Portal:Agriculture

The Agriculture Portal

Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output.

As of 2021^[update], small farms produce about one-third of the world's food, but large farms are prevalent. The largest 1% of farms in the world are greater than 50 hectares (120 acres) and operate more than 70% of the world's farmland. Nearly 40% of agricultural land is found on farms larger than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres). However, five of every six farms in the world consist of fewer than 2 hectares (4.9 acres), and take up only around 12% of all agricultural land. Farms and farming greatly influence rural economics and greatly shape rural society, effecting both the direct agricultural workforce and broader businesses that support the farms and farming populations.

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. Global agricultural production amounts to approximately 11 billion tonnes of food, 32 million tonnes of natural fibers and 4 billion m³ of wood. However, around 14% of the world's food is lost from production before reaching the retail level.

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have sharply increased crop yields, but also contributed to 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 climate change, 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 climate change, all of which can cause decreases in crop yield. Genetically modified organisms are widely used, although some countries ban them. (Full article...)

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Mechanical harvesting of dates in Israel

Agriculture in Israel is a highly developed industry: Israel is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world-leader in agricultural technologies despite the fact that the geography of Israel is not naturally conducive to agriculture. More than half of the land area is desert, and the climate and lack of water resources do not favor of farming. Only 20% of the land area is naturally arable. Today agriculture represents 2.5% of total GDP and 3.6% of exports. While agricultural workers make up only 3.7% of the work force, Israel produces 95% of its own food requirements, supplementing this with imports of grain, oil seeds, meat, coffee, cocoa and sugar.

Israel is home to two unique types of agricultural communities, the kibbutz and moshav, which developed as Jews from all over the world immigrated to the country and embarked on a pioneering enterprise.

The importance of agriculture in Israel's economy has fallen over time, accounting for decreasing values of GDP. In 1979, it accounted for just under 6% of GDP, in 1985 5.1%, and today, 2.5%. In 1995, there were 43,000 farm units with an average size of 13.5 hectares. 19.8% of these were smaller than 1 hectare, 75.7% were 1 to 9 hectares in size, 3.3% were between 10 and 49 hectares, 0.4% were between 50 and 190 hectares, and 0.8% were larger than 200 hectares. Of the 380,000 hectares under cultivation in 1995, 20.8% was under permanent cultivation and 79.2% under rotating cultivation. Farm units included 160,000 hectares used for activities other than cultivation. Cultivation was based mainly in the northern coastal plains, the hills of the interior, and the upper Jordan Valley. (Full article...)

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Automatic milking

Credit: David.Monniaux

A cow milking machine in action. This photo was taken on March 7, 2003
at the Salon de l'agriculture (Salon of agriculture) in Paris, France.

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Did you know...

... that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had members of Congress distribute millions of free seed packets to Americans?

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General images

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

Image 1In vitro-culture of Vitis (grapevine), Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute (from Plant breeding)
Image 2Inca farmers using a human-powered foot plough (from History of agriculture)
Image 3Centres 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 4Biomass distribution of humans, livestock, and other animals (from Livestock)
Image 5Roman 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 6The Harvesters. Pieter Bruegel – 1565 (from History of agriculture)
Image 7Chronological dispersal of Austronesian peoples across the Indo-Pacific (from History of agriculture)
Image 8This Australian road sign uses the less common term "stock" for livestock. (from Livestock)
Image 9Agriculture terraces were (and are) common in the austere, high-elevation environment of the Andes. (from History of agriculture)
Image 10Livestock production requires large areas of land.
Image 11Pigs being loaded into their transport (from Livestock)
Image 12An organic farmer, California, 1972 (from History of agriculture)
Image 13Cattle on a pasture in Austria (from Livestock)
Image 14Early 20th-century image of a tractor ploughing an alfalfa field (from History of agriculture)
Image 15Native millet, Panicum decompositum, was planted and harvested by Indigenous Australians in eastern central Australia. (from History of agriculture)
Image 16A Northern Song era (960–1127 AD) Chinese watermill for dehusking grain with a horizontal waterwheel (from History of agriculture)
Image 17A Fordson Dexta tractor with a rollover protection structure bar retro-fitted. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 18Ancient rice terraces in Yuanyang County, Yunnan (from History of agriculture)
Image 19Ploughing with a yoke of horned cattle in Ancient Egypt. Painting from the burial chamber of Sennedjem, c. 1200 BC. (from History of agriculture)
Image 20Bt-toxins in genetically modified peanut leaves (bottom) protect from damage by corn borers (top). (from History of agriculture)
Image 21Global distribution data for cattle, buffaloes, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks in 2010 (from Livestock)
Image 22Agricultural calendar, c. 1470, from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi (from History of agriculture)
Image 23Clay 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 24Domesticated animals on a Sumerian cylinder seal, 2500 BC (from History of agriculture)
Image 25Magnified 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 26Norman 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 27Indigenous Australian camp by Skinner Prout, 1876 (from History of agriculture)
Image 28The creation of maize from teosinte (top), maize-teosinte hybrid (middle), to maize (bottom) (from History of agriculture)
Image 29Agricultural research on potato plants (from Plant breeding)
Image 30An Indian farmer with a rock-weighted scratch plough pulled by two oxen. Similar ploughs were used throughout antiquity. (from History of agriculture)
Image 31Garton's catalogue from 1902 (from Plant breeding)
Image 32Sumerian harvester's sickle, 3000 BC, made from baked clay (from History of agriculture)
Image 33The agriculturalist Charles 'Turnip' Townshend introduced four-field crop rotation and the cultivation of turnips. (from History of agriculture)
Image 34Modern facilities in molecular biology are now used in plant breeding. (from Plant breeding)
Image 35Pesticide application for chemical control of nematodes in a sunflower planted field. Karaisalı, Adana - Turkey. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 36Wichita village of grass houses surrounded by maize fields in the United States. (from History of agriculture)
Image 37The Occupational Safety & Health Administration logo. (from Agricultural safety and health)
Image 38Selective 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 39Noria 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 40Goat family with one-week-old kid (from Livestock)
Image 41Sheep in Écrins National Park (France) (from Livestock)
Image 42Farrowing site in a natural cave in northern Spain (from Livestock)
Image 43Agricultural 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 44Yam festival in the Ashanti Empire. Thomas E. Bowdich – 1817. (from History of agriculture)
Image 45The 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 46Jethro Tull's seed drill, invented in 1701 (from History of agriculture)

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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 Paludiculture Permaculture Plantation Polyculture Rice-duck farming Rice-fish system 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
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