1.
Harvest Festival (Parks and Recreation)
–
Harvest Festival is the seventh episode of the third season of the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation, and the 37th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on March 17,2011, in the episode, Leslie and her co-workers hold Pawnees harvest festival, the success of which will determine the future of the parks department. The festival faces several obstacles, including a supposed Native American curse, a miniature horse. Meanwhile, Ann tries to cope with her recent break-up, and April confesses her love to Andy, unlike the first six episodes of the season, it was not written and produced immediately following the second season, which had been done to accommodate actress Amy Poehlers pregnancy. The episode featured appearances by regular guest stars Mo Collins and Jay Jackson, the harvest festival scenes were shot at Los Angeles Pierce College, and an aerial shot of the festival itself was the most expensive shot in the series. According to Nielsen Media Research, Harvest Festival was seen by 4.08 million household viewers, the episode received critical acclaim, with many reviewers calling it one of the shows best episodes as well as a major turning point in the series. With the Harvest Festival days away, Leslie surprises everyone by booking Lil Sebastian, everyone is thrilled except Ben, who doesnt understand the fascination. The chief of the local Wamapoke tribe, Ken Hotate, visits the parks department and requests the harvest festival be moved, Ann works the harvest festival first aid tent, where she confides in Donna that she has not taken the break-up with Chris well. April tells Andy that she him, but grows angry when he replies, Dude. Joan Callamezzo arrives to report on the festival and is determined to find a negative story and she initially fails to find a scandal, but then overhears Leslie and Ben discussing the curse. It becomes the focus of her story, especially after Tom tells Leslie that Lil Sebastian escaped his pen, Tom blames Jerry, although it was entirely Toms fault. The Pawnee media swarms the festival to cover the curse, endangering its opening the day with the bad press. Now believing himself to be the curse, Ben leaves the festival, as Leslie reassures the reporters there is no curse, the power generator blows out, leaving the festival dark and stranding most of the parks department on a Ferris wheel. Using the blackout as an excuse, Ann takes Donnas advice to make out with people, starting with Kiley, her dumb. Andy tells April that he loves her and they hug. Later, everyone spots Lil Sebastian in the maze and recover him. Leslie learns the power outage was due to television crews plugging into the grid, Ken agrees, and during the festival opening the next morning, he performs a meaningless ceremony to remove the fake curse. People begin to swarm into the festival, and Ben returns to apologize to Leslie for leaving, admitting that he is not over his past
Harvest Festival (Parks and Recreation)
–
Parks and Recreation co-creator
Michael Schur described "Harvest Festival" as a particularly empowering episode for
Leslie Knope, played by
Amy Poehler (pictured).
2.
English-speaking world
–
Approximately 330 to 360 million people speak English as their first language. More than half of live in the United States, followed by some 55 million in England. English is the third largest language by number of speakers, after Mandarin. Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly, from 470 million to more than 1 billion, david Crystal calculates that non-native speakers as of 2003 outnumbered native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. When combining native and non-native speakers, English is the most widely spoken language worldwide, there are six large countries with a majority of native English speakers that are sometimes grouped under the term Anglosphere. They are, in descending order of English speakers, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, other substantial communities of native speakers are found in South Africa, and Nigeria. Also there are countries where in a part of the territory English became a language, e. g. Colombias San Andrés y Providencia. This was a result of the influence of British colonization in the area, English is one of the eleven official languages that are given equal status in South Africa. It is also the language in current dependent territories of Australia and of the United States. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been official status by 32 of the 50 state governments. It is, by treaty, the official language for aeronautical. English is one of the languages of the United Nations and many other international organizations. In 2012, excluding native speakers,38 percent of Europeans consider that they can speak English, in publishing, English literature predominates considerably with 28 percent of all books published in the world and 30 percent of web content in 2011. This increasing use of the English language globally has had a impact on many other languages, leading to language shift and even language death. English itself has more open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole. Variation in Nonnative Varieties of English, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Census 2011, Key Statistics for Northern Ireland December 2012, language in England and Wales,2011. Language Use in the United States,2011, Population by mother tongue and age groups,2011 counts, for Canada, provinces and territories
English-speaking world
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Definitions of the Anglosphere vary: countries in which English is the first language of the majority of the population are shown in blue; other countries present possess substantial English knowledge dating back to the British Empire (they are shown in light blue)
3.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
Agriculture
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Agriculture
Agriculture
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Fields in
Záhorie (
Slovakia) - a typical Central European agricultural region.
