Traditional and modern methods of geographical research of agriculture

Abstract

Agriculture – basic branch of economy of Kazakhstan, which supplies the population with food,raw materials industry, and serves as an important factor in the development of individual regions. Sincethe early 90’s of XX century the transformation of agriculture in Kazakhstan changing land-use patterns,the formation of new areas of specialization, particularly around the capital city Astana. The need forgeographers to participate in the study of this most important branch of the economy is determined bythe fact that, along with institutional factors, spatial (geographical) factors. They are natural conditions,the situation near large cities, infrastructure development, the quantity and quality of the population, itsnational characteristics and traditional occupations, and the location of agriculture in the country. In thenew market conditions, the conceptual and methodological approaches to the identification of featuresof the territorial development of the industry as a whole change significantly, the object and subject ofthe research. Therefore, along with the earlier priority areas of the geographical study of the territorialstructure of agriculture, the article also considers the development of new geographical methods foragricultural research. The application of new methods in modern agrogeographic research, along withtraditional ones, will make it possible to develop recommendations for improving the territorial organizationof agriculture.