Agriculture

Agriculture is the intentional growing of plants for human use.

Agricultural societies appeared in several widely separated parts of the Old and New Worlds over 5000 years ago. Most human populations had become dependent on agriculture by some 2,000 years ago .

Various amounts of care are involved, from little more than scattering seeds and later checking for a harvest, to large scale industrial agriculture, where thousands of acres are devoted to growing one crop, using carefully bred and selected seeds, highly processed man-made fertilizers, and a variety of pesticides.

The plants themselves have been selectively bred since the early days of agriculture for many characteristics, including fruit size and yield, disease and pest resistance, drought or wetness tolerance - in fact, any trait that could be imagined to be useful.

While it is immediately obvious that the first purpose for growing domesticated plants is to provide a stable food supply, we also grow plants for fibers to make clothing, to press for oil, or to make into paper. Plants are also grown for real or perceived medicinal properties, like tobacco or poppies.

By tying a community to the location where its crops are planted, and making the production and storage of surpluses possible, agriculture led to the development of villages and cities, and the need for, invention, and development of civilization itself.

References

       Cover crops: Definition: a quick-growing crop, as vetch or clover, used for a short time to protect soil from erosion and then plowed under as fertilizer. Noun, A crop, such as winter rye or clover, planted between periods of regular crop production to prevent soil erosion and provide humus or nitrogen. Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/cover-crop
      
       WHY COVER CROPS?  Cover crops are an effective tool to reduce soil erosion and increase nutrient recycling on farmlands, thereby also decreasing the soil and nutrient loads entering lakes and waterways.  Cover crops can have numerous other benefits including improvement of soil quality, pest management, fertility management, water availability, landscape diversification, and wildlife habitat. 

Source: http://www.mccc.msu.edu/index.htm

      Annotation: Cover Crops may become or already are in some cases a detriment to environment in being genetically altered which we do not fully understand the effect of of GM foods or plants to the environment. It is a reminder that what is done to plants will be done to humans like all science of past the negative will outweigh any benefits and the benefits will be overstated in propaganda. It is a sociological problem of giving confusion a place of distinction which become cultural norms. Cover crops are a good alternative to chemicals but humanity needs to alter farming practices as we could feed everyone without problem now it more of economic and sociological problem. All things in world are connected.
     
                  New International Version of Holy Bible: Genesis 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.