Agriculture
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Domestic sheep and a
cow (heifer) pastured together in
South Africa.
Agriculture
–
A
Sumerian harvester's sickle made from baked clay (ca. 3000 BC).
4.
History of agriculture
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The history of agriculture records the domestication of plants and animals and the development and dissemination of techniques for raising them productively. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC. From around 9,500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 and 6,200 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans, pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 13,000 BC, followed by sheep between 11,000 and 9,000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. Sugarcane and some vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 7,000 BC. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 5,000 BC, in the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 8,000 and 5,000 BC, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Bananas were cultivated and hybridized in the period in Papua New Guinea. In Mesoamerica, wild teosinte was domesticated to maize by 4,000 BC, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 3,600 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3,000 BC, irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers were introduced soon after the Neolithic Revolution and developed much further in the past 200 years, starting with the British Agricultural Revolution. The Haber-Bosch process allowed the synthesis of nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale. Modern agriculture has raised social, political, and environmental issues including pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs. In response, organic farming developed in the century as a consciously pesticide-free alternative. Scholars have developed a number of hypotheses to explain the origins of agriculture. Current models indicate that wild stands that had been harvested previously started to be planted, localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant. When major climate change took place after the last ice age and these conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time, early people began altering communities of flora and fauna for their own benefit through means such as fire-stick farming and forest gardening very early
History of agriculture
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Agriculture
History of agriculture
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Threshing of grain in ancient Egypt
History of agriculture
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Roman harvesting machine
History of agriculture
–
Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of
Pietro de Crescenzi.
5.
History of organic farming
–
Traditional farming was the original type of agriculture, and has been practiced for thousands of years. All traditional farming is now considered to be organic farming although at the time there were no known inorganic methods, for example, forest gardening, a fully organic food production system which dates from prehistoric times, is thought to be the worlds oldest and most resilient agroecosystem. The history of modern revival of organic farming dates back to the first half of the 20th century at a time when there was a growing reliance on these new synthetic, inorganic methods. The first 40 years of the 20th century saw advances in biochemistry. The introduction of the internal combustion engine ushered in the era of the tractor. Research in plant breeding led to the commercialization of hybrid seed, and a new manufacturing process made nitrogen fertilizer — first synthesized in the mid-19th century — affordably abundant. Fields grew bigger and cropping more specialized to make efficient use of machinery. The reduced need for labour and animal labour that machinery, herbicides. Consciously organic agriculture began more or less simultaneously in Central Europe and their research and further development of these methods is recorded in his writings, notably, his 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament, which influenced many scientists and farmers of the day. In Germany, Rudolf Steiners development, biodynamic agriculture, was probably the first comprehensive system of what we now call organic farming and this began with a lecture series Steiner presented at a farm in Koberwitz in 1924. Steiner emphasized the role in guiding and balancing the interaction of the animals, plants. Healthy animals depended upon healthy plants, healthy plants upon healthy soil and his system was based on his philosophy of anthroposophy rather than a good understanding of science. In 1909, American agronomist F. H. King toured China, Korea, and Japan, studying traditional fertilization, tillage and he published his findings in Farmers of Forty Centuries. King foresaw a world movement for the introduction of new and improved methods of agriculture, the term organic farming was coined by Lord Northbourne in his book Look to the Land. From his conception of the farm as organism, he described a holistic, in 1939 Lady Eve Balfour launched the Haughley Experiment on farmland in England. Lady Balfour believed that health and future depended on how the soil was used. The experiment was run to generate data in support of these beliefs, four years later, she published The Living Soil, based on the initial findings of the Haughley Experiment. Widely read, it led to the formation of a key international organic advocacy group, in Japan, Masanobu Fukuoka, a microbiologist working in soil science and plant pathology, began to doubt the modern agricultural movement
History of organic farming
–
Agriculture
6.
