As well as the farmer’s decisions, the physical factors will be important in altering the productivity of a certain farm. Although farmers can control the environment to a certain extent, this will be a determining factor to the productivity. For example, as an extreme productivity in the Sahara desert would be lower than that in the UK. This is because the conditions the farmer would have to work with would be so poor that it would be extremely difficult to create an efficient farm. This would be due to things such as too hot for many plants, too little water, and poor soils. These are all necessary in the creation of an efficient farm which would then lead to one with high agricultural productivity.
Places with good conditions for agriculture are likely to have a greater agricultural productivity, therefore there are bands running around the world roughly following the biomes which indicate the amount of productivity. The reason this occurs is due to the temperature range across the world from the equator to the poles, and also the cells create cloud cycles which mean that certain parts of the world are wetter than others. This means that different parts of the world provide better farming conditions and therefore greater productivity.
Discuss methods used to increase agricultural productivity.
Productivity can alter naturally due to the conditions that are available. The harsher the conditions the harder it will be to grow crops and therefore the lower the productivity is likely to be. Productivity however can be altered by the introduction or alteration of factors.
The factors are either already present and need improving, are present and in abundance so need removing, or are not present at all so need introducing.
Examples of factors which are already present and need improving would be irrigation. This occurred in the Punjab during the green revolution as the HYVs could not be grown in the conditions that were present as more water was required. By adding irrigation in countries which have little water, plants which previously would not have survived can be grown, or plants which are normally grown can be grown in greater concentration so the productivity would increase. This would be because each plant needs a certain amount of water to grow to its full potential, therefore if there is a limited amount of water the farmer has the choice of planting lots of plants and none of them reaching their full potential or he could plant less plants so they could all reach their potential.
As well as precipitation the relief of an area plays an important part in what can be grown. The steeper a slope the less that can be grown. This means that terracing is often used to provide flat areas of land on what would otherwise be sloped land. this provides greater productivity for that area of land as more plants can be grown and the land is easier to work. This method however is found more in LEDCs than MEDCs on intensive farms as machinery cannot easily be used.
Also the addition of fertiliser could aid the growth of plants and therefore productivity. This could help due to the fact that plants require many nutrients to help their growth and these could be provided by the fertilisers. This is useful wherever plants are grown as no soil contains perfect concentrations of all of the nutrients required. However, in places where soil is particularly poor this may be vital to aid the growth of crops and therefore to increase the amount of productivity in a localised area.
On a very local scale the amount of light which a crop gets can be controlled by the use of greenhouses. This is especially common in the market gardening side of agriculture in the Netherlands. The use of greenhouses is a very good way to improve productivity as all of the factors effecting the growth of the crops can be controlled to a very high level. This includes the amount of light which the plants gain which is one of the most important factors to consider when looking at the growth of plants. In the dark plants will not be able to photosynthesise and therefore will not be able to create enough energy to grow at all. This is particularly a problem in the areas near to the poles where many areas can get as little as 5 hours of light a day at certain times of the year. Although not much would be grown here as it would be too cold, the idea of amount of light can be understood, and therefore the lack of productivity in these areas of the world is clear.
The use of greenhouses as a closed environment can also be used to alter the heat that crops get. This would be useful again where growing seasons may be shortened by low temperatures.
As well as adding things, the use of greenhouses can be used to prevent things, or remove them. An example of this is the control of pests. In a closed environment what goes in and out can be controlled. This means that pests can be removed altogether and not allowed into the environment.
Outside however where the environment can not be a closed system the farmer has to come up with other methods of preventing pests, and one way of doing this is the use of insecticides and pesticides. This is important because if pests were not controlled then whatever is grown could be destroyed by pests so although the farm would be efficient its productivity would still remain relatively low. In a similar way crop diseases need to be controlled.
One factor which may cause problems when in abundance would be water. This can be a problem in flood plains and drainage is used in parts of England to control the amount of water on the land. This is an important way of controlling a natural characteristic as without drainage the ground could become waterlogged and this would not provide suitable conditions for many crops. Also if crops were already present it could starve them of carbon dioxide which could kill them off.
As well as many physical features, the farmer can help add to his productivity by using machinery. This is important if he wants to speed p the rate at which he can do different jobs such as the ploughing, sowing or harvesting. The use of machinery greatly increases the speed at which things can be done, and although this does not increase productivity on an area of land, it means that more land can be farmed in the same space of time which therefore would increase the productivity.
Many of the methods mentioned above are expensive and are used in extensive farming. In LEDCs however they may not be able o afford to do many of the things mentioned above. A way around this problem is to farm the land intensively, and this means that more crops can be grown in a smaller space as they have more attention from the farmer. This would cause the productivity to be greater because the yield per area would be greater on an intensive farm than it would be on an extensive farm. One problem with this is that although the productivity per area would be higher the productivity per labourer would be lower.
Many methods of increasing productivity are used around the world, and some work better than others. However it is not possible to say that one is better than the other as it depends on the factors effecting a particular area of land and this alters tremendously around the world. Therefore before any method is applied the farmer must assess what is required, and which one would suit his farm best to increase agricultural productivity.
