Crop Types, Agricultural Practices, and Agrarian Systems

Posted on Jan 9, 2025 in Geography

Types of Crops

From the smallest to the tallest, they are:

  • Herbaceous crops (cereals or leafy greens)
  • Shrubs (grapevine)
  • Trees (olive and fruit trees)

Agricultural Practices

Monoculture

It is used when fields are used to grow just one crop.

Polyculture

It is used when fields are used to grow more than one type of crop.

Dryland Agriculture

Crops are irrigated only with rainwater.

Irrigated Agriculture

Irrigation applied to the land, soil, or crops is artificial.

Intensive Agriculture

Here the land is used to its full potential, in order to have the highest output and profit as possible.

Extensive Agriculture

Here the land is not used to its full potential, and the output will depend on the capital and technology invested.

Characteristics of Traditional Agriculture

It is typical of regions with a low level of development (Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America). It has a low level of technology and requires a high level of labor. The output produced is for self-consumption.

Slash-and-Burn Agriculture

It’s a traditional type of agriculture characteristic of migratory populations in areas with equatorial and tropical climates. The soil is cultivated continuously in irregular plots and it’s exhausted in 2 or 3 years. Different crops, such as cereals and tubers, are cultivated.

  1. Cut trees.
  2. Burn trees and undergrowth. Ashes fertilize the soil.
  3. Cultivate continuously until the soil is exhausted.

Repeat the process somewhere else. Examples: sorghum, cassava, maize, yams, sweet potatoes.

Sedentary Dryland Agriculture

It’s a traditional type of agriculture found in tropical areas. Plots are located close to villages and they use crop rotation, mixing cereals, tubers, and fallow land. Using this technique, the soil is not exhausted.

Irrigated Monsoon Agriculture

This type of agriculture can be found in South and Southeast Asia. Paddy fields are located in alluvial plains and river deltas. This system produces two or three harvests annually.

  1. Before the rainy season, the fields are plowed and rice is planted in fertilized nurseries.
  2. During the monsoon season, once the plants are grown, they are transferred to the paddy fields (arrozales).
  3. After the monsoon, when the crops begin to ripen, water is removed and rice is harvested and threshed.

Types of Agrarian Economies

There are two types:

  • Subsistence economies, which produce what they need
  • Market economies, which sell what they produce

Social Organization of Agrarian Activities

It refers to property and exploitation. In terms of property, land can be private or collective. In terms of exploitation, it can be direct if landowners or their employees work the land themselves, or indirect if the owner allows a tenant or partner to work the land.

Agrarian Settlements

It is how the agrarian population is distributed. They can be:

  • Dispersed (farmers’ dwellings are separated from one another and surrounded by the land they farm)
  • Concentrated (farmers’ dwellings are grouped in a village)
  • Interspersed (some farmers’ dwellings are grouped and others are isolated)

Types of Spanish Agrarian Dwellings

There are four main types:

  • Barraca: A dwelling found in Valencia, we can distinguish it by its pointed roof.
  • Caserío: A dwelling typical of the Basque Country, we can distinguish it because one side of the roof is longer than the other one.
  • Cortijo: A dwelling found in Andalusia, we can distinguish it because it has white walls and is usually surrounded by olive trees.
  • Masía: Typically found in Catalonia.

Types of Farmland

Farm fields are distinguished from one another on the basis of:

  • Size (they can be small, medium, and large)
  • Shape (they can be regular, as the townships in the US, or irregular, as in mountainous terrains)
  • Location (they can be open or closed)
  • Use (they can be used for agriculture, livestock farming, or silviculture)