ECONOMIES  OF  SCALE
Hanink's case study on pork production (Case 3.1, pp. 75-77) provides a good example of economies of scale (reductions in the unit costs of production resulting from production designed for increased quantity of output), and provides background for the case with which we opened the course.

TECHNOLOGY
Hanink defines technology quite simply as "productive methods and techniques" [p.485].  Read the section on agricultural technology, pp. 86-90, to understand:

• the relationship between technology and the law of diminishing returns (the relationship is described on page 87;  diminishing returns are introduced on page 71);
• technological diffusion, which is the spread of a technology over space and time (a technology is assumed to be invented in one place at one time, and then is adopted by other firms or people in other places, over time);
• the two different spatial patterns of diffusion:
• contagious diffusion:  "spatial diffusion marked by distance decay" [p. 478]
• hierarchical diffusion:  "spatial diffusion marked by point-to-point interaction" [p. 480]
• What characteristics of a technology and of a landscape would lead you to expect contagious versus hierarchical diffusion?
• the likely relationship between technological improvement in agriculture and location rents paid by agricultural land uses.