Asia

Asia Agriculture

The continent stretches from the tropics to the Arctic Ocean and has highly variable precipitation conditions; therefore, almost all useful plants can be grown in Asia. Climatic conditions play a major role in the distribution of cultivation. Among other things. the growth period in the temperate zone is quite short, often limited by both temperature and precipitation conditions. Subtropical climate is generally exploited using two crop systems. The summer-dry subtropical, Mediterranean type (in West Asia) is utilized by a drought-tolerant summer crop, e.g. for olives, if there is no irrigation - and a temperate winter crop, e.g. wheat. In East Asia, the summer monsoon rains possibility of rice cultivation. The winter is cool and dry; barley is often grown. In the tropics, the growing season is not limited by cold, but, with the exception of the equatorial areas and certain mountain regions, by water shortages. In large parts of South, Southeast and East Asia, the fairly stable monsoon rains are used for one or two crops, which are often supplemented with one during the dry season. The tropical year-round rainy climate allows, in principle, continued cultivation all year round.

An estimated ²/₃ of the world's food is produced in Asia, including the vast majority of the world's rice and a large proportion of wheat, maize, millet and sorghum, legumes (beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, soybeans) and dates. Also oil plants (including coconut and oil palms), cotton, tea, tobacco and silk. In addition, most of the world's population of pigs, chickens and cattle is found in Asia.

Asia could in the 1990's provide its large population with its own production of food, but the task requires up to ²/₃ of the workforce. According to AbbreviationFinder, the largest countries in Asia are China and India. For largest cities in Asia by population, please follow AllCityPopulation.

Agriculture falls, often unrelated to natural conditions, into two major groups: the traditional farms with predominantly self-sufficiency and the more modern market-oriented uses based on money economy.

Almost all known modes of operation are found in Asia. Among the least intensive are the so-called concentration farms: relocation land and in-field farms, which depend entirely on local resources. Moving land farms are now only run by approximately 100 million people and displaced because it requires large fallow areas. In-field farming is more widespread, mostly in the more densely populated areas of West Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Cattle keeping is very important in the farms. It is used partly for milk and (locally) meat production, partly for the production of manure, so fallow if necessary. completely avoidable. The tensile strength of oxen and buffaloes enables the plowing of even heavy soils. The main crops are usually the durable cereals wheat and rice. An occasional profit can therefore be sold or exchanged.

In-field use is particularly limited by the lack of grazing opportunities. The farms are therefore often developed for permanent agriculture by including grazing areas in the cultivated area. Permanent agriculture has a maximum of 50% of the cultivated area lying fallow. Certain uses, for example in India, are grown almost without fertilization, but with a lot of plowing, because the manure in dried form is used for fuel. In other types of use, the fertilization is done with crop rotation and the use of legumes that add nitrogen to the soil. Natural fertilizers, such as latrines and compost, are widely used, while artificial fertilizers are only used if you have a monetary income.

In most highly developed traditional uses, irrigation is used, almost always in the cultivation of "wet rice". In general, rice farming in East Asia has developed to a high degree of ecological perfection: a small consumption of natural resources and stability for millennia. The intensity of rice farming is often very high, as an example from before World War II shows in the Delta of the Red River in Vietnam. A family usually lived off the rice harvest from just approximately 1 ¹/₂ha, which in turn was harvested two to three times a year using the total labor of the family, supplemented by a buffalo prey. Irrigation in particular required a lot of work (including maintenance of dams and canals). Fertilizer was recycled substance, supplemented with nitrogen fertilizer from cultivated algae. With such highly refined rice farms, self-sufficiency was achieved at a population density of almost 2000 residents per hectare. km², almost like in a Danish residential area.

Especially in East Asia, what could be called a "vegetable civilization" has been developed because almost all material necessities, incl. foods, are made from plant materials.

