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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An Ethiopian family working in their backyard fruit orchard

Agriculture in Ethiopia is the foundation of the country's economy, accounting for half of gross domestic product (GDP), 83.9% of exports, and 80% of total employment.

Ethiopia's agriculture is plagued by periodic drought, soil degradation caused by overgrazing, deforestation, high population density, high levels of taxation and poor infrastructure (making it difficult and expensive to get goods to market). Yet agriculture is the country's most promising resource. A potential exists for self-sufficiency in grains and for export development in livestock, grains, vegetables, and fruits. As many as 4.6 million people need food assistance annually.

Agriculture accounts for 46.3% of the GDP, 83.9% of exports, and 80% of the labour force. Many other economic activities depend on agriculture, including marketing, processing, and export of agricultural products. Production is overwhelmingly of a subsistence nature, and a large part of commodity exports are provided by the small agricultural cash-crop sector. Principal crops include coffee, pulses (e.g., beans), oilseeds, cereals, potatoes, sugarcane, and vegetables. Exports are almost entirely agricultural commodities, and coffee is the largest foreign exchange earner. Ethiopia is Africa's second biggest maize producer. Ethiopia's livestock population is believed to be the largest in Africa, and in 2006/2007 livestock accounted for 10.6% of Ethiopia's export income, with leather and leather products making up 7.5% and live animals 3.1%.

Ethiopi's major staple crops include a variety of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, and coffee. Grains are the most important field crops and the chief element in the diet of most Ethiopians. The principal grains are teff, wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, and millet. The first three are primarily cool-weather crops cultivated at altitudes generally above 1,500 meters. Teff, indigenous to Ethiopia, furnishes the flour for enjera, an sourdough pancakelike bread that is the principal form in which grain is consumed in the highlands and in urban centers throughout the country. Barley is grown mostly between 2,000 and 3,500 meters. A major subsistence crop, barley is used as food and in the production of tella, a locally produced beer.

Sorghum, millet, and corn are cultivated mostly in warmer areas at lower altitudes along the country's western, southwestern, and eastern peripheries. Sorghum and millet, which are drought resistant, grow well at low elevations where rainfall is less reliable. Corn is grown chiefly between elevations of 1,500 and 2,200 meters and requires large amounts of rainfall to ensure good harvests. These three grains constitute the staple foods of a good part of the population and are major items in the diet of the nomads.

Pulses are the second most important element in the national diet and a principal protein source. They are boiled, roasted, or included in a stew-like dish known as wot, which is sometimes a main dish and sometimes a supplementary food. Pulses, grown widely at all altitudes from sea level to about 3,000 meters, are more prevalent in the northern and central highlands. Pulses were a particularly important export item before the revolution. (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...

... the highest recorded kale, grown by a farmer in Australia, was more than 6 feet (2 m) high?

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General images

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

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

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