Portal:Agriculture

The Agriculture Portal

Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, cooking oils, meat, milk, eggs, and fungi. Over one-third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector, although in recent decades, the global trend of a decreasing number of agricultural workers continues, especially in developing countries, where smallholding is being overtaken by industrial agriculture and mechanization that brings an enormous crop yield increase.

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have sharply increased crop yields, but cause ecological and environmental damage. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and environmental damage. Environmental issues include contributions to global warming, depletion of aquifers, deforestation, antibiotic resistance, and other agricultural pollution. Agriculture is both a cause of and sensitive to environmental degradation, such as biodiversity loss, desertification, soil degradation, and global warming, all of which can cause decreases in crop yield. Genetically modified organisms are widely used, although some are banned in certain countries. (Full article...)

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Diversity in dry common beans

"Bean" is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family "fabaceae" (alternately "leguminosae") used for human food or animal feed.

The whole young pods of bean plants, if picked before the pods ripen and dry, are very tender and may be eaten cooked or raw. Thus the term "green beans" means "green" in the sense of unripe (many are in fact not green in color). In some cases, the beans inside the pods of "green beans" are too small to comprise a significant part of the cooked fruit. Beans have significant amounts of fiber and soluble fiber, with one cup of cooked beans providing between nine and 13 grams of fiber. Soluble fiber can help lower blood cholesterol. Beans are also high in protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, and iron.

Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, with seeds the size of the small fingernail, were gathered in their wild state in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand already since the early seventh millennium (BC), predating ceramics. They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt. Not until the second millennium BC did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe. In the "Iliad" (late-8th century) is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor. The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological site in Peru, and dated to around the second millennium BCE. (Full article...)

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Harvest

Credit: www.volganet.ru

Harvesting agriculture with a combine harvester in Volgograd Oblast, Russia

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Did you know...

... that James F. Short served as director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture under four governors?

