... we do not yet seem to have realised that the exchange of products between countries in one part of the world but at different stages of development is no less natural, and no less profitable for the various nations, than the exchange of products which differ because they grow in different climates' (Thiinen-Hall, xg66, p. 194). There have been few attempts to study agriculture within a spatial framework, notwithstanding the quintessential importance of land as a production factor. Land is most often treated as generalized environment although it could also be considered as social and economic space-social because even the most crowded of farming communities has much greater distance between its basic social units than exist within an urban-industrial agglomeration, and economic because distances to markets, to factor sources and to information must be overcome and frequently vary by type of market, factor and information source. Modem agricultural geography has been largely preoccupied with the development of techniques and with classification, often as ends in thexnselves, or with a geographical element consisting mainly of some general locational reference or regional description. Rarely has there been an attempt to identify a spatial structure associated with some particular agricultural enterprise* or practice.

This book identifies the pattern in a particular sector of the spatial economy. It analyses economies at a low level of development which are associated with distinctive forms of agricultural activity and explains their pattern at increasingly smaller scale: world, nation, village and farm.

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in the area of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) that improve ecosystem functions of environments and landscapes affected by agricultural practices and land degradation, while enhancing livelihoods and other social and cultural functions. This has opened up a portfolio of NbS options that offer a pragmatic way forward for simultaneously addressing conservation, climate and socioeconomic objectives while maintaining healthy and productive agricultural systems. NbS can mimic natural processes and build on land restoration and operational water-land management concepts that aim to simultaneously improve vegetation and water availability and quality, and raise agricultural productivity. NbS can involve conserving or rehabilitating natural ecosystems and/or the enhancement or the creation of natural processes in modified or artificial ecosystems. In agricultural landscapes, NbS can be applied for soil health, soil moisture, carbon mitigation (through soil and forestry), downstream water quality protections, biodiversity benefits as well as agricultural production and supply chains to achieve net-zero environmental impacts while achieving food and water security, and meet climate goals.