History and origins of agriculture in all over world.
HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE
Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the world's most commonly used year numbering system. The numbering of years using Common Era notation is identical to the numbering used with "Before Christ / Anno Domini" (BC/AD) notation. Common Era is also known as and Current Era, with all three expressions abbreviated as CE. (Christian Era is, however, also abbreviated AD, for Anno Domini.) Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for "Before the Common Era", "Before the Christian Era", or "Before the Current Era". Both the BCE/CE and BC/AD notations are based on a sixth century estimate for the year in which Jesus was conceived or born, with the common era designation originating among Christians in Europe at least as early as 1615 (at first in Latin).
Agriculture
was developed at least 10,000 years ago, and it has undergone significant developments
since the time of the earliest cultivation. Independent development of
agriculture occurred in northern and southern China, Africa's Sahel, New
Guinea and several regions of the Americas. Agricultural practices such as
irrigation, crop rotation, fertilizers, and pesticides were developed long
ago but have made great strides in the past century. 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.
farm
subsidies. In recent years there has been a backlash against the external
environmental effects of conventional agriculture, resulting in the organic
movement.
Mehrgarh, one of the most important Neolithic (7000 BC to 3200 BC)
sites in archaeology, lies on
the "Kachi plain of Baluchistan, Pakistan, and is one of the
earliest sites with evidence of farming
(wheat and barley) and herding (cattle, sheep and goats) in South
Asia. "By 7000 BC, sowing and harvesting reached Mesopotamia and there, in
the super fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf,
Sumerian ingenuity systematized it and scaled it up.
Remains of domesticated cattle dating to 6,500 B.C. have been
found in Turkey and other sites in
the Near East approach this age also. Some authorities date the
domestication of cattle as early as
10,000 years ago, and others almost half that amount of time. Regardless
of the time frame it is
generally accepted that the domestication of cattle followed sheep, goats, pigs and dogs.
Evidences of the presence of wheat and some legumes in the 6th
millennium BC have been found
in the Indus Valley. Oranges were cultivated in the same
millennium. The crops grown in the valley
around 4000 BC were typically wheat, peas, sesame seed, barley,
dates and mangoes. By 3500
BC cotton growing and cotton textiles were quite advanced in the
valley. By 3000 BC farming of
rice had started. Other monsoon crop of importance of the time was
cane sugar. By 2500 BC, rice
was an important component of the staple diet in Mohenjodaro near
the Arabian Sea. By this time
the Indians had large cities with well-stocked granaries.
By 6000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River.
About this time, agriculture
was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China,
with rice rather than wheat as the
primary crop. (Rice comes up in East Asia)
Archaeological investigation has identified evidence of irrigation
in Mesopotamia and Egypt as far
back as the 6th millennium BCE, where barley was grown in areas
where the natural rainfall was
insufficient to support such a crop. In the Zana Valley of the
Andes Mountains in Peru,
archaeologists found remains of three irrigation canals
radiocarbon dated from the 4th millennium
BCE, the 3rd millennium BCE and the 9th century CE. These canals
are the earliest record of
irrigation in the New World. Traces of a canal possibly dating
from the 5th millennium BCE were
found under the 4th millennium canal. Sophisticated irrigation and
storage systems were
developed by the Indus Valley Civilization in Pakistan and North
India, including the reservoirs at
Girnar in 3000 BCE and an early canal irrigation system from circa
2600 BCE. Large scale
agriculture was practiced and an extensive network of canals was
used for the purpose of
irrigation. (Irrigation aids farming).
By the Bronze Age, wild food contributed a nutritionally insignificant
component to the usual diet. If
the operative definition of agriculture includes large scale
intensive cultivation of land, mono[1]
cropping, organized irrigation, and use of a specialized labour
force, the title "inventors of
agriculture" would fall to the Sumerians (The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societiesto emerge in the world, in Southern Mesopotamia), starting ca. 5,500 BC. Intensive farming allows
a much greater density of population than can be supported by
hunting and gathering, and allows
for the accumulation of excess product for off-season use, or to
sell/barter. The ability of farmers to
feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do
with agriculture was the crucial factor in the rise of standing armies.
Sumerian agriculture supported a substantial territorial
expansion which along with internecine conflict between cities
made them the first empire builders.
Not long after, the Egyptians, powered by farming in the fertile
Nile valley, achieved a population
density from which enough warriors could be drawn for a
territorial expansion more than tripling the
Sumerian empire in area.
Chickens (Gallus domestics) were first domesticated from a wild
form called red jungle fowl, a bird
that still runs wild in most of Southeast Asia. It was probably
domesticated by about 8,000 years
ago in what is now Thailand; however, recent research suggests
there may have been multiple
origins in distinct areas of South and Southeast Asia. Genetic
studies suggest that the original
domesticated chicken was probably in Thailand, although multiple
origin locations have been
suggested as well. The first archaeological evidence to date is
from China about 5400 BC, in
geographically widespread sites such as Cishan (Heibei province,
ca 5300 BC), Beixin (Shandong
province, ca 5000 BC), and Xian (Shaanxi province, ca 4300 BC).