Neolithic Revolution
–
These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants to learn how they grew and developed. This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants and it was the worlds first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of available, with a switch to agriculture which led to a downturn in human nutrition. The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a set of food-producing techniques. These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation which allowed extensive surplus food production, personal land and private property ownership led to an hierarchical society, with an elite Social class, comprising a nobility, polity, and military. The first fully developed manifestation of the entire Neolithic complex is seen in the Middle Eastern Sumerian cities, the Levant followed by Mesopotamia are the sites of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The term Neolithic Revolution was coined in 1923 by V. Gordon Childe to describe the first in a series of revolutions in Middle Eastern history. The beginning of process in different regions has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent. Recent archaeological research suggests that in regions such as the Southeast Asian peninsula, the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist was not linear. There are several competing theories as to the factors that drove populations to take up agriculture. The most prominent of these are, The Oasis Theory, originally proposed by Raphael Pumpelly in 1908, popularized by V. Gordon Childe in 1928 and summarised in Childes book Man Makes Himself. However, today this theory has little support amongst archaeologists because subsequent climate data suggests that the region was getting wetter rather than drier, the Feasting model by Brian Hayden suggests that agriculture was driven by ostentatious displays of power, such as giving feasts, to exert dominance. This required assembling large quantities of food, which drove agricultural technology, various social and economic factors helped drive the need for food. The evolutionary/intentionality theory, developed by David Rindos and others, views agriculture as an adaptation of plants. Starting with domestication by protection of plants, it led to specialization of location. Peter Richerson, Robert Boyd, and Robert Bettinger make a case for the development of agriculture coinciding with a stable climate at the beginning of the Holocene. Ronald Wrights book and Massey Lecture Series A Short History of Progress popularized this hypothesis, leonid Grinin argues that whatever plants were cultivated, the independent invention of agriculture always took place in special natural environments. It is supposed that the cultivation of cereals started somewhere in the Near East, andrew Moore suggested that the Neolithic Revolution originated over long periods of development in the Levant, possibly beginning during the Epipaleolithic
Neolithic Revolution
–
A
Sumerian harvester's
sickle dated to 5,000 BP
Neolithic Revolution
–
Knap of Howar farmstead on a site occupied from 5,500 to 5,100 BP
Neolithic Revolution
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Neolithic grindstone for processing grain
Neolithic Revolution
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An "Orange slice" sickle blade element with inverse, discontinuous retouch on each side, not denticulated. Found in large quantities at Qaraoun II and often with Heavy Neolithic tools in the flint workshops of the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. Suggested by James Mellaart to be older than the Pottery Neolithic of Byblos (around 8,400 cal. BP).
7.
Arab Agricultural Revolution
–
He listed eighteen crops that were widely diffused during the Islamic period, including four staple crops, namely durum wheat, Asiatic rice, sorghum, and cotton. He also argued that such as irrigation were spread across the region at that time. Watsons proposal was an extension of the Spanish historian Antonia Garcia Maceiras 1876 hypothesis of a revolution in Al-Andalus. It also recalled the Belgian economic historian Henri Pirennes 1939 view of the way that a seventh century Islamic maritime power in the Mediterranean had isolated Europe from trading there, Watsons work was met with some early scepticism, for example from the historian Jeremy Johns in 1984. Johns however concluded that The hypothesis of an Abbasid agricultural revolution is challenging, the historian Eliyahu Ashtor wrote in 1976 that agricultural production declined in areas of Iraq and Egypt, on the basis of records of taxes collected on cultivated areas. In the case of cotton, which the Romans grew mainly in Egypt, cultivation remained minor in the classical Islamic period, squatriti noted that Watson had originally trained in economics, and applied this interest to his historical studies. Squatriti described Watsons paper as concise and elegant, and popular for its usefulness in supporting many different historians agendas
Arab Agricultural Revolution
–
Agriculture
8.
