Test: World Agriculture - 1 - UPSC MCQ

Alfalfa is cultivated as an important forage crop.

• The country at the top in terms of percentage of total coffee production in the world is Brazil. Coffee production in Brazil is responsible for about a third of all coffee produced in the world making Brazil the world’s largest producer, a position the country has held for the last 150 years.

• Coffee plantations, covering some 27,000 km2 (10,000 sq mi), are mainly located in the southeastern states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná where the environment and climate provide ideal growing conditions.

• The major agricultural regions of the world were first delineated by D. Whittlesey. One of the most satisfactory classifications of agricultural regions in the world was proposed by D. Whittlesey in 1936.

• Whittlesey employed five criteria to classify agricultural regions in the world: (a) crop and livestock combination; (b) intensity of land use; (c) processing and marketing of farm produce; (d) degree of mechanisation; and (e) types and associations of buildings and other structures associated with agriculture.