| Question |
Answer |
| Agriculture |
The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth’s surface through the cultivation of craps and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain. |
| Crop |
Grain or fruit gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season. |
| Vegetative planting |
Reproduction of plants by direct cloning from existing plants. |
| Seed agriculture |
Reproduction of plants through annual introduction of seeds, which result from sexual fertilization. |
| Subsistence agriculture |
Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer’s family. |
| Commercial agriculture |
Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm. |
| Agribusiness |
Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations. |
| Shifting cultivation |
A form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for a relatively few years and left fallow for a relatively long period. |
| Slash-and-burn agriculture |
Another name for shifting cultivation, so named because fields are cleared by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris. |
| Swidden |
A patch of land cleared for planting though slashing and burning. |
| Pastoral nomadism |
A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals. |
| Transhumance |
The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures. |
| Intensive subsistence agriculture |
A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land. |
| Wet rice |
Rice planted on dryland in a nursery, then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth. |
| Paddy |
Malay word for wet rice, commonly but incorrectly used to describe a sawah. |
| Sawah |
A flooded field for growing rice. |
| Double cropping |
Harvesting twice a year from the same field. |
| Crop rotation |
The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil. |
| Milkshed |
The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied. |
| Grain |
Seed of a cereal grass. |
| Winter wheat |
Wheat planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer. |
| Spring wheat |
Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer. |
| Reaper |
A machine that cuts grain standing in the field. |
| Combine |
A machine that reaps, threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field. |
| Ranching |
A form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area. |
| Horticulture |
The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. |
| Truck farming |
Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because a truck was a Middle English word meaning bartering or the exchange of commodities. |
| Plantation |
A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country. |
| Sustainable agriculture |
Farming methods that preserve long-term productivity of land and minimize pollution, typically by rotating soil-restoring crops with cash crops and reducing inputs of fertilizer and pesticides. |
| Green revolution |
Rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers. |
| Break of bulk point |
A location where transfer is possible from one mode of transportation to another. |
| Industrial revolution |
A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods. |
| Maquiladora |
Factories built by U.S. companies in Mexico near the U.S. border, to take advantage of much lower labor costs in Mexico. |
| Right-to-work state |
A U.S. state that has passed a law preventing a union and company from negotiating a contract that requires workers to join a union as a condition of employment. |
| Site factors |
Location factors related to the costs of factors of production inside the plant, such as land, labor, and capital. |
| Situation factors |
Location factors related to the transportation of materials into and from a factory. |
| Textile |
A fabric made by weaving, used in making clothing. |