Farming
Specific crops are cultivated in distinct growing regions throughout the world. Estimates of the amount of land transformed by humans vary from 39–50%. Eutrophication, excessive nutrients in aquatic ecosystems resulting in algal blooms and anoxia, leads to fish kills, loss of biodiversity, and renders water unfit for drinking and other industrial uses.When oil production becomes so scarce that natural gas is used as a partial stopgap replacement, and hydrogen use in transportation increases, natural gas will become much more expensive. Integrated pest management (IPM), which has been promoted for decades and has had some notable successes has not significantly affected the use of pesticides because policies encourage the use of pesticides and IPM is knowledge-intensive. Agricultural exploration expeditions, since the late nineteenth century, have been mounted to find new species and new agricultural practices in different areas of the world.
In recent years there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of conventional agriculture, resulting in the organic movement. The cereals rice, corn, and wheat provide 60% of human food supply. However, concerns have been raised over the sustainability of intensive agriculture. In the past century agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the substitution of labor for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, water pollution, and farm subsidies.
It may improve productivity by warming the soil, incorporating fertilizer and controlling weeds, but also renders soil more prone to erosion, triggers the decomposition of organic matter releasing CO2, and reduces the abundance and diversity of soil organisms. Pest control includes the management of weeds, insects/mites, and diseases. In contrast, the average wheat yield in countries such as France is over 8 t/ha.
Since many GMO crops are harvested for their seed, such as rapeseed, seed spillage in is problematic for volunteer plants in rotated fields, as well as seed-spillage during transportation. Food security issues also coincide with food safety and food labeling concerns. If the Haber Process is unable to be commercialized using renewable energy (such as by electrolysis) or if other sources of hydrogen are not available to replace the Haber Process, in amounts sufficient to supply transportation and agricultural needs, this major source of fertilizer would either become extremely expensive or unavailable.
When farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in their society were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition. 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.
Throughout this expansion, new technologies and new crops were integrated. This has allowed world population to grow more than double over the last 50 years.
In all of these environments perennial crops are grown (coffee, chocolate) and systems are practiced such as agroforestry. For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (t/ha) (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001.
Manure is used either by holding livestock where the feed crop is growing, such as in managed intensive rotational grazing, or by spreading either dry or liquid formulations of manure on cropland or pastures. Water management is where rainfall is insufficient or variable, which occurs to some degree in most regions of the world. In the United States, food costs attributed to processing, distribution, and marketing have risen while the costs attributed to farming have declined. His work on dominant and recessive alleles gave plant breeders a better understanding of genetics and brought great insights to the techniques utilized by plant breeders.
To complement these new sources of carbohydrates, highly organized net fishing of rivers, lakes and ocean shores in these areas brought in great volumes of essential protein. As the synfuel would be used on site, the process would be more efficient and may just provide enough fuel for a new organic-agriculture fusion. It has been suggested that some transgenic plants may some day be developed which would allow for maintaining or increasing yields while requiring fewer fossil fuel derived inputs than conventional crops. Agricultural policy focuses on the goals and methods of agricultural production.
Historians and anthropologists have long argued that the development of agriculture made civilization possible. The Fertile Crescent of Western Asia, Egypt, and India were sites of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild. The vast majority of this energy input comes from fossil fuel sources.
Although the total effect of the increased market concentration is likely increased efficiency, the changes redistribute economic surplus from producers (farmers) and consumers, and may have negative implications for rural communities. Crop alteration has been practiced by humankind for thousands of years, since the beginning of civilization. Similarly, worldwide average wheat yields have increased from less than 1 t/ha in 1900 to more than 2.5 t/ha in 1990.
However, genetic engineering of plants has proven to be controversial. Both focused on purely fiscal impacts.
Genetic engineering has expanded the genes available to breeders to utilize in creating desired germlines for new crops. These agricultural subsidies are often linked to the production of certain commodities such as wheat, corn (maize), rice, soybeans, and milk.
Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. The 2000 review included reported pesticide poisonings but did not include speculative chronic effects of pesticides, and the 2004 review relied on a 1992 estimate of the total impact of pesticides. A senior UN official and co-author of a UN report detailing this problem, Henning Steinfeld, said Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today s most serious environmental problems .
