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If you live in North America like me, the first thing we might imagine when we hear
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about agriculture and farming are fields of grain that stretch for as far as the eye can see.
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Or massive ranches with real life cowboys herding cattle and the sprawling feedlots
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they end up on.
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But there are lots of other systems for producing food around the world.
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Like we saw last time, foods have been domesticated pretty much everywhere because hunger and
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access to food is something we’ve been trying to figure out forever.
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So over the millenia, every region on Earth has developed its own successful agricultural
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ecosystems, which are the complex system of climate, plants, local animals, the soil’s
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nutrients and microbiome, and whatever's being grown in all of that.
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And we don’t have to stay on land to farm food!
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In places near water, aquaculture is also a type of agricultural ecosystem, which can
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range from communities protecting and cultivating fishing grounds, to fish farms where species
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are raised in artificial ponds or tanks, often alongside major waterways.
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Or people would alter the landscape to create conditions to catch and retain soil with mountain terraces.
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In places too arid to farm, people maintained and herded different animals, and in places
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with rich soils, traditions developed to maintain soil health.
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As geographers, we’re drawn to understanding the connections between the physical needs
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of the organisms that provide us food, and the systems and structures humans create to
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interact with those organisms.
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It’s an economic relationship that connects humans and non-human organisms all over the globe.
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I’m Alizé Carrère, and this is Crash Course Geography.
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INTRO
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In order to talk about and compare different types of agricultural ecosystems, in geography
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we use a lot of different categories and words to describe each technique.
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And whether it's aquaculture or herding or some other method, each technique happens
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at a specific size, or scale.
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There are different ways of breaking down the size of agricultural systems, and we're
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going to use one that has three different scales.
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On the smallest scale is subsistence agriculture, which means someone grows just enough food
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for themselves.
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Many cultures where subsistence agriculture is common also share all the land between
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everyone in the community, so it can also mean growing enough food for the community.
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A slightly larger farm may have the space to grow enough food to feed your family and
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community and to trade or sell within the region.
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This is called small-scale agriculture.
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In both cases, these farms are sometimes also called smallholder farms or even family farms,
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and all the food produced is meant for local consumption.
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But, industrial agriculture operates on a much larger scale and most of the food produced
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is meant for exporting around the country or world.
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This is a really big category -- the giant agribusinesses we discussed in episode 41
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fall into the industrial agriculture category, but so do some independent farms.
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The key is that most of the food is grown to be exported outside of the community.
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Within these different scales we can find more categories to compare different systems.
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Both subsistence and small-scale agriculture can also include polyculture, which is a complex
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form of intercropping, meaning multiple crops are grown at the same time on the same field.
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In a polyculture system, it’s common to have plants maturing at different times, and
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even a mix of plants and animals!
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Take for example one of the oldest polycultures in the world, raised beds featuring rice and
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fish that can be found across Southeast Asia.
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The fish droppings provide fertilizer for the rice.
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And if ducks are present, they might eat the weeds that try to grow with the rice, and
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they and their eggs can also provide protein as food for the community.
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This is an important strategy because with a variety of plants and animals, the agricultural
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system is more likely to have a steady rotation of crops to harvest, and better mirrors the
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complexity of the surrounding ecosystem.
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Like, a diversity of predators keeps pests in check.
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But globally, as industrial agriculture rose and plots of land were increasingly used for
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export or to feed larger areas of people, monoculture systems where only one crop is
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grown on a plot of land, became more popular because they’re more efficient to harvest.
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And we can also talk about how much we have to put in from outside the farm to maintain
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the agricultural system.
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For example, in the Philippines, the Cordilleras Mountain Province contains an UNESCO world
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heritage site of rice terraces.
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These carefully engineered terraces expertly capture runoff water from the mountains, and
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are able to create ideal environments for rice that have been carefully maintained for 2,000 years!
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They recycle nutrients from within their immediate surroundings instead of humans adding them,
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so they’re low-input agriculture, and often have both rice and fish, making it a polyculture.
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Whereas industrialized agriculture is high-input agriculture that requires a lot of commercially
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developed seeds or synthetic fertilizers and herbicides.
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But we also have words to describe the relationship between how much effort we put in and the
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amount of land that’s being used.
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Like the Filipino rice terraces are also an example of an intensive subsistence system,
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because there’s a large amount of labor to harvest food on usually a small amount of land.
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Humans have to construct ditches that hold and direct water, in addition to planting rice each year.
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Other systems like the shifting or swidden styles of agriculture in the Amazon are low-input
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polycultures but also extensive subsistence systems because they use a lot of land but
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not as much labor per hectare.
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So any agricultural ecosystem can fit into a number of categories and scales.
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So, with so many different agricultural ecosystems to talk about, let’s zoom into just one
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place and explore how agriculture has progressed through different categories over time.
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The Philippines are an archipelago of islands in the Pacific Ocean teeming with biodiversity.
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There’s an abundance of lush vegetation, unique animals, and it’s home to the Coral Triangle,
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an area with hundreds of corals and 6 of the 7 major sea turtle species.
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These islands with volcanic soils are considered to be mega-biodiverse.
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And yet, the Philippines also had an inadequate food supply throughout the 20th century, despite
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being part of the “Rice Bowl” of the world and one of the main rice producers in Southeast Asia.
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In a place filled with biodiversity, the lack of available food is a striking contrast.
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In the 16th century, the Philippines were colonized by the Spanish who drastically changed
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the land tenure, or who had rights or access to land.