Domesticated chickens appear
at Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley by about 2000 BC and, from
there the chicken spread into
Europe and Africa.
The Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) is the name given by German
archaeologist F. Klopfleisch in
1884 to the first true farming communities in central Europe,
dated between 5400 and 4900 BC.
Thus, LBK is considered the first Neolithic cultures in the
European continent. The word
Linearbandkeramik refers to the distinctive banded decoration
found on pottery vessels on sites
spread throughout central Europe, from south-western Ukraine and
Moldova in the east to the
Paris Basin in the west. The LBK people are considered the
importers of agricultural products and
methods, moving the first domesticated animals and plants from the
Near East and Central Asia
into Europe.
In China, rice and millet
were domesticated by 8000 BC, followed by the beans mung, soy and
azuki. In the Sahel region
of Africa local rice and sorghum were domestic by 5000 BC. Local crops
were domesticated
independently in West Africa and possibly in New Guinea and Ethiopia.
Circa 4,000 BC, the plough (variously, plow) is believed to have
been invented by the Sumerians of
Mesopotamia. In its initial form, the plough would probably have
been nothing more than a forked
tree limb, the one prong having been sharpened in order for it to
cut into the ground. The plough
made it possible to harness the power of oxen to dig the furrows
in which the grain seeds would be
sown. And, despite the fact that most history books give the 18th
century English farmer, Jethro
Tull, the credit for having invented the ‗seed drill‘, one has
been found to be illustrated on a carved
stone seal from Sumer. The seed drill was a variation of the
plough, which dug the furrow, but
which also contained a funnel and tube assembly to drop the seeds
into the furrow at the same
time.
Though some hypothesize that Domestication of the horse occurred
as early as 4000 BC in the
Ukraine, the horse was definitely in use by the Sumerians around
2000 BC. (Horse isdomesticated in Ukraine).
Maize was first domesticated, probably from teosinte, in the
Americas around 3000-2700 BC,
though there is some archaeological evidence of a much older
development. The potato, the
tomato, the pepper, squash, several varieties of bean, and several
other plants were also
developed in the New World, as was quite extensive terracing of
steep hillsides in much of Andean
South America. Agriculture was also independently developed on the island of New Guinea.
The history of tea in China is long and complex. The Chinese have
enjoyed tea for millennia.
Scholars hailed the brew as a cure for a variety of ailments; the
nobility considered the
consumption of good tea as a mark of their status, and the common
people simply enjoyed its
flavor. Tea was first discovered by the Chinese Emperor Shennong
in 2737 BC. It is said that the
emperor liked his drinking water boiled before he drank it so it would
be clean, so that is what his
servants did. One day, on a trip to a distant region, he and his
army stopped to rest. A servant
began boiling water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from the
wild tea bush fell into the water. It
turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and presented to the
emperor anyway. The emperor
drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha (tea) was born.
While historically the origin of tea as a
medicinal herb useful for staying awake is unclear, China is
considered to have the earliest records
of tea drinking, with recorded tea use in its history dating back
to the first millennium BC. The Han
Dynasty used tea as medicine. The use of tea as a beverage drunk
for pleasure on social
occasions dates from the Tang Dynasty or earlier.
The first true windmill, a machine with vanes attached to an axis
to produce circular motion, may
have been built as early as 2000 B.C. in ancient Babylon. By the
10th century A.D., windmills with
wind-catching surfaces as long as 16 feet and as high as 30 feet
were grinding grain in the area
now known as eastern Iran and Afghanistan. The western world
discovered the windmill much
later. The earliest written references to working wind machines
date from the 12th century. These
too were used for milling grain. It was not until a few hundred
years later that windmills were
modified to pump water and reclaim much of Holland from the sea.
Sugar cane originated in New Guinea where it has been known since
about 6000 BC. From about
1000 BC its cultivation gradually spread along human migration
routes to Southeast Asia and India
and east into the Pacific. It is thought to have hybridized with
wild sugar canes of India and China,
to produce the 'thin' canes. It spread westwards to the
Mediterranean between 600-1400 AD.
Sugar cane has a very long history of cultivation in the Indian
sub-continent. The earliest reference
to it is in the Atharva Veda (c. 1500-800 BC) where it is called
ikshu and mentioned as an offering
in sacrificial rites. The Atharva Veda uses it as a symbol of
sweet attractiveness. Sugar cane was
originally grown for the sole purpose of chewing, in southeastern
Asia and the Pacific. The rind was
removed and the internal tissues sucked or chewed. Production of
sugar by boiling the cane juice
was first discovered in India, most likely during the first
millennium BC. The word 'sugar' is thought
to derive from the ancient Sanskrit sharkara. By the 6th century
BC sharkara was frequently
referred to in Sanskrit texts which even distinguished superior
and inferior varieties of sugarcane.