This combined with the invention of a three-field system of crop rotation and the moldboard plow greatly improved agricultural efficiency. After 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Today, 92% of soybean acreage in the US is planted with genetically-modified herbicide-tolerant plants. Other GMO crops utilized by growers include insect-resistant crops, which have a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which produces a toxin specific to insects; insect-resistant crops protect plants from damage by insects, one such crop is Starlink.
Through deforestation and land degradation, livestock is also driving reductions in biodiversity. Land transformation, the use of land to yield goods and services, is the most substantial way humans alter the Earth s ecosystems, and is considered the driving force in the loss of biodiversity. In the 2000s, plants have been used to grow biofuels, biopharmaceuticals, bioplastics, Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, and meat.
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture defines a food mile as: ..the distance food travels from where it is grown or raised to where it is ultimately purchased by the consumer or end-user. In a comparison of locally-grown food and long-distance food, researchers at the Leopold Center found that local food traveled an average of 44.6 miles to reach its destination compared with 1,546 miles for conventionally-grown and shipped food. Consumers in the new local food movement who count food miles call themselves locavores ; they advocate a return to a locally-based food system where food comes from as close as possible, whether or not it is organic. Many issues surrounding food security and environmental impacts have risen regarding GMO practices.
At the policy level, common goals of agriculture include: . Cultural practices include crop rotation, culling, cover crops, intercropping, composting, avoidance, and resistance.
In temperate environments, where ecosystems were predominantly grassland or prairie, highly productive annual cropping is the dominant farming system. The last century has seen the intensification, concentration and specialization of agriculture, relying upon new technologies of agricultural chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides), mechanization, and plant breeding (hybrids and GMO s). Synthetic fertilizers are more heavily relied upon for crop production and manure utilization becomes a challenge as well as a source for pollution. Tillage is the practice of plowing soil to prepare for planting or for nutrient incorporation or for pest control.
This would either cause food shortages or dramatic rises in food prices. One effect oil shortages could have on agriculture is a full return to organic agriculture. A 2000 assessment of agriculture in the UK determined total external costs for 1996 of £2,343 million, or £208 per hectare.
In particular, the Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate made the traditional practice of recycling nutrients with crop rotation and animal manure less necessary. Synthetic nitrogen, along with mined rock phosphate, pesticides and mechanization, have greatly increased crop yields in the early 20th century. Southern Greeks struggled with very poor soils, yet managed to become a dominant society for years.
Agricultural practices such as irrigation, crop rotation, fertilizers, and pesticides were developed long ago, but have made great strides in the past century. Domestication of wild aurochs and mouflon into cattle and sheep, respectively, ushered in the large-scale use of animals for food/fiber and as beasts of burden.
It takes approximately 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen to fuel the tractors, combines and other equipment used on farms for cultivation or 17 percent of the nation s total energy use. Oil shortages could impact this food supply. Roundup-Ready seeds allow the farmer to grow a crop that can be sprayed with glyphosate to control weeds without harming the resistant crop.
More recently, genetic engineering is being employed in various parts of the world, to create crops with other beneficial traits. Roundup-Ready seed has a herbicide resistant gene implanted into its genome that allows the plants to tolerate exposure to glyphosate. Biofuels include methane from biomass, ethanol, and biodiesel.
Some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming (but without the use of fossil-fuel-intensive artificial fertilizers or pesticides. Meyer s fruit- and nut-collecting trip to China and Japan from 1916-1918 In 2005, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, accounting for almost one-sixth of world share, followed by the EU, India and the USA, according to the International Monetary Fund. Six countries - the US, Canada, France, Australia, Argentina and Thailand - supply 90% of grain exports. Cropping systems vary among farms depending on the available resources and constraints; geography and climate of the farm; government policy; economic, social and political pressures; and the philosophy and culture of the farmer. In tropical environments, all of these cropping systems are practiced.