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They reorganized agriculture to include encomiendas, which were plantations with a range of commercial
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crops, from sugar to tobacco to coffee.
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The Filipino workers still had ownership of the land in theory, but in practice, they
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were subject to high taxes.
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In the process, land rights shifted from subsistence plots, to increasingly commercialized agricultural activities.
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And this mass production of food for export has contributed to current day capitalism
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and the globalization of our food supply.
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As geographers, we can study how agriculture shapes economic activity, and how it has changed
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through the forces of globalization, where goods and ideas are exchanged around the world
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regardless of boundaries.
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For instance, as food gets industrialized, it becomes cost effective for large amounts
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of food to be produced and processed in just a few locations.
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This draws on the idea of economies of scale which is that there are cost savings inherent
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to large production operations where the costs of equipment and labor are used to produce
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so many items that the overall cost of production becomes really low.
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This makes it hard for smaller, local entities to compete, because they don’t have access
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to the same scale of resources.
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And to cover their costs, their products will be more expensive, and less competitive.
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Farming in the 21st century is also really expensive and risky -- there’s lots of equipment,
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seeds, and technology to buy and always a chance a crop will fail.
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In the Philippines, flooding from catastrophic typhoons has been one reason for recent crop failures.
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So economic insecurity is part of why the number of farmers is decreasing worldwide.
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And it’s helped large agribusinesses like Dole to build economies of scale in the Philippines
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by contracting with, or partnering with a bunch of little farms.
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And in situations where the farmers can own their land and retain control over inputs
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and pricing agreements, this can work decently, and has for some groups in the Philippines.
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But around the world there are tensions between the high cost of materials needed to farm
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commercially, low prices for food products, and who gets to own and control the land that
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farming takes place on.
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Giant agribusinesses like Dole also have the wealth to set up vertical integration, which
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is a process of buying up all the pieces of the supply chain.
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They own the fields where pineapples are grown and also control the packing and processing
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factories, trucks, and other parts of the supply chain that bring their product to grocery store shelves.
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So as agriculture has become more globalized on the one hand, this has made some food cheaper.
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But on the other hand, intensive commercial agriculture takes a lot out of the Earth and its people.
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This type of agriculture also creates tensions around who can afford to participate in commercial
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agriculture, and who can earn a dignified living working in that sector.
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For instance, from the colonial plantations of the 1700s to today, labor is still the
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hidden cost in agriculture.
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Small scale agriculture is often seen as hard and risky, with industrial agriculture being
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seen as more profitable.
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But in both cases those doing the labor are often in precarious positions.
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For much of the produce consumed around the world, there’s no automated way to harvest
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the delicate foods, other than by hand.
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So seasonal migrant labor is fairly common.
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But in many areas of the world, migrant labor doesn’t have protected legal rights, making
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them vulnerable to abuse, enslavement, and harmful legal policies.
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And pretty much by definition, agriculture alters the environment.
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Take the soil.
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Traditional methods dealt with soil conservation through terracing and windbreaks as a way
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to stop the soil from being washed or blown away.
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And farmers have gotten creative with ways to restore soil nutrients, like swidden systems
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where the soil is allowed to rest for at least one growing season.
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Or rice terrace systems that are integrated with animals providing a gentle cycling of
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nutrients using organic, or non-industrial fertilizers.
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But industrial agriculture is too intensive and specialized to use these methods, which
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often leads to soil degradation and erosion.
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Globally there’s also more pressure on aquifers and surface water from agriculture and droughts.
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Remember just 0.3% of water on Earth is freshwater that we can drink, and food production uses
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between 70 and 80% of that.
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Managing nutrient cycles, soil health, and water supplies also becomes more complicated
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in a world of climate change.
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It will mean finding new plants, new varieties, and perhaps changing some of the foods we eat.
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Geographers and scientists are also exploring agroecology, which is a term used to describe
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agriculture ecosystems that are rooted in the knowledge of local environments, justice,
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and are often small-scale and ecologically diverse.
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So will we use these methods in the future?
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I sure hope so!
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But given how much agriculture is currently focused on exporting food around the world
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rather than feeding local communities, it’s unlikely there’ll be a mass shift to agroecology
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anytime soon.
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But, there are so many people on the planet that we will need a diverse portfolio of agricultural
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practices to feed everyone.
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And yet, humans are ever innovating.
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Climate change and economics play a big role, but there are movements to change how farmers
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finance their costs, like micro loans and co-ops, which may or may not help depending
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on the country.
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Farming communities in the Philippines have pioneered peer-to-peer lending platforms in
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an attempt to make financing more affordable for farmers.
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Because well, food is our life.
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The story of agriculture is an integral part of the story of humans, and we’ll keep struggling and innovating.
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Including next time, when we continue on our journey to understand how humans interact
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with and use land -- this time deep within the Earth.
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Many maps and borders represent modern geopolitical divisions that have often been decided without
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the consultation, permission, or recognition of the land's original inhabitants.
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Many geographical place names also don't reflect the Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples languages.
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So we at Crash Course want to acknowledge these peoples’ traditional and ongoing relationship
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with that land and all the physical and human geographical elements of it.
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We encourage you to learn about the history of the place you call home through resources
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like native-land.ca and by engaging with your local Indigenous and Aboriginal nations through
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the websites and resources they provide.
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Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Geography which is filmed at the Team
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Sandoval Pierce Studio and was made with the help of all these nice people.
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If you want to help keep all Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our
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community on Patreon.