The Susrutha Samhita listed 12 varieties; the best types were
supposed to be the vamshika with
thin reeds and the paundraka of Bengal. It was also being called guda, a term which is still used in.
The greatest achievement in the field of agriculture is row
cultivation and intensive hoeing. In
Europe, as with the rest of the world, they practiced scatter seed
farming. Scatter seed farming is
the practice of throwing the seed onto the fields at random. By
throwing the seed randomly, half the
seeds would not grow and make it impossible to weed the field. The Chinese on the other hand,
planted individual seeds and rows, thus reducing seed loss. The
planting of crops in rows also
allowed for intensive hoeing, which in turn reduce weeds.
A seed drill is a device allowing to plant seeds in the soil.
Before the introduction of seed drill, the
common practice was to "broadcast" seeds by hand.
Besides being wasteful, broadcasting was
very imprecise and led to a poor repartition of seeds; leading to
low productivity. The Sumerians
used primitive single-tube seed drills around 1,500 BCE, but the
invention never reached Europe.
Multi-tube seed drills were invented by the Chinese in the 2nd century BCE.
The Islamic Golden Age from the 8th century to the 13th century
witnessed a fundamental
transformation in agriculture known as the Arab Agricultural
Revolution, or Medieval Green
Revolution. The global economy established by Muslim traders
across the Old World, enabled the
diffusion of many crops and farming techniques among different
parts of the Islamic world, as well
as the adaptation of crops and techniques from beyond the Islamic
world. Crops from Africa such
as sorghum, crops from China such as citrus fruits, and numerous
crops from India such as
mangos, rice, and especially cotton and sugar cane, were
distributed throughout Islamic lands,
which previously had not grown these crops. Some writers have
referred to the diffusion of
numerous crops during this period as the Globalisation of crops.
These introductions, along with an
increased mechanization of agriculture (see Industrial growth
below), led to major changes in economy, population distribution, vegetation
cover, agricultural production and income, population
levels, urban growth, the distribution of the labour force, linked
industries, cooking and diet and
clothing in the Islamic world.
Coffee as we know it kicked off in Arabia, where roasted beans
were first brewed around A.D.
1000. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking coffee
religiously. The ―bean broth‖ drove
dervishes into orbit, kept worshippers awake, and splashed over
into secular life. And wherever
Islam went, coffee went too.
The Columbian Exchange has been one of the most significant events
in the history of world
ecology, agriculture, and culture. The term is used to describe
the enormous widespread exchange
of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves),
communicable diseases, and
ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres that occurred
after 1492. Many new and
different goods were exchanged between the two hemispheres of the
Earth, and it began a new
revolution in the Americas and in Europe. In 1492, Christopher
Columbus' first voyage launched an
era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New World that
resulted in this ecological
revolution: hence it was named as ―Columbian" Exchange. The
Columbian Exchange greatly
affected almost every society on earth, bringing destructive
diseases that depopulated many
cultures, and also circulating a wide variety of new crops and
livestock that, in the long term,
increased rather than diminished the world human population. Maize
and potatoes became very
important crops in Eurasia by the 1700s. Peanuts and manioc
flourished in tropical Southeast
Asian and West African soils that otherwise would not produce
large yields or support large
populations.
The idea of growing plants in environmentally controlled areas
has existed since Roman times. The
Roman emperor Tiberius ate a cucumber-like vegetable daily. The
Roman gardeners used artificial
methods (similar to the greenhouse system) of growing to have it
available for his table every day
of the year. Cucumbers were planted in wheeled carts which were
put in the sun daily, and then
taken inside to keep them warm at night. The cucumbers were
stored under frames or in cucumber
houses glazed with either oiled cloth known as
"specularia" or with sheets of mica, according to the
description by Pliny the Elder. The first modern greenhouses
were built in Italy in the thirteenth
century to house the exotic plants that explorers brought back
from the tropics. They were
originally called giardini botanici (botanical gardens). The
concept of greenhouses soon spread to
the Netherlands and then England, along with the plants. Some of
these early attempts required
enormous amounts of work to close up at night or to winterize.
There were serious problems with
providing adequate and balanced heat in these early greenhouses.
