1. Intensive Peasant Farming

2. What is expected
You should be able to describe the main features of the system and explain the associated population density.

3. Location
Monsoon lands of SE Asia on fertile river plains around the Indus and Ganges.
Named examples: Kerala (India), Kedah (Malaysia)

5. Population Density
Huge numbers of people living in densely packed, nuclear villages.
High densities are possible due to high fertility of the land and high yields.

6. Settlement Pattern
The Ganges Valley is known as ‘the land of the million villages‘.
‘Busy’ landscape dominated by villages, terraced hillsides and flooded padi fields.
Farms are small and fragmented as holdings may have become sub-divided over different generations due to inheritance systems.

7. Climate and Soils
Equatorial / monsoon climate (high temperatures and high rainfall with wet and drier season).
Fertile soils - alluvium, silt or lava soils
Long growing season and fertile soils makes the area ideal for growing cereals – mainly rice but also wheat, barley and pulses.

8. Inputs
Physical factors – flat land, terraced slopes, impervious soils, sufficient water to flood fields
Known as rice padi fields
Natural fertiliser after seeds have been planted.
Labour
Animals

9. Technology
Low level of technology and machinery. Work is mostly done by hand. The high population densities/large family sizes means that labour shortages are not usually a problem.

10. Labour Intensive

11. Animals used to pull ploughs

12. Main Activities
Water buffalo used for ploughing/preparing the land – more suited to small fields than machinery.
Rice crop – seedlings are traditionally grown in nurseries and then transplanted by hand into the padi-fields (or sawahs).

13. Fields flooded

14. Children used as cheap labour

15. Fields are allowed to flood during the wet season.
Soil bunds/embankments – help to retain water in the padi-fields.
Some water is stored in the wet season and released during the drier season to irrigate the crops

16. Terraced field and trees planted to prevent soil erosion

17. What would be the social impact of modernisation?

18. Changes..
The green revolution has been responsible for many of the dramatic changes in areas of intensive peasant farming. These changes have affected the people, their way of life and the landscape. They have created some good and some bad effects.

19. The green revolution was based on the use of high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice, maize and wheat.
Increased and improved mechanisation, irrigation and the increased use of agrochemicals (fertilisers and pesticides) were also important.

20. Positive Effects
Higher yields mean people are better fed and may even have surplus crops for sale or export.
Increased yields have meant a drop in food prices for local people in some areas.
Faster growing HYVs allow an extra crop to be grown each year.
Yields are more reliable as many new varieties are more disease-resistant.

21. Negative Effects
HYVs need a reliable and controlled water supply and much greater amounts of machinery and agrochemicals. These greatly increase farmers' costs.
Only rich farmers, who can afford to invest in these changes, will benefit.
Those who can't afford the extra cost of modernisation run into debt and can end up being forced off their land.

22. Mechanisation and farm amalgamations have led to rural unemployment and migration to already overcrowded cities.
Overuse of irrigation has led to salinisation of soils.
HYVs are more susceptible to pest damage.
Increased use of pesticides has poisoned other types of wildlife in the environment.

23. What and where Found throughout South East Asia including India.
Several different crops may be grown depending on the climate.
In wetter areas, rice is the main crop.
There are several different varieties of rice which can be grown but the most important is wet rice.

24. Main Features Small fields due to land tenure.
Rice being planted under water.
Lack of mechanisation.
High number of workers.
Use of animals.
Embankment used to retain water.
Slopes terraced to maximise land use and conserve soil and water.