Von Thunen Model Essay Example

and butter do nit perish quickly as the milk, they can produc some distance away from the market.

Zone 5 is extensive three-field arable system. in the three field system ,1/3 of the land is used for field crop ,1/3 for pasture and 1/3 left fallow. with one cereal crop and one Fallow. Zone 6 is extensive livestock farming ,or in this case ranching . rye in this zone does not produce so high rent as butter,cheese and livestock ,so it is only for own consumption. on the other hand ,the processed dairy food,like cheese and buter are transported economically from these areas because of the great reduction in bulk and perishability achieved in the course of their manufacture from fluid state. herefore,the main product taken to market for sale is animal products(livestock) For example,it is quite applicable at soba in northern.

Nigeria where a concentric pattern of farming land use can be found a hausa village. the intensity is decreasing from the village where it is the market and the source of labour and manure. zone A around the village is under continuous cultivation and is heavily manured. tobacco is the most important. Zone B is an area of almost unbroken cultivated land of Guinea corn and cotton ,which are the major food and cash crops. his zone is continuously cultivated and heavily manured ,Zone C is a system of land rotation . farms are cleared and cultivated for 3-4 years and then the land reverts to fallow for at least 5 years.

Zone D is mainly dense bush growth. This theory can be applied to explain the spatial pattern of agricultural land use s in today’s

highly urbanized parts of the world is the locational rent. There are some modifications to the von thunen model to let it be applied to the real world. As there are addition of a navigable river. water routes provide cheaper transportation. gricultural commodities could be taken directly to the river’s edge and then moved to the city by inexpensive barge or boat,each zone of production became elongated in the direction roughky parallel to the river.

The addition of a small town acting as a competing market centre. this small town had its own land use zones basing on the same principle of rent mechanism. the simple concentric zones would look more complex . ins population size would occur between the market centres. the concentric zone pattern is distorted . however ,it does not affect the type of goods which yields the highest return.

The improved transport routes and several competing centres . there would be attenuation of rural landuse zines along the direction of traffic flow because the farmer can lower their transport cost and get greater return due to good accessibility to the market ,competing centres would be expected to develop tributary areas in the same manner as that of the main certre. The variable production costs or productivity. district with low production costs or high productivity expands in size at the expense of the other ,and local areas with infertile soil of poor climate favour extensive cultivation at the expense of intensive cultivation.

The farmers’ behavior . variations in farmers’ entrepreneurial abilities and in the amount of knowledge are thought of primarily as boundary forces ,for example ,abandoned fields can be found at the periphery of

grawing towns. these are in fact the best agricultural land with close proximity to market. but speculation and probable future urban expansion could take up the land. farmer just lay the land wasted ,hoping to gain a better and quick profit from sale. For example,in North America ,we can observe nearly an entire continent oriented toward the population core centered on the freat castern citied.

Chicago may be considered as one of the centres. the rings are not smooth and regular as von thunen saw them in theory in his isolated state, Climatic variations ,soil differences ,terrain irregularities ,river systems,an intensive transport network,and local interruptions such as irrigation projects and but a few of the distorton factors. still . we can record a certain concentric zonation ,with dairying concentrated in the eastern heartland ,mixed farming and food grain production in an adjacent zone ,wheat cultivation beyond ,and beef cattle and sheep raising still further away.