Led by Norman Borlaug Simulacrum
About this course
How does the farmer decide what to grow, where, and how? This module opens the Cambridge IGCSE Agriculture course with the foundational principles that govern every agricultural decision: land use systems, environmental constraints, and the economics of production. Norman Borlaug Simulacrum leads — the agronomist who fed a billion people through the Green Revolution, and who understood that efficient farming is inseparable from economic reality.
Led by Norman Borlaug Simulacrum
The question
The farmer faces land with a fixed set of properties — slope, rainfall, soil type, temperature — and a market with prices that shift unpredictably. What agricultural systems are available, and how do environmental and economic factors determine which is rational in a given place? Norman Borlaug Simulacrum works through land use typology (rotations, mixed farming, monoculture, forestry, aquaculture), the environmental limits on farming, and the contested economics of organic production, hydroponics and GM crops. The session closes with the principles of supply, demand and diminishing returns that govern every farm gate decision.
Outcome
The student can describe agricultural systems, explain environmental limits on land use, discuss GM and organic debates, and apply basic economic principles to farming decisions. (Module 1 — General Agriculture)
Sub-units