• Define agriculture and sort it into subsistence vs commercial systems.
• Describe the spatial pattern of agriculture using a distribution map.
• Explain the physical & human factors that decide where each system operates.
• Examine case studies — the Canadian Prairies, Tuscany, and tropical plantations.
• Evaluate agriculture's environmental & climate impacts, and write an extended response.

Geographers sort farming by its purpose, its intensity (inputs per hectare), and the environment it suits. The two big families are:

• Subsistence — grown mainly to feed the farmer's own family, little surplus (much of Africa, South & SE Asia).
• Commercial — grown mainly to sell for profit, using capital, machinery and global markets.

The seven systems you should know: subsistence · shifting cultivation · pastoral nomadism · extensive commercial · intensive commercial · Mediterranean · plantation.

The Canadian Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) are one of the world's great grain regions — wheat & canola on very large, highly-mechanised farms with low labour per hectare. Canada is a top wheat & canola exporter.

Australia mirrors this: a broad wheat-sheep belt arcs through WA, SA, Vic, NSW & southern Qld; the arid outback carries extensive cattle & sheep grazing on enormous stations (Anna Creek in SA is often cited as the world's largest, ~23,000 km²).

Why extensive? Deep fertile soils, a warm-enough growing season, moderate rainfall — and vast, cheap, flat land where machinery can work huge fields.

Tuscany (central Italy) is a classic Mediterranean landscape: olives, grapevines & cereals across hills with hot dry summers & mild wet winters. The climate suits deep-rooted, drought-tolerant tree & vine crops; the produce (Chianti wine, olive oil) carries strong cultural identity & premium value.

The same climate + crop mix reappears in Napa Valley (California), and in south-western & southern Australia — one climate type reproducing a farming system in five separate world regions.

Plantations are large commercial estates specialising in a single export cash crop (monoculture), usually in the tropics and often a legacy of the colonial era.

• Coffee — Brazil is the world's largest producer.
• Tea — estates in India (Assam, Darjeeling) & Sri Lanka.
• Rubber — mainly South-East Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam).

Plantations bring export income & jobs but raise sustainability (monoculture, deforestation), vulnerability to a single world price, and labour & ethics questions.