Farmers decide how much work, money and materials to put into each acre. That choice sorts farming into two broad kinds, whatever the crop. The agricultural revolutions gave farmers new ways to add those inputs.
Key idea
Intensive farming puts a lot of labor or capital (machines, fertilizer, water, buildings) on each unit of land, and gets a large output from a small area: market gardens, rice paddies, dairies, feedlots. Extensive farming uses large areas with little input per acre: ranching, nomadic herding, shifting cultivation.
| Intensive | Extensive |
|---|---|
| Market gardening (vegetables, fruit) | Cattle ranching |
| Wet rice in paddies | Nomadic herding (pastoralism) |
| Dairy farming | Shifting cultivation (slash-and-burn) |
| Feedlots and greenhouses | Large grain farms (compared with gardens) |
Why it works
Why farm intensively? Where land is expensive or scarce, every acre must produce a lot, so farmers add labor and capital. Near cities, land costs more (the idea behind the von Thünen model), and in crowded river valleys of Asia, families make small plots very productive. Where land is cheap and plentiful, as in dry grasslands, it pays to use a lot of it lightly.
Worked example: Compare per hectare
Farm A: 2 hectares, 3,000 hours of work a year. Farm B: 500 hectares, 6,000 hours a year. Which is more labor-intensive?
- Farm A: 3,000 ÷ 2 = 1,500 hours per hectare.
- Farm B: 6,000 ÷ 500 = 12 hours per hectare.
- Farm B uses more hours in total, but far fewer per hectare.
Answer: Farm A, with 1,500 hours per hectare.
Worked example: Big and modern, but extensive?
A wheat farm on the Great Plains covers 2,000 hectares with two workers and big machines. Is it intensive or extensive?
- The machines are capital, but spread over 2,000 hectares, the input per hectare is small.
- Output per hectare is modest compared with a market garden.
Answer: Extensive, even though it is large and modern.
Common mistake
Thinking intensive means large and modern. Intensive is about input per unit of land: a small, hand-worked rice paddy is intensive; a vast cattle ranch is extensive. Always divide by the land.