Agriculture

From WIKIPEDIA

Agriculture is the production of food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic growing/harvesting of plants, animals and other life forms. "Agriculture" may commonly refer to the study of the practice of agriculture (also, "agronomy" or "agricultural science").

Agriculture encompasses many subjects, including aquaculture, cultivation, animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of these subjects can be further partitioned: for example, cultivation includes both organic farming and intensive farming, and animal husbandry includes ranching, herding, and intensive pig farming. Agricultural products include fodder, (starch, sugar, alcohols and resins), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, ethanol, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).

The history of agriculture is a central element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change. Wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures are commonplace in agricultural and agro-industrial societies—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/village/City-state/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to projects other than food acquisition. Jared Diamond, among others, has argued that the development of civilization required agriculture.