What is agriculture ?
Simply agriculture or farming is
the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Now fishing and foresting
also include for the agriculture. Agriculture is generally known as Farming; it
is an art and science that prudent endeavor to reshape a part of Earth's crust
through cultivation of plants and other crops as well as raising livestock for
sustenance or other necessities for human being and economic gain.
Agriculture was not ‘invented’ in a
single flash of genius by one of our ancestors. The domestication of plants and
animals happened very gradually over centuries, and often independently around
the world. Though, such a development was only made possible after the last
great Ice Age, when climates around the world became more stable and human
populations could thrive again.
Historians have been able to track
the development of agriculture in four major places around the world, the
earliest signs come from the Middle East and China, before it spread into the
Mediterranean and Europe and finally developed independently again in the Andes
and mountains of South America. Let's dive back into time and see how each of
these civilizations used the skills of agriculture to improve their world.
Now, we certainly don’t farm our
crops and look after our animals the same way we did 10,000 years ago. After
ten thousand years, our skills and understanding of agriculture has increased
beyond the wildest dreams of those early farming villages.
We can now make use of the
incredibly technological advancements of the human race to create enough food
for billions of people around the world, to offer a variety of diets and types
of food from fish and livestock to grains, fruits and vegetables. 21st century
farming is even looking to benefit the planet through sustainable and organic
farming methods.
Current mechanized agriculture
includes the use of tractors, trucks, combine harvesters, countless types of
farm implements, aeroplanes and helicopters (for aerial application), and other
vehicles. Precision agriculture even uses computers in conjunction with
satellite imagery and satellite navigation (GPS guidance) to increase yields.
Mechanization was one of the large
factors responsible for urbanization and industrial economies. Besides
improving production efficiency, mechanization encourages large scale
production and sometimes can improve the quality of farm produce.
Organic farming is an agricultural
system that uses fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green
manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation
and companion planting. It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to
rapidly changing farming practices.
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