Bar chart of income per capita of the countries E.U.

Agriculture as a system

Agricultural enterprises-crop or livestock-deal with such concepts as labor supply, marketing, finances, natural resources, genetic stock, nutrition, equipment, and hazards. While it is possible to effectively manipulate each mechanism of successful farming individually, better results can often be obtained by treating the farming operation as a system. The interactions, then, among system components may become more important than how each component functions by itself. Treating production operations holistically offers greater management flexibility, provides for more environmentally and economically sound practices, and creates safer and healthier conditions for workers and for farm animals. NIFA staff provides leadership to land-grant university partners and other grantees as they conduct research, education, and extension activities in programs related directly and indirectly to agricultural systems.

Oil: for and against

Oil is a type of fossil fuel created naturally and are deposited underneath the earth’s surface. Oil are use to generate energy through a process call combustion to generate heat. All fossil fuels are non-renewable, which mean oil will run out.

Ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Energy from fossil fuels such as oil had been one of the main sources of energy. Oil is widely available, generating energy with oil require direct combustion and the problem is the byproducts of the combustion of oil have a negative impact on the environment.

Oil pros:

• No other energy source can move vehicles with greater speed at longer distances than oil.
• Create jobs for the local economy.
• Use in cars, convert into electricity,plastics, wax, sulfur, asphalt.

Oil cons:

• Oil is non-renewable, which mean it will eventually run out.
• Burning oil pollute the environment by releasing CO2 and other toxic.
• Burning oil releases green house gases, which contribute to global warming.
• Oil companies need to build big oil rigs to extract oil offshore and inshore.
• Oil leaks may occur which result in environmental disaster by killing wild life, disturbing the biodiversity of that area and it take years for cleanup.
• Extracting oil from sand takes a lot of water.
• Drilling for oil is unpredictable; it takes a lot of time to search for oil.
• It is expensive and dangerous to transport oil.

Importance of water

Every living organism needs water to survive. Plants need water to make food. All animals depend on plants for food either directly or indirectly. Therefore without water, all life forms will cease to exist. With the ever increasing population, water is becoming a scarce commodity. To worsen this situation, the few available sources of water for consumption by living organisms are being depleted at an alarming rate. Careless release of wastes into water bodies is also a major problem today. If nothing is done to reverse the situation, then it is predicted that it will be extremely hard to find clean water in future.

It is obvious that direct consumption by plants and animals is top among uses of water. Water has many other important functions such as washing, transportation, recreation, industrial applications, chemical uses, fire extinguishing among other uses. There is no other solvent that can be used to serve all these functions of water. This further stresses the importance of water in life. Without it life will be extremely difficult. Therefore everyone is charged with the responsibility of taking care of water because survival depends on it.

There is a lot that an individual can do to conserve this precious commodity. They all aim at reducing the amount of water wasted every single day.

Crop farming

Farmed crops are a major source of food for human and raw materials for industries. Human has cultivated plants for sustenance ever since. 

In the modern times, these crops are further processed to make substances for various other uses. And due to population increase, new technologies have emerged to enable farmers to grow crops at higher yields, larger size, and with more resistance to pests and insects.

Farms can be run as small family farms of less than 10 acres or as a commercial one with sales of at least $250,000. They could be managed intensively as a small project or run with the latest in farming technology. But just the same, farmers of crops of any size face basically the same forces and challenges.

Crop Farming Yield and Profitability

To make the most out of the land and time resources invested for each crop, every farmer aims to reach the maximum cost effective yield for every crop. Yields are affected by factors such as pests, insects and weeds and by the ability of the soil to nurture the crop. Crop-rotation is often employed to allow the soil to replenish the nutrient consumed by specific crops and to prevent the proliferation of pests and insects.

Crop farming is subject to various forces that constantly change – weather, demand, regulations, and prices. As such, profitability in crop farming is not only a function of yield and costs, but also of these market forces. For a farm to profit, it must adroitly deal with these forces.

Physical factors affecting farming

Climate: 

• Temperature: a minimum temperature of 6°C is needed for crops to grow. The growing season is the number of months the temperature is over 6°C. Different crops need a different growing season, e.g. wheat needs 90 days.

•  Rainfall: all crops and animals need water.

Relief:

• Temperatures decrease 1ºC every 160 metres vertical height.
• Uplands are more exposed to wind and rain. Steep slopes also cause thin soils and limit the use of machinery.

• Exposure to the wind: strong winds can damage crops.
• Lowland areas are more easily farmed.

Soil:

• Crops grow best on deep, fertile, free-draining soils, e.g. the brown earths found in lowland Britain. Less fertile soils prone to water logging are best used for pastoral farming.

Vegetation:

• Vegetation provides the soil with humus, so the more vegetation an area has, the more fertile soil will be.

The farming system

A farming system is defined as a population of individual farm systems that have broadly similar resource bases, enterprise patterns, household livelihoods and constraints, and for which similar development strategies and interventions would be appropriate. Depending on the scale of the analysis, a farming system can encompass a few dozen or many millions of households.
The classification of the farming systems of developing regions has been based on the following criteria:
available natural resource base, including water, land, grazing areas and forest; climate, of which altitude is one important determinant; landscape, including slope; farm size, tenure and organization; and
dominant pattern of farm activities and household livelihoods, including field crops, livestock, trees, aquaculture, hunting and gathering, processing and off-farm activities; and taking into account the main technologies used, which determine the intensity of production and integration of crops, livestock and other activities.

Types of farming

 Capital investment and labour

1. Extensive livestock farming: the capital investment (in feed, farms, etc.) is limited and productivity low. The livestock farming is mostly cattle and sheep, and grazes on large pastures in the open air

2. Intensive livestock farmning: capital investment (in feed, farms, etc.), labour and productivity are high. Mostly atte, pigs and poultry are farmed.

Food and feedig methods

1. Grazing livestock: animals feed on grass. This is an example of extensive farming.
2. Confined livestock: animals are kept in sheds and covered pens, and eat feed. This si an example of intensive farming.

3. Semi-confined livestock: in summerr, the animals aet grass; when there is not enough grass, thy eat feed.

Mobily of livestock

1. Nomadic herding: herders and their families are constantly moving with their animals in search of good pasture.
2. Transhumance (seacional migration of livestock): herders move their animals several times a year between winter and summer.
3. Sedentary livestock farming: animal do not have to move around to obtain food because farmers give them feed.

Gross domestic product of countries in the world

This is a map of the world GDP.

Primary economic activity world map

This is a map of the primary sector.

Physical maps of America

Physical map of America

This is a physical map of America.

Political map of Asia

Physical map of Asia

This is a physical map of Asia.