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 the 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, affecting 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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A research flock of sheep at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near Dubois, Idaho

Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep.

Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.

Sheep farming is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production. (Full article...)

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Grain elevator

Credit: Jonathunder

An old grain elevator in Estherville, Iowa

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Did you know...

... the Roman writer Columella, amongst other works, wrote a twelve-volume book about agriculture, de re rustica?

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General images

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

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

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