British Agricultural Revolution
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The British Agricultural Revolution was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labour and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the century to 1770, however, historians continue to dispute when exactly such a revolution took place and of what it consisted. Rather than an event, G. E. This has led more recent historians to argue that any statements about the Agricultural Revolution are difficult to sustain. One important change in farming methods was the move in rotation to turnips. Turnips can be grown in winter and are rooted, allowing them to gather minerals unavailable to shallow rooted crops. Clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form of fertiliser and this permitted the intensive arable cultivation of light soils on enclosed farms and provided fodder to support increased livestock numbers whose manure added further to soil fertility. The British Agricultural Revolution was the result of the interaction of social, economic. Major developments and innovations include, Norfolk four-course crop rotation, Fodder crops, particularly turnips and clover, the Dutch improved the Chinese plough so that it could be pulled with fewer oxen or horses. Rotation can also improve soil structure and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants, turnip roots, for example, can recover nutrients from deep under the soil. The Norfolk System, as it is now known, rotates crops so that different crops are planted with the result that different kinds, an important feature of the Norfolk four-field system was that it used labor at times when demand was not at peak levels. Planting cover crops such as turnips and clover was not permitted under the field system because they interfered with access to the fields. Besides, other livestock could graze the turnips. Normally from 10–30% of the land in a three crop rotation system is fallow. Each field was rotated into a different crop nearly every year, over the following two centuries, the regular planting of legumes such as peas and beans in the fields that were previously fallow slowly restored the fertility of some croplands. The planting of legumes helped to plant growth in the empty field due to the bacteria on legume roots ability to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil in a form that plants could use. Other crops that were grown were flax and members of the mustard family. Convertible husbandry was the alternation of a field between pasture and grain, because nitrogen builds up slowly over time in pasture, ploughing up pasture and planting grains resulted in high yields for a few years
British Agricultural Revolution
–
Agriculture
British Agricultural Revolution
–
Conjectural map of a mediaeval English
manor. The part allocated to "common pasture" is shown in the north-east section, shaded green.
9.
Green Revolution
–
The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including. All of these together were seen as a package of practices to supersede traditional technology and it is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution and it has been argued that “during the twentieth century two revolutions transformed rural Mexico, the Mexican Revolution and the Green Revolution. With the support of the Mexican government, the U. S, in the center and south of Mexico, where large-scale production faced challenges, agricultural production languished. Increased production meant food self-sufficiency in Mexico to feed its growing and urbanizing population, technology was seen as a valuable way to feed the poor, and would relieve some pressure of the land redistribution process. During the administration of Manuel Avila Camacho, the government put resources into developing new breeds of plants, in 1943, the Mexican government founded the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, which became a base for international agricultural research. Agriculture in Mexico had been an issue, a key factor in some regions’ participation in the Mexican Revolution. It was also an issue, which the development of a cohort trained agronomists. Technical aid can be seen as also serving political ends in the international sphere, the government created the Mexican Agricultural Program to be the lead organization in raising productivity. One of their successes was wheat production, with varieties the agency’s scientists helped create dominating wheat production as early as 1951,1965, Mexico became the showcase for extending the Green Revolution to other areas of Latin America and beyond, into Africa and Asia. New breeds of maize, beans, along with wheat produced bumper crops with proper inputs, many Mexican farmers who had been dubious about the scientists or hostile to them came to see the scientific approach to agriculture worth adopting. In 1960, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines with the Ford Foundation, a rice crossing between Dee-Geo-woo-gen and Peta was done at IRRI in 1962. In 1966, one of the lines became a new cultivar. IR8 required the use of fertilizers and pesticides, but produced higher yields than the traditional cultivars. Annual rice production in the Philippines increased from 3.7 to 7.7 million tons in two decades, the switch to IR8 rice made the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in the 20th century. In 1961, India was on the brink of mass famine, Norman Borlaug was invited to India by the adviser to the Indian minister of agriculture C. Despite bureaucratic hurdles imposed by Indias grain monopolies, the Ford Foundation and Indian government collaborated to import wheat seed from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Punjab was selected by the Indian government to be the first site to try the new crops because of its water supply
Green Revolution
–
Increased use of various technologies such as pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers as well as new breeds of high yield crops were employed in the decades after the Second World War to greatly increase global food production.
Green Revolution
–
Agriculture
Green Revolution
–
New varieties of wheat and other grains were instrumental to the green revolution.
