Arable Land in the United States: California
Population Growth and Urbanization
Migrant Workers and Immigration
- a recovery on the job market makes California look more prosperous, drawing in poor immigrants looking for a job
- California has the largest number of undocumented immigrants, 2.6 million in 2010, a quarter of all immigrants in the US
- migrant workers work ten hour day, six days a week for less then minimum wadge
- this cheep labor is what keeps food prices so low
- more migrant workers leads to more destruction to the land, due to living space and over farming the land
- the most urbanized state in the nation
- the population rate is the highest it has been in a decade, more then 38.2 million people, almost 7,000 people per square mile
- more then half of California lives in just five counties, counties that are growing all the time
- more people = more homes = less arable land
- almost 50,000 acres of arable land are lost each year
Migrant Workers in California
- takes away jobs from Americans
- immigration rates
- food prices would rise
- cheep labor for a large profit
- easy to replace
- all, or most, family members can work
- keeps food cheep
California
- many of California's cities had been built on the best soil by a reliable water source
- due to the expansion of cities into wildlife refugees, some arable land is being used to create wildlife refugees
- too many farms and cities are using rivers and deltas, so they are drying up
- urbanization is being pushed back into farms, thus farms must destroy forests to keep the production rate the same
- almost half of California, 43%, is used for agriculture, or arable land
- in California, 16 million acres are used for grazing land, 27 million for cropland, and 9 million acres are used for irrigation, a total of 52 million acres used
- Michigan has about 63 million total acres
What is arable land?
- arable land is defined as land that is suitable for growing crops
- there are 3.794 million square miles of arable land in the United States, roughly 8.09 acres total land per person.
- out of that only 2.02 acres of land per person is good for growing crops
- most of the arable land in the US comes from California
- to improve production, there are new technologies such as high yielding cultivators and pesticides to make produce grow faster
- decrease amount of land being urbanized,but keeping people on already urbanized land
- crack down on immigration
- solving one problem creates another
Discussion questions
- What do you think is the best solution?
- Should we stop cities from urbanizing?
- How would a price increase in food affect you?