Commercial Farming

Definition:Commercial farmers produce their crops to sell them in the marketplace

Commercial farming types include mixed crop and livestock farming, ranching, dairying, and large-scale grain production

Plantation farming is a form of commercial farming

Mainly practiced in less developed countries

Mixed Crop and Livestock farming

DefinitionInvolves a farm that grows crops and raises animals

Most crops grown on mixed farms are used to feed the farm’s animals

Provides manure fertilizer for sale as well as goods

Most of mixed farm’s income comes from sale of its animal products

Reduces farmer’s dependence on seasonal cropsDevotes nearly all land to crops but 3/4ths of income comes from sale of animal products

Exists widely throughout Europe and Eastern Northern America

Usually farms are near large, urban areas

Most mixed farms practice crop rotation

DefinitionCommercial grazing, or the raising of animals on a plot of land on which they graze

Ranching is usually extensive

Cattle and sheep are most common animals on ranches

Practiced in areas where the climate is too dry to support crops

Semi-arid, arid landWestern U.S, Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay

In U.S. part of pop cultureAlso on coast of Latin America and Northern Mexico

Declining in importanceBegan declining in U.S. in 1880sPartly because of low grain prices and because of U.S. meat quality standardsMany U.S. ranches are being converted into “fattening” farms

DefinitionGrowth of milk-based products for the marketplace

Dairy farms closest to the marketplace usually produce the most perishable, fluid-milk products

while those father away produce goods such as cheese and butter

Most economically productive type of commercial agriculture

practiced near cities in the northeastern U.S, southeastern Canada, and northwestern Europe

Dairy Farms usually very small and capital intensive

Uses a lot of machinery in the farming processLabor-intensive uses more human labor

The milkshed is the zone around the city’s center in which milk can be produced and shipped to the marketplace without spoiling

Growth in transportation technology has increased area of the milkshed

Improved technology and feeding systems have led to increases in the amount of milk produced per cow

DefinitionWhere the grains are most often grown to be exported to other places for consumption

Wheat is the dominant grain on large-scale grain farms

World’s largest export crop

Common in Canada, U.S., Argentina, Australia, France, England, and the Ukraine

U.S. largest grain producer

Within North America, large-scale grain production is concentrated within three areas

Winter-wheat beltKansas, Colorado, Oklahoma

Spring-wheat beltDakotas, Montana, Southern Saskatchewan Canada

Palouse regionWashington State

Large-scale grain farms grew during Industrial Revolution

Farms are usually highly mechanized, capital-intensive operations

Several technological innovations precipitated the growth of large-scale grain farming:

McCormick Reaper 1830sCuts standing grain in the field

Combine Machine Completes all three processes:

Reaping, threshing, and cleaning

DefinitionInvolves large-scale farming operations that specialize in farming of one or two high-demand crops for export, usually to more developed regions

Called plantations or agricultural estates

Introduced in tropical and subtropical zones by European colonizers

Seeking to produce crops such as: Coffee, tea, pineapples, palms, coconuts, rubber, tobacco, sugar cane, and cotton

Today, plantation farming is largely reflective of global power structures

Most exist in low-latitude regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Most owned by companies from more developed countries

Often take the best land from natives

Most plantations exist in a location that has easy coastal access for export

Through modern plantations have integrated advanced technology, still labor-intensive

Large number of seasonal workers used

Form of plantation agriculture remains in the subtropical and tropical U.S.

Migrant workers used for labor

Predominant type of agriculture in the Southeast United States

Region has a long growing season and humid climate and is accessible to the large markets

New York, Philly, Washington D.C.

Often called “truck farming”Truck means “bartering or exchange of commodities”

Grow fruits and vegetablesSold fresh to consumers

Highly efficient large-scale operations

Labor costs kept down by hiring migrant workers

Many undocumented

Johann Heinrich von Thunen a 19th century economist

Wrote book The Isolated State 1826Formulated model to explain and predict where and why different agricultural practices would take place around a city’s marketplaceWhat is says…

Farmers consider which crops to cultivate and which animals to raise based on market locationThe farmer compares two costs

Cost of land vs. cost of transporting goods to market

Based model on assumptionsAssumed there was only one city with one, central marketplace where all farmers sell their products

Assumed that the farmland is all equally farmable and productive and there is only one type of transportation mode

Also assumed no social customs or government policies would influence farmer’s choices

Given these assumptions, von Thunen’s model allowed for only one variable to change in his model

The distance a farm’s location was from the city’s market as evident in transportation costs

In the model, the central marketplace is surrounded by agricultural activity zones that are in concentric rings

Each ring represents a different type of agricultural land use

Moving outward from the city’s central marketplace, the farming activities change from intensive to more extensive

Reasons explaining the Model’s predictions

Land closest to the city’s marketplace is more expensive per unit than is land farther away from the city’s center

A grain farmer who needs a lot of land for his/her extensive farming operation is going to purchase a farm further away from the city’s central marketplace because the land is less expensive

A milk producer is likely to buy land closer to the city’s center because he/she doesn’t need the extensive land a grain-farmer needs to produce the same profit

Additionally, the dairy farm needs to be closer to the marketplace so milk can be transported to the marketplace for sale before it spoils

Grazing is often the land uses farthest away from marketplace

Usefulness of the ModelUseful in comparing real situations to his theoretical farming situation

One that is restricted to only one variable (transportation costs) chaning

In the real world, agricultural land use patterns depend on more than one variable

Von Thunen knew his work was based on his theoretical assumptions so he introduced some variations

Existence of a river running through the city, possibility of multiple marketplaces, idea that soil was not equal everywhere in the model

Overall the model emphasizes the influence of distance as a factor in human location decisions

According to Von Thunen, farming decisions, like so many other spatial patterns, relate to distance