Geographical Areas

1. Hot dry summers, cooler winters.

2. Limited precipitation largely concentrated in the winter season.

3. Found on all continents between tropics and 40o latitude.

4. Largest single area east of Mediterranean basin.

• 5000 km from Atlantic Coast to Afghanistan

6. North and South America along Pacific Coast.

• Southern boundary in Chile, northern in N. Oregon
• Inland areas semi-desertic and characterized by greater temperature extreme

8. Because of aridity, one of lowest ratios of cultivated land to total area of any major geographic region.

9. Highest proportion of wasteland.

• Sahara and Arabian Deserts
• Australian Desert

• Nile
• Euphrates
• Indus

• Nomads

13. Region overall includes 27 countries with a total population of 400 million.

Mediterranean Environment in Relation to Agriculture

1. Climate.

• Mediterranean has characteristics that distinguish it from semi-arid tropics
• Never found a great distance from the sea
• Marked cool season (Oct. - April)
• Some parts have winter temperatures low enough to limit plant growth (mountainous areas of Spain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan)
• Rainfall decreases from north to south
• % total plant species are annual plants (l/10 in other zones)
• Rainfall highly erratic and unpredictable
• A large component of perennial drought resistant crops - (olives, vines, figs, dates, and stone fruits)
• Annual fluctuations of rainfall cause great year-to-year variations in pasture output
• Nomads
• Increasing competition for land between grazing and cultivators in
• marginal areas
• Much of desert, 100,000 ha of grazing land lost every year

• Unstable and mountainous terrain
• Rainfall often in torrential storms - runoff high, serious erosion hazards
• Forest cover pillaged for timber, grazing and farm land (3/4 of original vegetation gone by mid-1800s).

• Markedly heterogeneous
• Topography and elevation produce catenas which override parent material
• Easy working except when dry at end of summer
• Neutral to high pH
• Low in OM, low water holding capacity
• Extremely deficient in nitrogen
• "Terra Rossa" soils extremely fine textured calcareous soils in ?Fertile Cresent? - Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, N. Iraq, S. Turkey, W. Greece, E. Libya
• Poor physical condition related to water retention
• Salinity and/or sodium accumulation serious problem
• Water logging and impeded drainage

• Critical shortage of new land for cultivation around Mediterranean and to increasing extent in CA and Chile
• Irrigated land averages 20% of total arable
• Highest proportion of any large geographical area
• Best sites have now been utilized
• Because of less risk, opportunities for higher yields and more diversity, total share of ag on irrigated land in greater ratio than 20%

1. Industrialization, migration of people from the land to cities or to other countries, especially from Spain, North Africa and Turkey - there has been a decline in the importance of agriculture.

2. Changes in crops.

• Traditional rain-fed crops, cereals and plants occupying 50% of total area declining relative to fruits (citrus) and vegetables
• Result of expansion of irrigation and diversification of cropping
• Competitive advantage for producing out-of-season high value crops (early potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries)
• California best example of this
• Production of wine and table grapes expanding, result of increasing demand from other countries

• Most important are ruminants
• Demand for meat outstripping production

• Fifteen non-industralized countries around the Mediterranean, food imports have risen sharply
• Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Tunisia, long time exporters of grain now barely self sufficient.
• Projections indicate food deficit between 19.5 and 33.8 million tons by 1990.
• Rising demand for meat caused increase in feed grain demand - competition with cereals for food

1. Extremely long history of human influence on land use and misuse (10,000 years).

2. Quite diverse patterns of land use have developed.

3. Traditional pastoral systems.

• Animal husbandry is the main and often only form of agriculture in dryer and colder areas of region
• Flock owners often own no arable land, animals depend on natural range
• Sheep and goats kept in mixed flocks
• Provide cheese, meat, and wool or hair for garments and carpets
• Some specialized cattle, sheep and goat production appearing
• Cattle are becoming more numerous
• But triple purpose small ruminant remains most important
• 57% of total feed DM requirements for livestock obtained from natural grazing lands
• Existence of these free-range livestock is becoming precarious
• In Jordan, because of extension of cereal cultivation, range carrying capacity has reduced from 1 ewe/2 ha to 1 ewe/10 ha
• Historical importance accorded to animals in this region and customary rights is being eroded
• Livestock is becoming the poor relation in farming patterns
• So far attempts at grazing control, range reseeding, disease control, increasing water points have not been well coordinated and been failures
• Nomads and the goat is a useful system because of the shrubby nature of the vegetations
• Without them/danger of brush fires

• First would be to ban all cultivations in marginal areas where rainfall below 25 mm
• Foster accepted system of voluntary grazing control within traditional tribal boundaries
• Restore the traditional boundary rights to range ownership designed to protec and conserve the resources
• Provide more stable outlets for immature animals from range
• Reduce their mass slaughter at low weights as vegetation dries up
• Need a system approach to problem involving a package of interrelated measures
• Piecemeal attack main reason for lack of success in spite of escalating demand for meat

• Possibilities of improving animal productivity correlated with changes in winter cereal production and increased yields
• Bulk of cereal output must continue to come from rain-fed land
• Principally, winter barley and wheat
• Must try and increase total output and income from rain-fed cereal crop system by introducing a second crop to replace fallow (occupies 25-40% of land each year)
• Improve yields of main winter cereal species

