricultural practices. Take a look at the map below, which shows relative arable land by country. Our modern cropland can be correlated to the arable land people had access to in the past. Notice that there is relatively little arable land in the Sahara Desert in North Africa or the cold environment of Greenland. These places simply cannot support large-scale crop growth.

Fig. 2 - Arable land by country as defined by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization

In some areas with less arable land, people may turn almost exclusively to livestock agriculture. For example, in North Africa, hardier animals like goats need little subsistence to survive and can provide a stable source of milk and meat for humans. However, larger animals like cattle require quite a bit more food to survive, and therefore require access to larger pastures with plenty of greens, or feed in the form of hay—both of which require arable land, and neither of which a desert environment can support. Similarly, some societies may get most of their food from fishing, or be forced to import most of their food from other countries.

Even though agriculture is a human activity and exists within a human-constructed artificial ecosystem, agricultural products in their raw forms are considered natural resources. Agriculture, like the collection of any natural resources, is considered part of the primary economic sector. Check out our explanation on Natural Resources for more info!

Approaches of Agricultural Geography

There are two main approaches to agriculture: subsistence farming and commercial farming.

Subsistence farming is farming that revolves around growing food only for yourself or a small community. Commercial farming revolves around growing food on a large scale to be sold for profit commercially (or otherwise redistributed).

The smaller scale of subsistence farming means there is less need for large industrial equipment. Farms may be just a few acres large, or even smaller. On the other hand, commercial farming can span several dozen acres to even thousands of acres, and usually requires industrial equipment to manage. Typically, if a nation incentivizes commercial agriculture, subsistence agriculture will decline. With their industrial equipment and government-subsidized prices, large-scale commercial farms tend to be more efficient on a national scale than a bunch of subsistence farms.

Not all commercial farms are large. A small farm is any farm that grosses less than $350,000 per year (and thus includes subsistence farms as well, which theoretically gross almost nothing).

The spatial distribution of these different approaches can usually be tied to economic development. Subsistence agriculture is now more common in Africa, South America, and parts of Asia, while commercial agriculture is more common in most of Europe, the United States, and China. Large-scale commercial farming (and subsequent widespread availability of food) has been seen as a benchmark of economic development.

Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes

Besides spatial distribution of farming approaches based on economic development, there is also a geographic distribution of farmland based on urban development.

The greater the area occupied by urban development, the less space there is for farmland. It probably comes as no surprise, then, that, because rural areas have less infrastructure, they have more space for farms.

Because farming requires so much land, by its very nature, it defies urbanization. You can't exactly build a lot of skyscrapers and highways if you need to use the space to grow corn or maintain a pasture for your cattle.

Fig. 3 - food grown in rural areas is often transported to urban areas

Urban farming or urban gardening involves transforming some parts of the city into small gardens for local consumption. But urban farming does not produce nearly enough food to meet urban consumption needs. Rural agriculture, especially large-scale commercial agriculture, makes urban life possible. In fact, urban life is dependent upon rural agriculture. Massive quantities of food can be grown and harvested in rural areas, where population density is low, and transported to cities, where population density is high.

The distribution of agriculture—who is able to grow food, and where they can sell it—can have a profound impact on global politics, local politics, and the environment.

Dependence on Foreign Agriculture

As we mentioned earlier, some countries lack the arable land necessary for a robust native agricultural system. Many of these countries are forced to import agricultural products (especially food) to meet the needs of their populations.

This may make some countries dependent upon other countries for their food, which can put them in a perilous position if that food supply is disrupted. For example, countries like Egypt, Benin, Laos, and Somalia are highly dependent upon wheat from Ukraine and Russia, the export of which was disrupted by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The lack of stable access to food is called Food Insecurity.

Social Polarization in the United States

Due to the very nature of agriculture, most farmers must live in rural areas. The spatial disparities between the countryside and the cities can sometimes produce very different outlooks on life for a variety of reasons.

Particularly in the United States, these distinct living environments contribute to social polarization in a phenomenon called the urban-rural political divide. On average, urban citizens in the US tend to be more left-leaning in their political, social, and/or religious views, while rural citizens tend to be more conservative. This disparity can be amplified the further removed urbanites become from the agricultural process. It can also be amplified further if commercialization reduces the number of small farms, making rural communities even smaller and more homogenous. The less these two groups interact, the greater the political divide becomes.

Agriculture, the Environment, and Climate Change

If nothing else, one thing should be clear: no agriculture, no food. But the long struggle to feed the human population through agriculture has not been without its challenges. Increasingly, agriculture faces the problem of meeting human food needs while reducing environmental impacts.

Expanding the amount of land that is available to use for farming often comes at the expense of chopping down trees (deforestation). While most pesticides and fertilizers increase farming efficiency, some can cause environmental pollution. The pesticide Atrazine, for example, was shown to cause frogs to develop hermaphroditic characteristics.

Agriculture is also one of the leading causes of climate change. The combination of deforestation, the use of agricultural equipment, large herds (especially cattle), food transportation, and soil erosion contributes large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, causing the globe to heat up through the greenhouse effect.

However, we need not pick between climate change and starvation. Sustainable farming practices like crop rotation, crop coverage, rotational grazing, and water conservation can reduce agriculture's role in climate change.