Unit 4: Agriculture - Selection of Species for Cultivation 2

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  • Created by: rosieevie
  • Created on: 14-05-15 18:33
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  • Selection of Species for Cultivation
    • Social Factors
      • Cultural factors - traditions e.g. horse meat
      • Religious factors - dietary restrictions
      • Ethical issues - fair trade, free range, organic
    • Land Ownership Pattern
      • Tenant farmers (rent) - less incentive to improve production systems
      • Farm size - smaller farms have lower profitability to harder to improve
      • Some countries divide farmland to dead children while others eldest gets it all
    • Politics
      • State control - some governments increase output using control of commercial agriculture
      • Financial support and subsidies e.g. tax reductions on fuel
      • Quotas - prevents overproduction of certain items
    • Economic Factors
      • Market demand - makes it difficult for farmers to predict income, damaging investment
      • Subsidies, incentives and grants - helps cover production costs
      • Price support systems - encourages farmers to grow more by guaranteeing to buy excess
      • Labour supply - rural depopulation and low farm wages make it hard to get workers
      • Labour costs - high labour costs or shortages means more mechanised production
      • Capital availability and interest costs - difficulty in borrowing money means difficulty in improving production systems
    • Technology
      • Transport infrastructure - possible to produce in areas with no local demand
      • Low fuel costs - transport costs are lower
      • Mechanisation - allows large scale processing, agrochemical spreading and harvesting
      • Fertilisers - haber process allows synthetic nitrate fertilisers, but with high costs
      • Irrigation - abstraction, transport and application allows crop growth in dry areas
      • Fuel supplies - energy intensive production only possible with readily available fuel
      • Seeds and livestock - increased productivity by cultivating high yielding crops

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