Further, global yield increases were experienced later in the 20th century when high-yield varieties of common staple grains such as rice, wheat, and corn (maize) were introduced as a part of the Green Revolution. This has led to the development of many responses to the conventional agriculture approach, including organic agriculture, urban agriculture, community supported agriculture, ecological or biological agriculture, integrated farming, and holistic management. Important categories of crops include grains and pseudograins, pulses (legumes), forage, and fruits and vegetables.
Locally adapted seeds, also called land races or crop eco-types, are important because they have adapted over time to the specific microclimates, soils, other environmental conditions, field designs, and ethnic preference indigenous to the exact area of cultivation. There is also concern that GMOs will cross-pollinate with wild species and permanently alter native populations’ genetic integrity; there are already identified populations of wild plants with transgenic genes. Some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming. It has been suggested that rural communities might obtain fuel from the biochar and synfuel process, which uses agricultural waste to provide charcoal fertilizer, some fuel and food, instead of the normal food vs fuel debate.
Chemical (pesticides), biological (biocontrol), mechanical (tillage), and cultural practices are used. The history of agriculture has played a major role in human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change.
The shepherd joined the farmer as an essential provider for sedentary and semi-nomadic societies. A remarkable shift in agricultural practices has occurred over the past century in response to new technologies.
In the past century there has been increasing concern to identify and quantify various forms of agriculture. However, the reconditioning of soil to restore nutrients lost during the use of monoculture agriculture techniques made possible by petroleum-based technology will take time. A conscious consumption movement exists in which consumers count the food miles a food product has traveled.
The potato, tomato, pepper, squash, several varieties of bean, tobacco, and several other plants were also developed in the New World, as was extensive terracing of steep hillsides in much of Andean South America. Nutrient inputs can be chemical inorganic fertilizers, manure, green manure, compost and mined minerals.
From 1960 to 1980 the farm share was around 40%, but by 1990 it had declined to 30% and by 1998, 22.2%. The Green Revolution exported the technologies (including pesticides and synthetic nitrogen) of the developed world to the developing world.
About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, with rice, rather than wheat, as the primary crop. The Romans were noted for an emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade. During the Middle Ages, farmers in North Africa, the Near East, and Europe began making use of agricultural technologies including irrigation systems based on hydraulic and hydrostatic principles, machines such as norias, water-raising machines, dams, and reservoirs.
Two early examples of expeditions include Frank N. Since there are still questions regarding the safety and risks associated with GMO foods, some believe the public should have the freedom to choose and know what they are eating and require all GMO products to be labeled. Agriculture imposes external costs upon society through pesticides, nutrient runoff, excessive water usage, and assorted other problems.
These subsidies, especially when instituted by developed countries have been noted as protectionist, inefficient, and environmentally damaging. Maize, manioc, and arrowroot were first domesticated in the Americas as far back as 5200 BC.
Herbicide-tolerant crops are used by farmers worldwide. In the past few decades, a move towards sustainability in agriculture has also developed, integrating ideas of socio-economic justice and conservation of resources and the environment within a farming system.
Chinese and Indonesian farmers went on to domesticate taro and beans including mung, soy and azuki. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. 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.
The services sector has overtaken agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. also known as decoupling.
Development of agricultural techniques has steadily increased agricultural productivity, and the widespread diffusion of these techniques during a time period is often called an agricultural revolution. In addition to the locavore movement, home and community gardening also reduces the number of food miles traveled by food. Farmers have begun raising crops such as corn (maize) for non-food use, which has impacted fuel prices. In 2007, higher incentives for farmers to grow non-food biofuel crops The biggest fossil fuel input to agriculture is the use of natural gas as a hydrogen source for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer-creation process.
Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Collectively, these new methods of farming and fishing inaugurated a human population boom that dwarfed all previous expansions and continues today. By 5000 BC, the Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized labor force, particularly along the waterway now known as the Shatt al-Arab, from its Persian Gulf delta to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Animal husbandry not only refers to the breeding and raising of animals for meat or to harvest animal products (like milk, eggs, or wool) on a continual basis, but also to the breeding and care of species for work and companionship. When prices decline, the heavily subsidised US farmer is not forced to reduce his output, making it difficult for cotton prices to rebound, but his Mali counterpart may go broke in the meantime. A livestock farmer in South Korea can calculate with a (highly subsidized) sales price of US$1300 for a calf produced.