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General images

The following are images from various agriculture-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Bt-toxins in genetically modified peanut leaves (bottom) protect from damage by corn borers (top). (from History of agriculture)
Image 2The agriculturalist Charles 'Turnip' Townshend introduced four-field crop rotation and the cultivation of turnips. (from History of agriculture)
Image 3Jethro Tull's seed drill, invented in 1701 (from History of agriculture)
Image 4Clay and wood model of a bull cart carrying farm produce in large pots, Mohenjo-daro. The site was abandoned in the 19th century BC. (from History of agriculture)
Image 5Modern facilities in molecular biology are now used in plant breeding. (from Plant breeding)
Image 6Biomass distribution of humans, livestock, and other animals (from Livestock)
Image 7Native millet, Panicum decompositum, was planted and harvested by Indigenous Australians in eastern central Australia. (from History of agriculture)
Image 8The Harvesters. Pieter Bruegel – 1565 (from History of agriculture)
Image 9Agricultural research on potato plants (from Plant breeding)
Image 10Centres of origin identified by Nikolai Vavilov in the 1930s. Area 3 (grey) is no longer recognised as a centre of origin, and Papua New Guinea (red, 'P') was identified more recently. (from History of agriculture)
Image 11An Indian farmer with a rock-weighted scratch plough pulled by two oxen. Similar ploughs were used throughout antiquity. (from History of agriculture)
Image 12An organic farmer, California, 1972 (from History of agriculture)
Image 13This Australian road sign uses the less common term "stock" for livestock. (from Livestock)
Image 14Pigs being loaded into their transport (from Livestock)
Image 15Agriculture terraces were (and are) common in the austere, high-elevation environment of the Andes. (from History of agriculture)
Image 16Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution of the 1970s, is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation. (from History of agriculture)
Image 17Magnified 100X, and stained with H&E (hematoxylin and eosin) staining technique, this light photomicrograph of brain tissue reveals the presence of prominent spongiotic changes in the cortex, and loss of neurons in a case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 18Noria wheels to lift water for irrigation and household use were among the technologies introduced to Europe via Al-Andalus in the medieval Islamic world. (from History of agriculture)
Image 19A Fordson Dexta tractor with a rollover protection structure bar retro-fitted. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 20A Northern Song era (960–1127 AD) Chinese watermill for dehusking grain with a horizontal waterwheel (from History of agriculture)
Image 21Garton's catalogue from 1902 (from Plant breeding)
Image 22Domesticated animals on a Sumerian cylinder seal, 2500 BC (from History of agriculture)
Image 23Selective breeding enlarged desired traits of the wild cabbage plant (Brassica oleracea) over hundreds of years, resulting in dozens of today's agricultural crops. Cabbage, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower are all cultivars of this plant. (from Plant breeding)
Image 24The creation of maize from teosinte (top), maize-teosinte hybrid (middle), to maize (bottom) (from History of agriculture)
Image 25Pesticide application for chemical control of nematodes in a sunflower planted field. Karaisalı, Adana - Turkey. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 26Goat family with one-week-old kid (from Livestock)
Image 27Farrowing site in a natural cave in northern Spain (from Livestock)
Image 28Indigenous Australian camp by Skinner Prout, 1876 (from History of agriculture)
Image 29Sumerian harvester's sickle, 3000 BC, made from baked clay (from History of agriculture)
Image 30Roman harvesting machine, a vallus, from a Roman wall in Belgium, which was then part of the province of Gallia Belgica (from History of agriculture)
Image 31Ploughing with a yoke of horned cattle in Ancient Egypt. Painting from the burial chamber of Sennedjem, c. 1200 BC. (from History of agriculture)
Image 32Early 20th-century image of a tractor ploughing an alfalfa field (from History of agriculture)
Image 33Cattle on a pasture in Austria (from Livestock)
Image 34Agricultural scenes of threshing, a grain store, harvesting with sickles, digging, tree-cutting and ploughing from Ancient Egypt. Tomb of Nakht, 15th century BC. (from History of agriculture)
Image 35The Occupational Safety & Health Administration logo. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 36Chronological dispersal of Austronesian peoples across the Indo-Pacific (from History of agriculture)
Image 37Inca farmers using a human-powered foot plough (from History of agriculture)
Image 38The Yecoro wheat (right) cultivar is sensitive to salinity, plants resulting from a hybrid cross with cultivar W4910 (left) show greater tolerance to high salinity (from Plant breeding)
Image 39Ancient rice terraces in Yuanyang County, Yunnan (from History of agriculture)
Image 40Agricultural calendar, c. 1470, from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi (from History of agriculture)
Image 41Wichita village of grass houses surrounded by maize fields in the United States. (from History of agriculture)
Image 42Livestock production requires large areas of land.
Image 43In vitro-culture of Vitis (grapevine), Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute (from Plant breeding)
Image 44Global distribution data for cattle, buffaloes, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks in 2010 (from Livestock)
Image 45Sheep in the Parc National des Ecrins (France) (from Livestock)

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v t e Agriculture
Outline History Index
Occupations	Agriculturist Agricultural Engineer Farmer Farm worker Herder
General	Agribusiness Agricultural cooperative Agricultural supplies Agricultural science Agricultural engineering Agricultural technology Digital Biotechnology Agroforestry Agronomy Animal husbandry Animal-free agriculture Cellular agriculture Contract farming Extensive farming Farm Farmhouse Feed ratio Free range Horticulture Intensive farming animals pigs crops Mechanised agriculture Organic farming Permaculture Sustainable agriculture Sustainable food system Universities and colleges Urban agriculture
History	Prehistory Neolithic Revolution Agriculture in Mesoamerica Austronesian expansion Ancient history Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Post-classical Agriculture in the Middle Ages Arab Agricultural Revolution Columbian exchange Modern history British Agricultural Revolution Green Revolution Organic Monoculture
Farming Types	Agrivoltaic Aquaculture Cattle Dairy farming Fur farming Goat farming Grazing Convertible husbandry Rotational grazing Hydroponics Insect farming Livestock Pasture Mixed Paddy field Pastoral Bocage Pig farming Poultry farming Ranch Orchards Sheep farming Terrace Wildlife farming
Environmental impact	Agricultural expansion Agricultural pollution Agricultural wastewater Overgrazing Environmental impact of irrigation Overdrafting Climate change and agriculture
Categories	Agricultural machinery Agriculture by country Agriculture companies Biotechnology History of agriculture Livestock Meat industry Poultry farming Agriculture and the environment
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