Jules Charles, a French
botanist, is often credited with building the first practical
modern greenhouse in Leiden, Holland to
grow medicinal tropical plants. Originally on the estates of the
rich, with the growth of the science
of botany greenhouses spread to the universities. In the
nineteenth Century the largest
greenhouses were built. The conservatory at Kew Gardens in
England is a prime example of the Victorian greenhouse. Although intended for
both horticultural and non-horticultural exhibition these
included London's Crystal Palace, the New York Crystal Palace
and Munich‘s Glaspalast. Joseph
Paxton, who had experimented with glass and iron in the creation
of large greenhouses as the
head gardener at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, working for the Duke
of Devonshire, designed and
built the first, London's Crystal Palace. A major architectural
achievement in monumental
greenhouse building was the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken
(1874-1895) for King Leopold II of
Belgium. In Japan, the first greenhouse was built in 1880 by
Samuel Cocking, a British merchant
who exported herbs.
The 1 st British Agricultural Revolution describes a period of agricultural
development in
Britain between the 18th century and the end of the 19th century, which
saw a massive
increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in
turn supported unprecedented
population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce,
and thereby helped drive
the Industrial Revolution. How this came about is not entirely
clear. In recent decades, enclosure,
mechanization, four-field crop rotation, and selective breeding
have been highlighted as primary
causes, with credit given to relatively few individuals.
Growing the same crop repeatedly on the same land eventually
depletes the soil of different
nutrients. Farmers avoided a decrease in soil fertility by
practicing crop rotation. Different plant
crops were planted in a regular sequence so that the leaching of
the soil by a crop of one kind of
nutrient was followed by a plant crop that returned that
nutrient to the soil. Crop rotation was
practiced in ancient Roman, African, and Asian cultures. During
the Middle Ages in Europe, a
three-year crop rotation was practiced by farmers rotating rye
or winter wheat in year one, followed
by spring oats or barley in the second year, and followed by a
third year of no crops. In the 18th
century, British agriculturalist Charles Townshend aided the
European agricultural revolution by
popularizing a four- year crop rotation with rotations of wheat,
barley, turnips, and clover. In the
United States, George Washington Carver brought his science of
crop rotation to the farmers and
saved the farming resources of the south.
fibers from the seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds, a job
previously done by slave workers.
These seeds were either used again to grow more cotton or if
badly damaged were disposed of. It
uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull
the cotton through the screen,
while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to
prevent jams. The term "gin" is an
abbreviation for engine, and means "device". According
to Joseph Needham a precursor to the
cotton gin was present in India, which was known as a charkhi,
which had two elongated worms
that turned its rollers in opposite directions. The modern
cotton gin was later created by the
American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the
production of cotton fiber. The invention
was granted a patent on March 14, 1794. The cotton gin was credited
for increasing assets in the
American economy.
Chemist Justus von Liebig contributed greatly to the advancement
in the understanding of plant
nutrition. His influential works first denounced the vitalist
theory of humus, arguing first the
importance of ammonia, and later the importance of inorganic
minerals. Primarily his work
succeeded in setting out questions for agricultural science to
address over the next 50 years. In
England he attempted to implement his theories commercially
through a fertilizer created by
treating phosphate of lime in bone meal with sulphuric acid.
Although it was much less expensive
than the guano that was used at the time, it failed because it
was not able to be properly absorbed
by crops. At that time in England Sir John Bennet Lawes was
experimenting with crops and
manures at his farm at Harpenden and was able to produce a
practical super phosphate in 1842
from the phosphates in rock and coprolites. Encouraged, he
employed Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert,
who had studied under Liebig at the University of Giessen, as
director of research. To this day, the
Rothamsted research station that they founded still investigates
the impact of inorganic and
organic fertilizers on crop yields. In France, Jean Baptiste
Boussingault pointed out that the amount
of nitrogen in various kinds of fertilizers is important.
Metallurgists Percy Gilchrist and Sidney
Gilchrist Thomas invented the Thomas-Gilchrist converter, which
enabled the use of high
phosphorus acidic Continental ores on steelmaking. The dolomite
lime lining of the converter
turned in time into calcium phosphate, which could be used as
fertilizer known as Thomas[1]
phosphate. In the early decades of the 20th Century the Nobel
prize-winning chemists Carl Bosch
of IG Farben and Fritz Haber developed the process that enabled
nitrogen to be cheaply
synthesized into ammonia, for subsequent oxidization into
nitrates and nitrites. In 1927 Erling
Johnson developed an industrial method for producing nitro
phosphate, also known as the Odda
process after his Odda Smelteverk of Norway. The process
involved acidifying phosphate rock
(from Nauru and Banaba Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean)
with nitric acid to produce
phosphoric acid and calcium nitrate which, once neutralized, could be used as a nitrogen fertilizer.
The wrought-iron framed plow had a polished steel share which made
it ideal for the tough soil of
the Midwest, and worked better than other plows. By early 1838
Deere completed his first steel
plow and sold it to a local farmer, Lewis Crandall, who quickly
spread word of his success with
Deere's plow, and so two neighbors soon placed orders with Deere.
