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Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep, and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meat, milk, eggs, and fungi. Over one-third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector, although in recent decades, the global trend of a decreasing number of agricultural workers continues, especially in developing countries, where smallholding is being overtaken by industrial agriculture and mechanization that brings an enormous crop yield increase.

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have sharply increased crop yields, but cause ecological and environmental damage. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat but have raised concerns about animal welfare and environmental damage. Environmental issues include contributions to global warming, depletion of aquifers, deforestation, antibiotic resistance, and other agricultural pollution. Agriculture is both a cause of and sensitive to environmental degradation, such as biodiversity loss, desertification, soil degradation, and global warming, all of which can cause decreases in crop yield. Genetically modified organisms are widely used, although some are banned in certain countries.Agriculture is the art and science of cultivating the soil, growing crops and raising livestock. It includes the preparation of plant and animal products for people to use and their distribution to markets.

Agriculture provides most of the world’s food and fabrics. Cotton, wool, and leather are all agricultural products. Agriculture also provides wood for construction and paper products.

These products, as well as the agricultural methods used, may vary from one part of the world to another.

Start of Agriculture

Over centuries, the growth of agriculture contributed to the rise of civilizations.

Before agriculture became widespread, people spent most of their lives searching for food—hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants. About 11,500 years ago, people gradually learned how to grow cereal and root crops, and settled down to a life based on farming.

By 2,000 years ago, much of the Earth’s population had become dependent on agriculture. Scholars are not sure why this shift to farming took place, but it may have occurred because of climate change.

When people began growing crops, they also began herding and breeding wild animals. Adapting wild plants and animals for people to use is called domestication.

The first domesticated plant was probably rice or corn. Chinese farmers were cultivating rice as early as 7500 BCE.

The first domesticated animals were dogs, which were used for hunting. Sheep and goats were probably domesticated next. People also domesticated cattle and pigs. Most of these animals had once been hunted for hides and meat. Now many of them are also sources of milk, cheese, and butter. Eventually, people used domesticated animals such as oxen for plowing, pulling, and transportation.

Agriculture enabled people to produce surplus food. They could use this extra food when crops failed or trade it for other goods. Food surpluses allowed people to work at other tasks unrelated to farming.

Agriculture kept formerly nomadic people near their fields and led to the development of permanent villages. These became linked through trade. New economies were so successful in some areas that cities grew and civilizations developed. The earliest civilizations based on intensive agriculture arose near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia (now Iraq and Iran) and along the Nile River in Egypt.

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