Other useful materials are produced by plants, such as resins. After mechanical tomato-harvesters were developed in the early 1960s, agricultural scientists genetically modified tomatoes to be more resistant to mechanical handling.
The Greeks and Romans built on techniques pioneered by the Sumerians but made few fundamentally new advances. Until the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of the human population labored in agriculture.
Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. Independent development of agriculture occurred in northern and southern China, Africa s Sahel, New Guinea and several regions of the Americas.
Livestock production systems can be defined based on feed source, as grassland - based, mixed, and landless. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax.
crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The eight so-called Neolithic founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer wheat and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax. By 7000 BC, small-scale agriculture reached Egypt.
For example, GMOs are questioned by some ecologists and economists concerned with GMO practices such as terminator seeds, Locally adapted seeds are an essential hertitage that has the potential to be lost with current hybridized crops and GMOs. The growth of organic farming has renewed research in alternative technologies such as integrated pest management and selective breeding.
South American average wheat yields are around 2 t/ha, African under 1 t/ha, Egypt and Arabia up to 3.5 to 4 t/ha with irrigation. Excessive fertilization and manure application to cropland, as well as high livestock stocking densities cause nutrient (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) runoff and leaching from agricultural land.
Another is cotton, which accounts for 63% of US cotton acreage. Some believe that similar or better pest-resistance traits can be acquired through traditional breeding practices, and resistance to various pests can be gained through hybridization or cross-pollination with wild species. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.
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. The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Cultivation of crops on arable land and the pastoral herding of livestock on rangeland remain at the foundation of agriculture.
Tillage varies in intensity from conventional to no-till. Intensive agriculture has become associated with decreased soil quality in India and Asia, and there has been increased concern over the effects of fertilizers and pesticides on the environment, particularly as population increases and food demand expands.
The EU currently requires all GMO foods to be labeled, whereas the US does not require transparent labeling of GMO foods. With the former, scarcity and high cost of land is compensated with public subsidies, the latter compensates absence of subsidies with economics of scale and low cost of land. In the Peoples Republic of China, a rural household s productive asset may be one hectare of farmland. Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petrochemical derived pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanization (the so-called Green Revolution).
The Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate represented a major breakthrough and allowed crop yields to overcome previous constraints. With the rapid rise of mechanization in the late 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the form of the tractor, farming tasks could be done with a speed and on a scale previously impossible.
The monocultures typically used in intensive agriculture increase the number of pests, which are controlled through pesticides. GMO gene flow to related weed species is a concern, as well as cross-pollination with non-transgenic crops.
permaculture or organic agriculture) and intensive farming (e.g. From at least 7000 BC the Indian subcontinent saw farming of wheat and barley, as attested by archaeological excavation at Mehrgarh in Balochistan.
Currently a global treaty, the BioSafety Protocol, regulates the trade of GMOs. Increased supply of grains has led to cheaper livestock as well.
Variations in yields are due mainly to variation in climate, genetics, and the level of intensive farming techniques (use of fertilizers, chemical pest control, growth control to avoid lodging). Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are organisms whose genetic material has been altered by genetic engineering techniques generally known as recombinant DNA technology. As of 2000 the top six US supermarket groups had 50% of sales compared to 32% in 1992.
Altering crops through breeding practices changes the genetic make-up of a plant to develop crops with more beneficial characteristics for humans, for example, larger fruits or seeds, drought-tolerance, or resistance to pests. Significant advances in plant breeding ensued after the work of geneticist Gregor Mendel.
In some cases, wild species are the primary source of resistance traits; some tomato cultivars that have gained resistance to at least nineteen diseases did so through crossing with wild populations of tomatoes. Genetic engineers may someday develop transgenic plants which would allow for irrigation, drainage, conservation, sanitary engineering, and maintaining or increasing yields while requiring fewer fossil fuel derived inputs than conventional crops. Roundup is a trade name for a glyphosate based product, which is a systemic, non-selective herbicide used to kill weeds.
