Spatial Organization of Agriculture (College Board AP® Human Geography)

The spatial organization of agriculture refers to the way different agricultural practices are distributed across the Earth’s surface

Different locations will be home to different types of agriculture, including:

• plantation agriculture

  • Plantation agriculture is primarily found in tropical Asia, Africa, and Latin America

  • Cash crops such as coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, and rubber are common crops grown via plantation agriculture

• truck farming

  • Commercial gardening, such as flowers, and fruit and vegetables are included in truck farming

  • Truck farms are found in areas with fertile soil, usually near urban centers because of the perishable nature of the products

  • California, Florida, and flower producers in the Netherlands are common examples of truck farming

• mixed crop and livestock

  • Most common in the midwestern and western United States and parts of Europe

• ranching

  • Most common in the western United States, parts of South America (such as the Pampas of Argentina), and Australia

• dairy farming

  • Most common in parts of northwestern Europe, the northern United States, and New Zealand

• Mediterranean agriculture

  • The Mediterranean climate includes California, parts of Australia, parts of South Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, and parts of Peru

  • Crops like grapes, citrus, olives, and figs are grown in Mediterranean agricultural zones

Increasingly, agricultural production is shifting toward large-scale commercial farming

• This type of agriculture:

  • produces crops for sale and profit

  • relies on mechanized rather than human labor

  • consolidates operations on large farms

• This results in the concentration of agricultural production in particular regions, as well as the loss of smaller and more diverse family farms

Agribusiness refers to the system of commercial agriculture that links other industries, such as:

• transportation

• processing

• distribution

• marketing to agricultural production

The process of globalization has increased global demand for many products, leading to increases in commercial agriculture

A commodity chain includes all of the activities involved in the creation of a product, including:

• design

• production of raw materials

• manufacturing and assembly

• distribution 

The series of links connecting all of the places of production, processing, and distribution of a product that results in that product being sold or traded on the world market is the commodity chain

Large-scale commercial farming and commodity chains benefit from economies of scale

• Economies of scale are the decrease in production costs that result from producing large numbers of an item

• Bulk purchasing of supplies, specialized labor and efficient use of machinery contribute to economies of scale

Increases in agricultural technology have led to more large-scale commercial farming

Improvements in technologies such as irrigation, mechanization, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) allow for increased production and economies of scale

Increased production due to technology also increases the carrying capacity of an area