Types of agriculture

In the recent blog posts, we have been talking about agriculture. This does not count as an exception though. There are basically four types of agricultural types. They consist of : Wet rice cultivation, plantation agriculture, shifting agriculture and high-tech farming. In this blog post, we will just focus on Wet Rice Cultivation. Wet rice cultivation requires a great deal of water and consistent temperatures during the growing season. These temperatures need to be tropical but sub-tropical will work too. Wet rice cultivation is generally done in low lands near a river system but can be done on low hills provided that water can be maintained in the paddys as they would be on flat ground. Subsistance wet rice cultivation is very labor intensive at the begining and end of the season. During the mid point, not as much however, the next rice crop is generally being sown in flats so that the plants are ready to go into the soil soon after harvest. Though this is also labor intensive, it lasts only a brief time. This type of cultivation is generally done communally by an entire village in China or Vietnam or elsewhere in south east Asia or India and Africa. In the US and other countries, it may be done on large mechanized farms of thousands of acres.In the case of the small villages, the homes are usually clustered together with the village fields surrounding the village in a spoke and ring design with the river, creek or other water way very close by. The village will have an allotment of water from the river to fill the paddys and then to maintain the water levels until the harvest.These subsistence farmers also grow chickens, ducks, pigs and other animals in small pens usually under the family home. This provides the protien and they also ususally have an allotment for a garden for veggies.
In many areas, the land has been cultivated
continuously and the soil has become increasingly infertile. · In order for the crops to grow well, fertilizers have
to be used to keep the land fertile, and pesticides to keep it pest-free. When
large amounts of chemicals are used, they pollute the land and water, and are harmful to the
environment. · The rotting
stalks and leaves in wet fields will emit methane into the
atmosphere, leading to
enhanced greenhouse effects, global warming and even ozone
depletion. · When rice is grown in
the dry season using irrigation, the high rates of evaporation can cause
salt to accumulate in the water and the soil. This causes the soil
to become saline (containing salt), hard and infertile.
"70% of its population is farmers. · It is a commercial enterprise because wet rice
cultivation is a labour-intensive
industry. It provides employment for the large
population, which are mostly unskilled or
semi-skilled. · As the world’s biggest
exporter of rice, it is important to the country’s economy
· as it brings in revenue for
the country. · The country can use
the revenue collected to alleviate poverty and hunger or to
· develop the country’s infrastructure.
· It also helps to develop the
secondary industries such as processing the harvested · rice in the rice mills, transporting, sorting and
distributing and exporting rice to the · rest of the world. " Quoted from source.
Chrystal