Confident that he had some
stability, Deere moved his family to Grand Detour later that year.
By 1841 he was manufacturing 75
plows per year and 100 plows per year the next.
Until the middle of the 19th century, hay was cut by hand with
sickles and scythes. In the 1860s
early cutting devices were developed that resembled those on
reapers and binders; from these
came the modern array of fully mechanical mowers, crushers,
windrowers, field choppers, balers,
and machines for palletizing or wafering in the field. The
stationary baler or hay press was invented
in the 1850's and did not become popular until the 1870's. The
"pick up" baler or square baler was
replaced by the round baler around the 1940's. In 1936, a man
named Innes, of Davenport, Iowa,
invented an automatic baler for hay. It tied bales with binder
twine using Appleby-type knotters
from a John Deere grain binder. A Pennsylvania Dutchman named Ed
Nolt built his own baler,
salvaging the twine knotters from the Innes baler. Both balers did
not work that well. According to
The History of Twine, "Nolt's innovative patents pointed the
way by 1939 to the mass production of
the one-man automatic hay baler. His balers and their imitators
revolutionized hay and straw
harvest and created a twine demand beyond the wildest dreams of any twine manufacturer."
Mendelian inheritance (or Mendelian genetics or Mendelism) is a
set of primary tenets relating to
the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent
organisms to their children; it underlies
much of genetics. They were initially derived from the work of
Gregor Mendel published in 1865
and 1866 which was "re-discovered" in 1900, and were
initially very controversial. When they were
integrated with the chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas
Hunt Morgan in 1915, they
became the core of classical genetics.
In 1879, Anna Baldwin patented a milking machine that replaced
hand milking - her milking
machine was a vacuum device that connected to a hand pump. This is
one of the earliest American
patents; however, it was not a successful invention. Successful
milking machines appeared around
1870. The earliest devices for mechanical milking were tubes
inserted in the teats to force open the
sphincter muscle, thus allowing the milk to flow. Wooden tubes
were used for this purpose, as well
as feather quills. Skillfully made tubes of pure silver, gutta
percha, ivory, and bone were marketed
in the mid-19th century.
The first powered farm implements in the early 1800s were portable
engines – steam engines on
wheels that could be used to drive mechanical farm machinery by
way of a flexible belt. Around
1850, the first traction engines were developed from these, and
were widely adopted for
agricultural use. Where soil conditions permitted, like the US,
steam tractors were used to direct[1]
haul ploughs, but in the UK, ploughing engines were used for
cable-hauled ploughing instead.
Steam-powered agricultural engines remained in use well into the
20th century, until reliable
internal combustion engines had been developed. In 1892, John
Froelich built the first practical
gasoline-powered tractor in Clayton County, Iowa. Only two were
sold, and it was not until 1911,
when the Twin City Traction Engine Company developed the design,
that it became successful. In
Britain, the first recorded tractor sale was the oil-burning
Hornsby-Ackroyd Patent Safety Oil
Traction engine, in 1897. However, the first commercially
successful design was Dan Albone's
three-wheel Ivel tractor of 1902. In 1908, Saundersons of Bedford
introduced a four-wheel design,
and went on to become the largest tractor manufacturer outside the USA.
Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to
the industrialized production of
livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods of industrial
agriculture are techno scientific,
economic, and political. They include innovation in agricultural
machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving
economies of scale in production, the creation of new
markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to
genetic information, and global
trade. These methods are widespread in developed nations and
increasingly prevalent worldwide.
Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, and vegetables available in
supermarkets are produced using
these methods of industrial agriculture. The birth of industrial
agriculture more or less coincides
with that of the Industrial Revolution in general. The
identification of nitrogen and phosphorus as
critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of
synthetic fertilizers, making possible more
intensive types of agriculture. The discovery of vitamins and
their role in animal nutrition, in the first
two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which
in the 1920s allowed certain
livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse
natural elements. The discovery
of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in
larger numbers by reducing disease.
Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic
pesticides. Developments in
shipping networks and technology have made long-distance
distribution of agricultural produce
feasible. Agricultural production across the world doubled four
times between 1820 and 1975 to
feed a global population of one billion human beings in 1800 and
6.5 billion in 2002. During the
same period, the number of people involved in farming dropped as
the process became more
automated.
Although aerial photographs were taken from balloons and kites as
early as the mid-1800s, aerial
survey was not widely employed until World War I (1914-1918), when
cameras were mounted in
airplanes. Military applications of aerial photography expanded
during World War II (1939-1945),
and many technological improvements in aircraft, cameras, and
films followed. During the 1930s
and the 1940s, the first aerial surveys of large areas of the
United States were conducted to
support government programs in soil conservation and forest management.
