Agri

• Agriculture


  The science, art and practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing and resulting of products
• Farm Equipment


  Machineries used in crop production, used in land preparation and in transporting farm inputs and products, need a highly skilled operator to use
• Farm Implements


  Accessories pulled by animals or mounted to machineries to make the work easier
• Farm Tools


  Objects that are usually light and are used without the help of animals and machines
• Fertile Crescent


  Semicircle of fertile land stretching from southeast coast of Mediterranean around Syrian Desert, North of Arabia to Persian Gulf
• Neolithic


  Of or relating to the latest period of the Stone Age characterized by polished stone implements
• Parthenocarpy


  The production of fruits without fertilization
• Nominal Definition (of agriculture)

  Agriculture comes from the Latin words ager, agri meaning field and cultura meaning growing, cultivation. Therefore it means "growing and cultivating of the field."
• Real Definition (of agriculture)

  Agriculture is the science or practice of farming which includes the cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and fruit-bearing trees. It also considers the raising of animals to provide food and other raw materials which can produce another product.
• Elements in the Definition of Agriculture

  • It is a science, because of systematically organized body of knowledge which not only based on opinions, hypothesis and theories but on factual and absolute knowledge. Also, it is a practice because of the actual applications of the ideas.
  • Of farming, because is the act or process of working the ground, planting seeds, and growing edible plants. It can also include raising animals for milk, meat and wool.
• Value of Agriculture


  It provides food which is the basic needs of mankind, not only to sustain food and raw material but also employment opportunities to a vast number of the population of a country. It can be a source of livelihood which can contribute to micro and macro community, supplying and sustaining food and fodder that are the basic necessities of human to live, promoting the diplomatic friendship facilitated by trading system in local, national and international arena, marketable surplus products, source of saving of the entire national budget and basis of the economic development of a country.
• Without agriculture, the economy will be at high risk to food security that may result into serious national problems. The effect may be adverse or even worse.
• Agriculture was developed


  At least 10,000 years ago
• Fertile Crescent


  Site of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild
• Neolithic founder crops of agriculture

  • emmer wheat
  • einkorn wheat
  • hulled barley
  • peas
  • lentils
  • bitter vetch
  • chick peas
  • flax
• Bitter vetch, lentils, almonds and pistachios appear in Franchthi Cave Greece


  About 9,000 BC
• Neither bitter vetch and lentils were native to Greece, and they appear 2,000 years prior to domesticated wheat in the same location. This suggests that the cultivation of legumes and nuts preceded that of grain in some Neolithic cultures.
• Small-scale agriculture reached Egypt


  By 7,000 BC
• The Indian subcontinent saw farming of wheat and barley, as attested by archaeological excavation at Mehrgarh in Balochistan


  From at least 7,000 BC
• Mid-scale farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile

  By 6,000 BC
• About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, with rice, rather than wheat, as the primary crop. Chinese and Indonesian farmers went on to domesticate taro and beans including mung, soy and azuki.
• 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. Collectively, these new methods of farming and fishing inaugurated human population boom dwarfing all previous expansions, and it continues today.
• The Sumerians had developed core agricultural techniques including large scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organized irrigation, and use of a specialized labour 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


  By 5,000 BC
• 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. The shepherd joined the farmer as an essential provider for sedentary and semi-nomadic societies.
• Maize, manioc, and arrowroot were first domesticated in the Americas as far back as 5,200 BC.
• 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.
• The Greeks and Romans built on techniques pioneered by the Sumerians but made few fundamentally new advances. Southern Greeks struggled with very poor soils, yet managed to become a dominant society for years. The Romans were noted for an emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade.
• During the Middle Ages, Muslim farmers in North Africa and the Near East developed and disseminated agricultural technologies including irrigation systems based on hydraulic and hydrostatic principles, the use of machines and the use of water raising machines, dams, and reservoirs. They also wrote location-specific farming manuals, and were instrumental in the wider adoption of crops including sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, and saffron.
• Muslims also brought lemons, oranges, cotton, almonds, figs and sub-tropical crops such as bananas to Spain.
• The invention of a three field system of crop rotation during the Middle Ages, and the importation of the Chinese-invented moldboard plow, vastly improved agricultural efficiency. Another important development towards the end of this period was the discovery and subsequent cultivation of fodder crops which allowed over-wintering of livestock.
• After 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Key crops involved in this exchange included the tomato, maize, potato, 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.
• The most important animal exportations 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). Although not usually food animals, the horse (including donkeys and ponies) and dog quickly filled essential production roles on western hemisphere farms.
• 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 seen in the Middle Ages.
• 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. 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.
• The Haber-Bosch method for synthesizing ammonium nitrate represented a major breakthrough and allowed crop yields to overcome previous constraints.
• In the past century agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the substitution of labor for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, selective breeding, mechanization, water pollution, and farm subsidies. In recent years there has been a backlash against the external environmental effects of conventional agriculture, resulting in the organic movement.
• 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.
• Branches of Agriculture


  • Livestock Production or Animal Husbandry
  • Crop Production or Agronomy
  • Agricultural Economics
  • Agricultural Engineering
• Livestock Production or Animal Husbandry


  The branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fiber, milk, eggs, or other products
• Classifications of Livestock Production or Animal Husbandry

  • Nomadic Pastoralism
  • Poultry Farming
  • Swine Farming
  • Apiculture