Agriculture
hideAgriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science (the related practice of gardening is studied in horticulture).
Agriculture encompasses a wide variety of specialties and techniques, including ways to expand the lands suitable for plant raising, by digging water-channels and other forms of irrigation. Cultivation of crops on arable land and the pastoral herding of livestock on rangeland remain at the foundation of agriculture. In the past century there has been increasing concern to identify and quantify various forms of agriculture. In the developed world the range usually extends between sustainable agriculture (e.g. permaculture or organic agriculture) and intensive farming (e.g. industrial agriculture).
Modern agronomy, plant breeding, pesticides and fertilizers, and technological improvements have sharply increased yields from cultivation, and at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects.[citation needed] Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry such as intensive pig farming (and similar practices applied to the chicken) have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal cruelty and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production.[citation needed]
The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, raw materials, pharmaceuticals and stimulants, and an assortment of ornamental or exotic panget products. In the 2000s, plants have been used to grow biofuels, biopharmaceuticals, bioplastics, and pharmaceuticals. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, and meat. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Stimulants include tobacco, alcohol, opium, cocaine,and digitalis. Other useful materials are produced by plants, such as resins. Biofuels include methane from biomass, ethanol, and biodiesel. Cut flowers, nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade are some of the ornamental products.
In 2007, about one third of the world's workers were employed in agriculture. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2003 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. Despite the fact that agriculture employs over one-third of the world's population, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).[dead link]
For more information about Agriculture, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with agriculture
Robotic gardening: MIT course creates robot-tending tomatoes
Mar 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In the middle of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) sits a platform of fake grass with tomato plants nestled in terra cotta pots, growing under the light of an ...
UK botanists bank 10% of world's plant species
Oct 15, 2009 |
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Botanists at Britain's Kew Gardens have collected seeds from 10 percent of the world's wild plants, their first goal in a long-term project to protect all endangered species, they said Thursday.
Plants recognize siblings, researchers discover how
Oct 14, 2009 |
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Plants may not have eyes and ears, but they can recognize their siblings, and researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered how.
Researchers find possible use for the vine that ate the South
Sep 03, 2009 |
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Kudzu, the fast-growing vine that has gobbled up some 10 million acres in the Southeast, may prove to be a valuable dietary supplement for metabolic syndrome, a condition that affects 50 million Americans, say researchers ...
Ignition for Colombian yucca car
Aug 21, 2009 |
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After a three-year slog Colombian scientists have revved up a car that runs on yucca-derived ethanol, spurring hopes that the Latin American staple could be transformed into an abundant fuel.
Study: SE Asia will be hit hard by climate change
Apr 27, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Southeast Asia will be hit particularly hard by climate change, causing the region's agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century, according ...
Corn, soy yields gain little from genetic engineering: study
Apr 14, 2009 |
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The use of genetically engineered corn and soybeans in the United States for more than a decade has had little impact on crop yields despite claims that they could ease looming food shortages, a study released ...
Early agriculture left traces in animal bones
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Mar 23, 2009 |
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Unraveling the origins of agriculture in different regions around the globe has been a challenge for archeologists. Now researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report finding evidence of ear ...
Minn. pigs may have tested positive for swine flu
Oct 17, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Preliminary tests show three pigs in Minnesota may have contracted the swine flu virus making them the first potential U.S. cases in swine, agricultural officials said Friday. They stressed the finding does not threaten ...
'Soil dipstick': A thermometer for the Earth
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 01, 2009 |
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According to climate change experts, our planet has a fever -- melting glaciers are just one stark sign of the radical changes we can expect. But global warming's effects on farming and water resources is still a mystery. ...
Study shows more corn for biofuels would hurt water
Sep 28, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- More of the fertilizers and pesticides used to grow corn would find their way into nearby water sources if ethanol demands lead to planting more acres in corn, according to a Purdue University study.
National assessment done on potential invasive snail and slug pests in US
Jul 31, 2009 |
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A collaborative team led by a University of Hawai'i at Manoa researcher has published the first-ever assessment of snail and slug species that are of potential threat to the nation's agriculture industry and the environment, ...
Plan to eradicate moth in California causing controversy
Jul 14, 2009 |
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An effort to eradicate the light brown apple moth by introducing sterile males into the population is doomed to failure and will waste millions of taxpayer dollars.
NM farmers work to preserve native chile varieties
May 11, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Gene Lopez has just finished planting his chile field in the same way he's planted his heat-packed crop for three decades. But as the years pass, there seems to be more immediacy behind each seed he places in the ...
A chicken coup: Group seeks to protect rare breeds
Apr 24, 2009 |
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(AP) -- At about the time Foghorn Leghorn appeared on the Looney Toons drawing board in 1946, he began disappearing from America's dinner tables.