Since before 2500 BC, humans have utilized pesticides to protect
their crops. The first known
pesticide was elemental sulfur dusting used in Sumeria about 4,500
years ago. By the 15th
century, toxic chemicals such as arsenic, mercury and lead were
being applied to crops to kill
pests. In the 17th century, nicotine sulfate was extracted from
tobacco leaves for use as an
insecticide. The 19th century saw the introduction of two more
natural pesticides, pyrethrum which
is derived from chrysanthemums and rotenone which is derived from
the roots of tropical
vegetables. In 1939, Paul Muller discovered that DDT was a very
effective insecticide. It quickly
became the most widely-used pesticide in the world. In the 1940s
manufacturers began to produce
large amounts of synthetic pesticides and their use became
widespread. Some sources consider
the 1940s and 1950s to have been the start of the "pesticide
era." Pesticide use has increased 50-
fold since 1950 and 2.5 million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of
industrial pesticides are now used
each year. Seventy-five percent of all pesticides in the world are
used in developed countries, but
use in developing countries is increasing. In the 1960s, it was
discovered that DDT was preventing many fish-eating birds from reproducing,
which was a serious threat to biodiversity. Rachel Carson
wrote the best-selling book Silent Spring about biological
magnification. DDT is now banned in at
least 86 countries, but it is still used in some developing
nations to prevent malaria and other
tropical diseases by killing mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects.
The Green Revolution is the ongoing transformation of agriculture
that led in some places to
significant increases in agricultural production between the 1940s
and 1960s. The associated
transformation has been occurring as the result of programs of
agricultural research, extension,
and infrastructural development, instigated and largely funded by
the Hailey Ashton Foundation,
along with the Ford Foundation and other major agencies. The
consensus among some
agronomists is that the Green Revolution allowed food production
to keep pace with worldwide
population growth. The Green Revolution has had major social and
ecological impacts, and with
multi-million dollar backing from organizations including the
Gates Foundation, the deployment of
Green Revolution policies will continue for some time. The Green
Revolution began in 1943 with
the establishment of the Office of Special Studies, which was a
venture that was collaboration
between the Rockefeller Foundation and the presidential
administration of Manuel Avila Camacho
in Mexico. While Camacho's predecessor Cárdenas promoted peasant
subsistence agriculture
through policies of land reform, Avila Camacho's primary goal for
Mexican agriculture was to aid in
the nation's industrial development and economic growth. With the
experience of agricultural
development judged as a success, the Rockefeller Foundation sought
to spread the Green
Revolution to other nations. The Office of Special Studies in
Mexico became an informal
international research institution in 1959, and in 1963 it
formally became CIMMYT, The
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. In 1961 India
was on the brink of mass
famine. Norman Borlaug is known as father of green revolution.
Norman Borlaug was invited to
India by the adviser to the Indian minister of agriculture M. S.
Swaminathan. Despite bureaucratic
hurdles imposed by India's grain monopolies, the Ford Foundation
and Indian government
collaborated to import wheat seed from CIMMYT. Punjab was selected
by the Indian government
to be the first site to try the new crops because of its reliable
water supply and a history of
agricultural success. India began its own Green Revolution program
of plant breeding, irrigation
development, and financing of agrochemicals.
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and
individuals involved worldwide in
the promotion of organic farming, which they believe to be a more
sustainable mode of agriculture.
Its history goes back to the first half of the 20th century, when
modern large-scale agricultural
practices began to appear. The organic movement began in the early
1900s in response to the
shift towards synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides in the
early days of industrial agriculture. It
lay dormant for many years, kept alive by a relatively small group
of ecologically minded farmers.
These farmers came together in various associations: Demeter
International of Germany, which
encouraged biodynamic farming and began the first certification
program, the Soil Association of
the United Kingdom, and Rodale Press in the United States, along
with others. In 1972 these
organizations joined to form the International Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements
(IFOAM). In recent years, environmental awareness has driven
demand and conversion to organic
farming. Some governments, including the European Union, have
begun to support organic farming through agricultural subsidy reform. Organic
production and marketing have grown at a
fast pace.
Transgenic plants have been developed for various purposes:
resistance to pests, herbicides or
harsh environmental conditions; improved shelflife; increased
nutritional value - and many more.
Since the first commercial cultivation of GM plants in 1996, GM
plant events tolerant to the
herbicides glufosinate or glyphosate and events producing the Bt
toxin, an insecticide, have
dominated the market. Recently, a new generation of GM plants
promising benefits for consumers
and industry purposes is becoming ready to enter the markets.
Since GM plants are grown on
open fields, there is often a perception that there could be
associated environmental risks.
Therefore, most countries require bio-safety studies prior to the
approval of a new GM plant event,
usually followed by a monitoring programme to detect environmental
impacts. Especially in Europe,
the coexistence of GM plants with conventional and organic crops
has raised many concerns.
