Unit 5 Agriculture Vocab

5. An agricultural activity involving the raising of livestock, most commonly cows and goats, for dairy products such as milk, cheese, and butter.
6. economy All agricultural activity generated for the purpose of selling, not necessarily for local consumption.
10. A form of technology that uses living organisms, usually genes, to modify products, to make or modify plants and animals, or to develop other microorganisms for specific purposes.
11. The set of economic and political relationships that organize food production for commercial purposes. It includes activities ranging from seed production, to retailing, to consumption of agricultural products.
12. People’s ability to access sufficient safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.
13. An agricultural activity associated with the raising of domesticated animals, such as cattle, horses, sheep, and goats.
14. The art and science of producing food from the land and tending livestock for the purpose of human consumption.
16. Form of agriculture that uses mechanical goods, such as machinery, tools, vehicles, and facilities, to produce large amounts of agricultural goods—a process requiring very little human labor.
17. A linked system of processes that gather resources, convert them into goods, package them for distribution, disperse them, and sell them on the market.

1. The conscious manipulation of plant and animal species by humans in order to sustain themselves.
2. Foods that are mostly products of organisms that have had their genes altered in a laboratory for specific purposes, such as disease resistance, increased productivity, or nutritional value, allowing growers greater control, predictability, and efficiency.
3. Places where livestock are concentrated in a very small area and raised on hormones and hearty grains that prepare them for slaughter at a much more rapid rate than grazing; often referred to as factory farms.
4. The development of higher-yield and fast-growing crops through increased technology, pesticides, and fertilizers transferred from the developed to developing world to alleviate the problem of food supply in those regions of the globe.
7. The cultivation or farming (in controlled conditions) of aquatic species, such as fish. In contrast to commercial fishing, which involves catching wild fish.
8. An agricultural system characterized by low inputs of labor per unit land area.
9. The process by which formerly fertile lands become increasingly arid, unproductive, and desert-like.
15. Area located in the crescent-shaped zone near the southeastern Mediterranean coast (including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey), which was once a lush environment and one of the first hearths of domestication and thus agricultural activity.