Telling an Old Story with New Maps - Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications - page 82

computer-operated irrigation systems or health and safety regulations. It is what the world
of the majority was before the industrial revolution, a world that includes much subsistence
still, and in which out of every seven farmers and agricultural labours, three are female.
Text Box 5.12: Agricultural Women
Of all the female agricultural workers in the world, 39% live and work in India. The
arable agricultural produce of India includes jute, rice, oilseed, cotton, sugar cane,
wheat, tea and potatoes. Indian pastoral agriculture includes farming cattle, water
buffalo, goats, poultry, sheep and fish. Over half of the female agricultural workers in
the world are in Southern Asia.
The United Arab Emirates has the lowest percentage of the population who are
female agricultural workers.
This map of female agricultural workers (where Asian territories are large) is almost
an inversion of the per person distribution of working tractors (where the most are
found in richer regions).
whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass grow on a patch of
land where only one grew before, does a greater service to mankind . . . than the
whole gang of politicians put together
(King of Brobingdag, 1754)
5.2.12 Agricultural men
There are subtle differences to the world map made up of men working in agriculture as
compared with that of women farmers. An additional 115 million farmers are involved, the
Americas are not so thin, but in general the distribution of men working in agriculture is
Figure 5.14 Territory size shows the proportion of male agricultural workers worldwide living there
(Worldmapper Map 128)