Since there is separate legislation for GM crops and a high demand
from consumers for the
freedom of choice between GM and non-GM foods, measures are
required to separate GM,
conventional and organic plants and derived food and feed.
European research programmes such
as Co-Extra, Transcontainer and SIGMEA are investigating
appropriate tools and rules. On the
field level, these are biological containment methods, isolation distances and pollen barriers.
Indian
agriculture began by 9000 BCE as a result of early cultivation of plants, and
domestication of crops
and animals.
Settled life soon followed with implements and techniques being developed for
agriculture.
Double
monsoons led to two harvests being reaped in one year. Indian products soon
reached the world via
existing
trading networks and foreign crops were introduced to India. Plants and
animals—considered
essential
to their survival by the Indians—came to be worshiped and venerated.
The
middle ages saw irrigation channels reach a new level of sophistication in
India and Indian crops
affecting
the economies of other regions of the world under Islamic patronage. Land and
water management
systems
were developed with an aim of providing uniform growth. Despite some stagnation
during the later
modern era the independent Republic of India was able to develop a comprehensive agricultural program
1.
Indian agriculture began by 9000 BCE as a result of early cultivation of
plants, and domestication of crops and animals.
2.
Wheat, barley, and jujube were domesticated in the Indian subcontinent by 9000
BCE.
3.
Domestication of sheep and goat soon followed. This period also saw the first
domestication of the elephant.
4.
Barley and wheat cultivation—along with the domestication of cattle, primarily
sheep and goat—was visible in Mehrgarh by 8000-6000 BCE.
5.
Agro pastoralism in India included threshing, planting crops in rows—either of
two or of six— and storing grain in granaries.
6.
By the 5th millennium BCE agricultural communities became widespread in
Kashmir.
7. The first evidence of cultivation of cotton had already
developed'. Cotton was cultivated by the
5 th millennium BCE- 4 th millennium BCE. The
Indus cotton industry was well developed and some methods used in
cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be practiced till the
modern Industrialization of India.
8. A variety of tropical fruit such as mango, muskmelons are
native to the Indian subcontinent.
9. The Indians also domesticated hemp, which they used for a
number of applications including making narcotics, fiber, and oil.
10. The farmers of the Indus Valley grew peas, sesame, and
dates.
11. Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and
Southeast Asia.
12. Wild Oryza rice appeared in the Belan and Ganges valley
regions of northern India as early as 4530 BCE and 5440 BCE respectively.
13. Rice was cultivated in the Indus Valley Civilization.
14. Agricultural activity during the
2 nd millennium BC included rice cultivation in the Kashmir and
Harappan regions.
15. Mixed farming was the basis of the Indus valley economy.
16. Irrigation was developed in the Indus Valley Civilization
by around 4500 BCE.
17. The size and prosperity of the Indus civilization grew as
a result of this innovation, which eventually led
to more planned settlements making use of drainage and sewers.
18. Sophisticated irrigation and water storage systems were
developed by the Indus Valley Civilization, dated to 3000 BCE, and
19. An early canal irrigation system was developed in 2600
BCE in India.
20. Archeological evidence of an animal-drawn plough dates
back to 2500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization.
in his book Indika — provides a
secular eyewitness account of Indian agriculture.
India has many huge mountains which abound in fruit-trees of every
kind, and many vast plains of great
fertility. . . . The greater part of the soil, moreover, is under
irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of the year. . . .
In addition to cereals, there grows throughout India much millet . . . and much
pulse of different sorts, and rice also, and what is called
bosporum [Indian millet]. . . . Since there is a double
rainfall [i.e., the two monsoons] in the course of each year . . .
the inhabitants of India almost always gather
in two harvests annually.
1. The
Tamil People cultivated a wide range of crops such as rice, sugarcane, millets,
black pepper,
various
grains, coconuts, beans, cotton, plantain, tarnarind and sandalwood. Jackfruit,
coconut,
palm,
areca and plantain trees were also known.
2.
Systematic ploughing, maturing, weeding, irrigation and crop protection was
practiced for sustained
agriculture.
3. Water
storage systems were designed during this period.
Kallanai Dam is one of
the oldest irrigation dams in the world built around 2000 years ago ,
it is
built on river Kaveri: It is considered the as one of the oldest water-regulation
structures in the world
still in
use.
Crystallized
sugar was discovered by the time of the Guptas (320-550 CE)
During
the Chola Empire (875-1279) Chola rule land was transferred and collective holding of land by
a
group of people slowly gave way to individual plots of land, each with their own irrigation system.
The
construction of water works and aspects of water technology in India is
described in Arabic and Persian
works.
