Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
BROILER CHICKEN SALES IN THE
UNITED STATES, 2007
One dot represents 1,000,000 broilers
The United States total is 8,914,828,122
0
400
600
800
10
0
0 Kilometers
200
0
200
400
600 Miles
Modified after publication 07-M161 U.S. Department of Agriculture,
National Agricultural Statistics Service.
ALASKA
HAWAI'I
Figure 11.21
Broiler Chicken Sales in the United States, 2007.
Courtesy of: United States Census of Agriculture,
National Agricultural Statistics Service.
processing plant, and production (both by farms owned
by the corporation and those owned privately) increased
to meet the demand (Fig. 11.22).
Because of agribusiness, the range and variety of
products on the shelves of urban supermarkets in the
United States is a world apart from the constant quest for
suffi cient, nutritionally balanced food that exists in some
places. A global network of farm production is oriented to
the one-fi fth of the world's population that is highly
urbanized, wealthy, and powerful. Few farmers in distant
lands have real control over land-use decisions, for the
better off people in the global economic core continue to
decide what will be bought at what price. The colonial era
may have come to an end, but, as the map of agricultural
regions reminds us, its imprint remains strong.
Environmental Impacts of Commercial
Agriculture
Commercial agriculture creates signifi cant environmen-
tal change. The growing demand for protein-rich foods
and more effi cient technologies are leading to overfi sh-
ing in many regions of the world. In many places fi sh
stocks are declining at an alarming rate. From mid-cen-
tury to the late 1980s, the fi sh harvest from oceans and
seas increased fi vefold, and there seemed to be no limit
to it. Countries quarreled over fi shing rights, poorer
countries leased fi shing grounds to richer ones, and
fl eets of trawlers plied the oceans. International attempts
to regulate fi shing industries failed. Then in the 1970s
and 1980s, overfi shing began destroying fi sh stocks. The