• Bulk of fallow land cultivated inefficiently or not at all
• Only solution to overgrazing is to develop rotations which provide more fodder without hurting cereal production
• Australian system involves self-seeding annual forage legumes to replace traditional fallow
• Both social and technical problems to overcome
• Suitable strains of medicago have been tested
• Seed in short supply
• Rhizobial nodulation varies considerably
• Supplies of inoculum limited
• Optimum methods of seeding and cultural practices have to be worked out
• P has to be provided for legumes
• Grazing management is missing from their traditional systems
• Many researchers are looking at annual forage legumes like vetch - fit better with traditional farming practices
• In Syria - wheat/vetch rotation could cover 1 million ha of good rain-fed lands
• Poor weed control often defeats objective - high risk inhibits the use of N to compensate for legumes in system

• In Turkey - a low cost package based on winter fallow, chisel plowing to form weed, stubble mulch continued through summer put N in autumn, drill in P and seed - topdress with N next spring - herbicide for weed control - cost/benefit ratio 5:1 - yields averaged 2000 kg/ha consistently
• Need to develop
• Genetic improvement of cereals
• Cultural practices to reduce climatic insecurity
• Combination of tillage/herbicides to reduce weeds
• International maize and wheat center in Mexico producing material
• It is not successful in Mediterranean region because:
• Large proportion of wheat area grows drum wheat for macaroni and semolina rather than bread wheat
• Part of Mexican wheat success if irrigation/this area rain-fed
• Diseases more serious in Mediterranean region
• What is said for wheat is the same for barley
• Barley suited to marginal areas to dry or infertile than wheat
• Climatic risk most important reason for slow rate of adoption of modern varieties
• Modern varieties requires greater draft power, different types of to replace weedy fallow - all departures from low cost cereal culture
• Success depends on governmental commitment
• In past, bulk of public money has gone to irrigation

• Wide variety of tree species, vines and annual crops including leguminous forage for sheep and cattle
• These types found in more humid, less extreme climatic areas - Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, Corsica, Sicily, and Sardinia
• Areas isolated, poor internal communications, semi-subsistence economics
• Small inefficient milling, olive oil, wine, and cheese processing industries
• High degree of fragmentation of holdings
• Average farm size under five hectares
• 8-10 plots each under .5 ha - some as much as several kilometers from homestead

• Land use strongly influenced by altitude
• Forests at higher elevations
• Vines, olives, and fruit trees below 1000 m to sea level
• Cereals, grains, and forage crops on lower slopes and valley bottoms
• Chaparral (shrub) widely distributed at lower altitudes
• Extensive use of wood products other than timber and firewood
• Resin from pines
• Oil from eucalyptus
• Chestnuts, pistachios, and others
• Cork form quercus suber
• Acorns for fattening pigs
• If this were not the case, rate of forest destruction might have been faster
• Cultivated perennials are:
• Vines and olives, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece
• Viticulture - CA, Australia, S. Africa, Chile, and Argentina
• Other fruit trees: figs, apricots, almonds, peaches
•  In wetter areas, forage is grown often under trees for dairy, sheep, and goats

• Small farm size and fragmentation results in higher costs, low income
• Some have average annual travel distance between plots at 5000 km
• Disputes over land ownership and tenant rights are frequent
• Lack of title and registration laws and complicated inheritance laws
• Land reform and open up new opportunities - but will not transform traditional agriculture

• May require shifts in historical patterns of land use
• Need specialization according to ecological comparative advantage

• Warm temperate regions are cradle of irrigated agriculture
• Every source of surface and ground water resource is utilized
• Largest known ground water aquifer lies at eastern edge of region
• Covers 18 million ha
• Supplies 100,000 public and private tube wells and 200,000 Persian wheels
• Supplies 30% of water for 14 million ha of crops in Pakistan
• In Mediterranean, a much larger proportion of irrigation is from surface water, from government projects impounding rivers
• Changes in cropping patterns result of pull of export markets
• Greater specialization, particularly in citrus and vegetables
• Greater risk as well as higher profits growing perishable products

• Productivity of irrigated agriculture still very low
• Cropping intensities average only 57%
• Growth of irrigated area slowing down
• Due to cost of construction for dams, systems, etc.
• As high as $6000/ha watered
• Many of best sites already used

• Poor performance due to numerous factors:
• Weakness in planning
• Weakness in design
• Weakness in management and implementation
• Use of irrigation mainly as a means of alleviating poverty and creating employment
• Water has been spread too thin in attempt to ?benefit? as many people as possible
• Farm sizes have been established which are smaller than optimum
• Deign weaknesses affect both modern and traditional systems and include:
• Lack of year-round storage
• Inflexible water delivery
• Inefficient land shaping
• Failure to extend irrigation and drainage system to farms
• Weaknesses in management include:
• Inadequate training
• Weakness in planning and design
• Failure to devote sufficient resources
• Failure to disseminate new technology through research and extension
• Need to increase productivity rather than merely expanding area
• Modernization of traditional systems
• Use of improved technology and higher yielding varieties
• Use of drip or sprinkler irrigation systems
• Restraint in both planning and implementation
• Scarcity of trained manpower
• Low levels of farmer's skills

1. Increasing food deficits, greater fragmentation of holdings.

2. Rapid migration to cities.

3. Aggravated conflicts in land use.

4. Unique opportunities to reshape farm structure.

5. Possible repair of damage of centuries of misuse.

 6. Increasing availability of indigenous funds (Arabia and Kuwait)

7. Success will depend upon:

• Improving yields
• Yield stability of crops and livestock
• Intensifying land use
• Developing complementarities between land use systems in different agroclimatic zones