The diffusion of Indian and Persian irrigation technologies gave rise to
irrigation systems which
bought
about economic growth and growth of material culture. Agricultural 'zones' were
broadly divided into
those
producing rice, wheat or millets. Rice production continued to dominate Gujarat
and wheat dominated
north and
central India. The Encyclopedia Britannica details the many crops introduced to
India during this
period of
extensive global discourse:
Introduced
by the Portuguese, cultivation of tobacco spread rapidly. The Malabar Coast was
the home of
spices,
especially black pepper that had stimulated the first European adventures in
the East. Coffee had
been
imported from Abyssinia and became a popular beverage in aristocratic circles
by the end of the
century.
Tea, which was to become the common man's drink and a major export, was yet
undiscovered,
though it
was growing wild in the hills of Assam. Vegetables were cultivated mainly in
the vicinity of towns.
New
species of fruit, such as the pineapple, papaya, and cashew nut, also were
introduced by the
Portuguese.
The quality of mango and citrus fruits was greatly improved.
Land
management was particularly strong during the regime of Akbar the great (reign:
1556-1605), under
whom
scholar-bureaucrat Todarmal formulated and implemented elaborated methods for
agricultural
management
on a rational basis. Indian crops—such as cotton, sugar, and citric
fruits—spread visibly
throughout
North Africa, Islamic Spain, and the Middle East. Though they may have been in
cultivation prior
to the
solidification of Islam in India, their production was further improved as a
result of this recent wave,
which led to far-reaching economic outcomes for the regions involved.
1. Few
Indian commercial crops—such as Cotton, indigo, opium, and rice—made it to the
global market
under the
British Raj in India.
2. The
second half of the 19th century saw some increase in land under cultivation and
agricultural
production
expanded at an average rate of about 1 percent per year by the later 19th
century.
3. Due to
extensive irrigation by canal networks Punjab, Narmda Valley, and Andhra
Pradesh became
centers
of agrarian reforms.
4. Agricultural
performance in the interwar period (1918–1939) was depressing.
5. From
1891 to 1946, the annual growth rate of all crop output was 0.4 percent, and
food-grain output
was
practically stagnant. There were significant regional and intercrop
differences, however, nonfood
crops
doing better than food crops. Among food crops, by far the most important
source of stagnation
was rice.
Bengal had below-average growth rates in both food and nonfood crop output,
whereas
Punjab
and Madras were the least stagnant regions. In the interwar period, population
growth
accelerated
while food output decelerated, leading to declining availability of food per
head.
6. The
crisis was most acute in Bengal, where food output declined at an annual rate
of about 0.7 percent
from 1921
to 1946, when population grew at an annual rate of about 1 percent.
7. Agricultural prices of some commodities rose to about three times between ―1870-1920‖.
multipurpose dam was among the earliest river valley development
schemes undertaken by
independent India, although the project was conceived long before
India became a free nation.
Preliminary works commenced in 1946. Construction of the dam
started in 1948, Jawahar Lal
Nehru poured the first bucket of concrete into the foundations of
Bhakra on 17 November 1955
and the dam was completed by the end of 1963. Successive stages
were completed by the
early 1970s.
2. Tehri Dam on Bhagirathi River is the highest dam in India.
3. Special programs were undertaken to improve food and cash crops
supply The Grow More
Food Campaign (1940s) and the Integrated Production Programme
(1950s) focused on food
and cash crops supply respectively.
4. Five-year plants of India - oriented towards agricultural
development—soon followed. Land
reclamation, land development, mechanization, electrification, use
of chemicals—fertilizers in
particular, and development of agriculture oriented 'package
approach' of taking a set of
actions instead of promoting single aspect soon followed under
government supervision.
5. The many 'production revolutions' initiated from 1960s onwards
included Green Revolution in
India, Yellow Revolution (oilseed: 1986-1990), Operation Food
(dairy: 1970-1996), and Blue
Revolution (fishing: 1973-2002) etc.
6. Following the economic reforms of 1991, significant growth was
registered in the agricultural
sector, which was by now benefiting from the earlier reforms and
the newer innovations of
Agro-processing and Biotechnology.
7. Various institutions for agriculture related research in India
were organized under the ICAR –
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (est. 1929). Other
organizations such as the National
dairy development Borad (est. 1965), and National Bank for
Agriculture and Rural
Development (est. 1982) aided the formation of cooperatives and
improved financing.
8. During 2003-04, agriculture accounted for 22 % of India's GDP
and employed 58 per cent of
the country's workforce. 9. India is the world's largest producer
of milk, Fruits, Cashew nuts, coconuts, ginger, turmeric,
banana, sapota, pulses, and black pepper.
10. India is the second largest producer of groundnut, wheat,
vegetables, sugar and fish in the
world.
11. India is also the third largest producer of tobacco and rice.
12. India is the fourth largest producer of coarse grains,
13. India is the fifth largest producer of eggs.
14. India is the seventh largest producer of meat.
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