GCSE Revision - 

Agriculture - Farming in LEDC's

Most people in less economically developed countries are farmers and most of these are
subsistence farmers. Subsistence farming means producing crops and rearing animals for the use
of the farmer. Very little surplus produce is grown.

Extensive Shifting Cultivation Extensive Pastoral Nomadism

An area of land is cleared by cutting and burning In regions where grazing is poor, farmers herd
the vegetation. Crops are planted and harvested. animals over wide areas in search of pasture e.g.
When the land loses its fertility after about 5 sheep herding in North Africa.
years the area is abandoned and another area is
cleared and farmed e.g. shifting cultivation in the
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

  The Main Types  

Intensive Arable Farming

The most common kind - Usually small patches

of land near to the village are farmed. Most of
the work is done by hand or using oxen - eg rice
farming in S.E. Asia

Case Study - Subsistence Rice Farming in the Ganges Valley

Physical Factors  

 A five month growing season  with

temperatures over 21degrees centigrade

 Monsoon rainfall  over 2000mm

 Flat land to allow the fields to flood

 A dry period for harvesting

 Rich alluvial soils to provide nutrients

 A large labour force (intensive)

  

Human Factors Problems of Rice Growing

  Rice gives high yields per hectare which  Flooding - This provides water and fertile
helps to feed the large population. silt to grow the rice but sometimes
disaster strikes when the floods are so
 Water buffaloes are used for work and
severe that they destroy the rice crop.
as a source of manure for the fields
 Drought - In some years the monsoon
 Rice seeds are stored from one year to
rains fail and the rice crop is ruined.
provide the next year's crop
 Shortage of land and a growing
 Rice growing is labour intensive so many
population - many patches of land are
people can be employed in the paddy
far too small to support the family. The
fields looking after the crops.
situation is made worse by the ever
increasing population. Food shortages
are a real problem.

Plantation Farming

Plantation farming involves the growing of one type of crop over a large area such as Bananas as
in Ecuador, Sugar Cane and coffee

It requires a lot of investment, usually from a wealthy company in an MEDC. Plantations are well
organised to get the highest possible yields.

Plantations have advantages and disadvantages for LEDC's

Advantages Disadvantages

 Plantations can provide employment  They can destroy large areas of natural
vegetation
 They provide investments in modern
machinery and workers are trained  Much of the profit from plantations goes
to MEDC's
 They provide export earnings for LEDC's
 Workers are low paid and usually
exploited

 If world prices in the crop fail the

country gets very little income

 Monoculture plantations are vulnerable

to pests diseases or climatic hazards can
wipe out a whole years crop.