Farming started thousands of years ago, but no one knows for sure how old it is.[1] The development of farming gave rise to theNeolithic Revolution as people gave upnomadichunting and becamesettlers in cities.
Livestock including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats were taken to theAmericas, from theOld World. The first of those horses, came with the Spanishconquistadors[4] (or soldiers andexplorers) in the 1490s. Moving those cattle, sheep, goats and horses, were part of theColumbian Exchange.
People probably started agriculture by planting a few crops, but still gathered many foods from the wild. People may have started farming because the weather and soil began to change. Farming can feed many more people thanhunter-gatherers can feed on the same amount of land.
Arable farming means growingcrops. This would includewheat or vegetables.
Growingfruit means havingorchards devoted to fruit. They cannot be switched easily with growing field crops. Therefore, they are not classed as arable land in the statistics.
Many people still live bysubsistence farming, on a small farm. They can only grow enough food to feed the farmer, his family, and his animals. Theyield is the amount of food grown on a given amount of land, and it is often low. This is because subsistence farmers are generally lesseducated, and they have lessmoney to buy equipment.Drought and other problems sometimes causefamines. Where yields are low,deforestation can provide new land to grow more food. This provides morenutrition for the farmer's family, but can be bad for the country and the surroundingenvironment over many years.
In some countries, farms are often fewer and larger. During the 20th century they have become more productive because farmers are able to grow bettervarieties of plants, use more fertilizer, use more water, and more easily control weeds and pests. Many farms also use machines, so fewer people can farm more land. There are fewer farmers in rich countries, but the farmers are able to grow more.
This kind ofintensive agriculture comes with its own set of problems. Farmers use a lot of chemical fertilizers,pesticides (chemicals that kill bugs), andherbicides (chemicals that kill weeds). These chemicals canpollute thesoil or the water. They can also create bugs and weeds that are more resistant to the chemicals, causing outbreaks of these pests. The soil can be damaged byerosion (blowing or washing away), salt builddup, or loss of structure.Irrigation (adding water from rivers) can pollute water and lower the water table. These problems have all got solutions, and modern young farmers usually have a good technical education.
Farms may also keep animals. That is calledanimal husbandry. If they are used to make meat for people to eat, that islivestock production. Non-meat animals, such as milk cows and egg-producing chickens, are kept for their produce. "Produce" here means their eggs and milk, which are sold by the farm, usually inmarkets. Large animals need grassland of some kind for grazing. What they need depends on the animals.Goats eat a much wider range of plants than cows. In some parts of the world, that makes goats a more sensible choice for a farmer than cows.
It is important for there to be enough food for everyone. The food must also be safe and good. People say it is not always safe, because it contains some chemicals. Other people say intensive agriculture is damaging the environment. For this reason, there are several types of agriculture.
Traditional agriculture is mostly done in poor countries.
Intensive agriculture is mostly done in countries with more money. It uses pesticides, machinery, chemical fertilizers.
Organic farming is using only natural products such as compost and green manure.
Integrated farming is using local resources, and trying to use the waste from one process as a resource in another process.
Agriculturalpolicy means the goals and methods of agricultural production. Common goals of policy include the quality, amount, and safety of food.
Distribution: Difficulties with moving product from grower to consumer. It is expected that this difficulty will increase in future. The reasons for this are complex, but one important factor may be the absence of a dominant international naval power. TheBritish Navy provided protection againstpirates in the 19th and early 20th century, and theUS Navy protected shipping afterWWII. The US is still a dominant naval power, but its power will soon be based on its small number of huge aircraft carriers. They will not deal with small boats full of armed pirates, which is the usual waypiracy is done. So we can expect grain ships (etc) will have to carry any protection they may need, or they will have to go the long way around. That means avoiding the shortcuts into theMediterranean. Other kinds of warfare, such as we see inUkraine, add to the problem of shipping food products safely.
In produced weight, these crops are the most important (global production in metric tonnes):[7]
The figure for sugarcane is rather deceptive. It omitssugar beet, but includes the weight of the woody stalk. Most of the plants which produce food are in the grass familyPoaceae.
↑Colin Tudge argues "from at least 40,000 years ago... people were managing their environment to such an extent that they can properly be called 'proto-farmers'". Tudge, Colin 1998.Neanderthals, bandits and farmers: how agriculture really began. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p3.ISBN0-297-84258-7
↑Harris, David (ed) 1996.The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism inEurasia: crops, fields, flocks and herds. University College London Press.ISBN1-56098-675-1
↑Taiz, Lincoln 2013. Agriculture, plant physiology, and human population growth: past, present, and future.Theoretical and Experimental Plant Physiology25: p167–181.
↑Zulkarnaen, Diny, and Marianito R. Rodrigo 2020. Modelling human carrying capacity as a function of food availability.The ANZIAM Journal62.3: p318–333.
