Agriculture

Agriculture is the intentional growing of plants for human use.

The oldest signs of agriculture are over 10 000 years old. Farming was first started at the mountain hillsides in Anatolia and Mesopotamia and after climate warming (end of the ice age) the main plantations were moved to the valleys. After that the agriculture started spreading to the nearby areas and finally all over the world.

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.

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