Agricultural systems are as diverse as the world's natural environments, economies, political structures, and peoples. Nomadic herding, slash-and-burn farming, wet rice farming, and large scale agribusiness and plantations are among the many styles of farming practiced today. The chapter describes the requirements, locations, and characteristics of each of these.

Besides soils, climate, and topography, agricultural systems are also affected by population density, diet, and patterns of settlement and land ownership. Subsidies for agriculture, tariffs, and patterns of trade also come into play as the world becomes more complex and interconnected. Technologies of many kinds affect growth, harvest, storage, and transportation of food, and the labor supply and capital available are also of critical importance. The chapter examines each of these in detail.

After reading Chapter 8, students should have a good understanding of the distributions of the major food crops, why they are so, and ways in which the patterns are changing. They should understand how recent developments such as cloning, gene splicing, remote sensing, and aquaculture might change the global pattern of food, health, and hunger. Students should better understand why simply feeding the world's people is a fundamental and complex challenge.

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