Agriculture as described is still found in large parts of East, Southeast and South Asia, especially where the monsoon rains are abundant, but also along the large rivers, where supplementary irrigation can take place by diversion from the river (e.g. Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Cauvery, Mekong, Chang Jiang and Huang He). The more intensive types of market-oriented uses and traditional self-sufficiency are often very similar. The difference, which is gradually increasing, is mostly that market-oriented farms can specialize in the production of the crops and animals that provide the greatest economic benefits, without having to cover specific local needs. Marketing, on the other hand, requires durable and transportable goods such as rice.

Through earnings, market-leading farms have the opportunity to modernize with the acquisition of new equipment, for example by improving irrigation systems, by using fertilizers, pesticides, improved seeds, etc. Modernized farms thus have higher productivity than the traditional ones. The so-called Green Revolution aimed at improving the performance of High Yielding Varieties (HYV).) of wheat, rice and maize in connection with better fertilization and possibly water management. The significance of this has been very great. In the wheat states of India Punjab and Haryana, the yields have tripled. In several countries, profits have been achieved for export. With new, faster maturing varieties, you have the option of two or three crops per. year; with rice it is even theoretically possible to obtain four crops. The difficulties with HYV crops have been their greater susceptibility to disease, risk of contamination, unfamiliar taste qualities and increased funding requirements. The latter has meant that the larger farms have most often been favored by modernization, and social inequality in the countryside has increased in many places.

It is estimated that the additional production after the Green Revolution supplies approximately 500 million people with food. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to further spread is that irrigation becomes more expensive as the best opportunities are exploited. Large facilities are still being implemented and planned, e.g. on the Mekong and on several Chinese and Indian rivers, but smaller, decentralized facilities such as well irrigation with pumps have gained increasing interest; they are easier to finance and manage.

The intensification of agriculture in large parts of Asia is necessitated by population growth. Family Using the ¹/₂ -1 have become more and more common, inter alia, South Asia; "rich farmers" often have only 2-3 ha. More and more people are becoming landless, while at the same time quite large properties exist in many places. Land distribution is therefore constantly an urgent political issue.

In the more extensive agricultural areas of West and North Asia, there are many large farms, and some of these are collectively run. Both state and collective forms of operation are on the return in China, Asian Russia and Vietnam, but not in North Korea.

Plantation farming is a special type of commercial agriculture that was developed during the colonial era and still has a certain prevalence. The aim of it was and is production in monoculture of vegetable raw materials for export: rubber, copra, vegetable oil, tea, coffee, sugar and spices. The same products are now also grown on small, private plots of land. The plantations were originally all owned by foreigners, while the unskilled, contracted workforce was local. The use of this and of almost free land allowed for cheap production of tropical vegetables ("colonial goods"). Even before decolonization, there was some reprocessing of the products on the plantations.

Regardless of the main emphasis on vegetable production, animal husbandry in Asia is naturally very extensive. Pigs and chickens are kept as waste and surplus eaters in connection with rice farming; huge herds of cattle, especially in India, and flocks of sheep and goats serve to exploit otherwise unusable steppe areas.

Service profession

The development of health, education and the judiciary, etc., usually follows the economic development, just like trade and the monetary system. An example is the rapid development of the Japanese monetary system in recent years as a result of the success of the industry. The Japanese banks are now playing a major role in the world's financial system.

The development of the transport system has also been of great importance. The improvements have thus reduced the disadvantages of imports and exports that the distance to the largest raw material suppliers and markets offers the new industrialized countries in East Asia defined by Countryaah.com. With modern tankers, for example, oil from the Persian Gulf delivered to ports in East Asia, Europe and North America costs almost the same; the influence of transport costs on the price of a liter is very small with super tankers. Japan's shortage of raw materials is thus no longer a handicap in competition. Other parts of the transport system have also been the subject of strong development, for example through the construction of roads, airports, the Japanese Tokaido Railway and Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway. A well-developed, modern, partly satellite-based communication network has been established, which enables almost simultaneous information in all the economically leading countries.