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Role of agriculture - What is agriculture?

Agriculture also called farming or husbandry is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel and other products used to sustain life.[1] Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. Agri-culture generally speaking refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant and termite.[2][3] The word agriculture is the English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, "a field",[4] and cultūra, "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil".[5] Thus, a literal reading of the word yields "tillage of fields".

The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. However, all farming generally relies on techniques to expand and maintain the lands that are suitable for raising domesticated species. For plants, this usually re-quires some form of irrigation, although there are methods of dryland farming; pastoral herding on rangeland is still the most common means of raising livestock. In the developed world, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture has become the dominant system of modern farming, although there is growing support for sustainable agriculture (e.g. permaculture or organic agriculture).

Until the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of the human population labored in agriculture. Pre-industrial agriculture was typically subsistence agriculture in which farmers raised most of their crops for their own con-sumption instead of for trade. A remarkable shift in agricultural practices has occurred over the past century in response to new technologies, and the development of world markets. This also led to technological im-provements in agricultural techniques, such as the Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate which made the traditional practice of recycling nutrients with crop rotation and animal manure less neces-sary.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. In the 21st century, plants have been used to grow biofuels, biopharmaceuticals, bioplastics, and pharmaceuticals. Spe-cific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, and meat. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. 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. Regarding food production, the World Bank targets agri-cultural food production and water management as an increasingly global issue that is fostering an important and growing debate.[10]

In 2007, one third of the world's workers were employed in agriculture. The services sector has overtaken agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide.[11] Despite the size of its work-force, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products). (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture)

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