In millions of metric tons, based on FAO estimate. Animals, including horses, mules, oxen, camels, llamas, alpacas, and dogs, are often used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to buyers. Integrated pest management attempts to use all of these methods to keep pest populations below the number which would cause economic loss, and recommends pesticides as a last resort. Nutrient management includes both the source of nutrient inputs for crop and livestock production, and the method of utilization of manure produced by livestock.
Crop breeding includes techniques such as plant selection with desirable traits, self-pollination and cross-pollination, and molecular techniques that genetically modify the organism. The green revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield many folds by creating high-yielding varieties . So, too, are arts such as epic literature and monumental architecture, as well as codified legal systems.
Such developments would be particularly important in areas which are normally arid and rely upon constant irrigation, and on large scale farms. By 6000 BC, mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile.
In light of peak oil concerns, organic methods are much more sustainable than contemporary practices because they use no petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. Because of modern agriculture s current heavy reliance on petrochemicals and mechanization, concern exists that oil shortages will increase costs and reduce output in the industrial agriculture system, and could cause food shortages. Modern or industrialized agriculture is dependent on petroleum in two fundamental ways: 1) cultivation—to get the crop from seed to harvest and 2) transport—to get the harvest from the farm to the consumer s refrigerator.
Wealth-concentration and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures are commonplace in societies which practice agriculture. Market concentration has increased in the sector as well, with the top 20 food manufacturers accounting for half the food-processing value in 1995, over double that produced in 1954.
In subtropical and arid environments, the timing and extent of agriculture may be limited by rainfall, either not allowing multiple annual crops in a year, or requiring irrigation. The most important animal exportation from the Old World to the New were those of the horse and dog (dogs were already present in the pre-Columbian Americas but not in the numbers and breeds suited to farm work).
Despite the size of its workforce, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products). The word agriculture is the English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, a field , Thus, a literal reading of the word yields tillage of a field / of fields .. Agriculture has played a key role in the development of human civilization. In the developed world the range usually extends between sustainable agriculture (e.g.
Locavores argue that an organically-grown lettuce from California that is shipped to New York is still an unsustainable food source because of dependence on fossil fuels to ship it. These nutrients are major nonpoint pollutants contributing to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems. Pesticide use has increased since 1950 to 2.5 million tons annually worldwide, yet crop loss due to pests has remained relatively constant. Climate change has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall (timing and quantity), CO2, solar radiation and the interaction of these elements. Differences in economic development, population density and culture mean that the farmers of the world operate under very different conditions. A US cotton farmer may receive US$230 in government subsidies per acre planted (in 2003), while farmers in Mali and other third-world countries do without.
Recent mainstream technological developments include genetically modified food. As of late 2007, several factors have pushed up the price of grain used to feed poultry and dairy cows and other cattle, causing higher prices of wheat (up 58%), soybean (up 32%), and maize (up 11%) over the year. Since its development roughly 10,000 years ago, agriculture has expanded vastly in geographical coverage and yields. These advances have led to efficiencies enabling certain modern farms in the United States, Argentina, Israel, Germany, and a few other nations to output volumes of high-quality produce per land unit at what may be the practical limit.
Although not usually food animals, the horse (including donkeys and ponies) and dog quickly filled essential production roles on western-hemisphere farms. The potato became an important staple crop in northern Europe. By the early 1800s, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks and cultivated plants selected and given a unique name because of its decorative or useful characteristics had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages. Key crops involved in this exchange included the tomato, maize, potato, manioc, cocoa and tobacco going from the New World to the Old, and several varieties of wheat, spices, coffee, and sugar cane going from the Old World to the New.
Both studies concluded that more should be done to internalize external costs, and neither included subsidies in their analysis, but noted that subsidies also influence the cost of agriculture to society. Thomas Malthus famously predicted that the Earth would not be able to support its growing population, but technologies such as the Green Revolution have allowed the world to produce a surplus of food. Many governments have subsidized agriculture to ensure an adequate food supply.