Green Revolution
–
Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution.
10.
Farm
–
A farm is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops, it is the basic facility in food production. It includes ranches, feedlots, orchards, plantations and estates, smallholdings and hobby farms, in modern times the term has been extended so as to include such industrial operations as wind farms and fish farms, both of which can operate on land or sea. Farming originated independently in different parts of the world, as hunter gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than, food capture. It may have started about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock in the Fertile Crescent in western Asia, modern farms in developed countries are highly mechanized. In Europe, traditional farms are giving way to larger production units. In Australia, some farms are large because the land is unable to support a high stocking density of livestock because of climatic conditions. In less developed countries, small farms are the norm, the word is from the medieval Latin noun firma, also the source of the French word ferme, meaning a fixed agreement, contract, from the classical Latin adjective firmus meaning strong, stout, firm. Farming has been innovated at multiple different points and places in human history and it was the worlds first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. Subsequent step-changes in human farming practices were provoked by the British Agricultural Revolution in the 18th century, farming spread from the Middle East to Europe and by 4,000 BC people that lived in the central part of Europe were using oxen to pull plows and wagons. A farm may operate under a system or with a variety of cereal or arable crops. Specialist farms are often denoted as such, thus a dairy farm, fish farm, some farms may not use the word at all, hence vineyard, orchard, market garden or truck farm. Some farms may be denoted by their location, such as a hill farm. Many other terms are used to describe farms to denote their methods of production, as in collective, corporate, intensive, organic or vertical. There are many breeds of cattle that can be milked some of the best producing ones include Holstein, Norwegian Red, Kostroma, Brown Swiss, in most Western countries, a centralized dairy facility processes milk and dairy products, such as cream, butter, and cheese. In the United States, these dairies are usually local companies, dairy farms generally sell male calves for veal meat, as dairy breeds are not normally satisfactory for commercial beef production. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa and this is fed directly to the cows, or stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to milk production. Poultry farms are devoted to raising chickens, turkeys, ducks, a pig farm is one that specializes in raising pigs or hogs for bacon, ham and other pork products and may be free range, intensive, or both
Farm
–
Farmland in the USA. The round fields are due to the use of
center pivot irrigation
Farm
–
Typical plan of a mediaeval English manor, showing the use of field strips
Farm
–
A
farmer harvesting crops with mule-drawn wagon, 1920s,
Iowa, USA
Farm
–
A
milking machine in action
11.
Animal husbandry
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Animal husbandry is the management and care of farm animals by human beings, in which genetic qualities and behavior, considered to be advantageous to humans, are further developed. The term can refer to the practice of breeding and raising livestock to promote desirable traits in animals for utility, sport, pleasure. Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years since the first domestication of animals, selective breeding for desired traits was first established as a scientific practice by Robert Bakewell during the British Agricultural Revolution in the 18th century. One of his most important breeding programs was with sheep, using native stock, he was able to quickly select for large, yet fine-boned sheep, with long, lustrous wool. The Lincoln Longwool was improved by Bakewell and in turn the Lincoln was used to develop the subsequent breed, named the New Leicester and it was hornless and had a square, meaty body with straight top lines. These sheep were exported widely and have contributed to modern breeds. Under his influence, English farmers began to breed cattle for use primarily as beef for consumption -, long-horned heifers were crossed with the Westmoreland bull to eventually create the Dishley Longhorn. Over the following decades, farm animals increased dramatically in size, in 1700, the average weight of a bull sold for slaughter was 370 pounds. By 1786, that weight had more than doubled to 840 pounds, in more modern times herds are tended on horses, all-terrain vehicles, motorbikes, four-wheel drive vehicles, and helicopters, depending on the terrain and livestock concerned. Today, herd managers often oversee thousands of animals and many staff, farms, stations and ranches may employ breeders, herd health specialists, feeders, and milkers to help care for the animals. Techniques such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer are used today, not only as methods to guarantee that females breed regularly. This may be done by transplanting embryos from high-quality females into lower-quality surrogate mothers - freeing up the higher-quality mother to be reimpregnated and this practice vastly increases the number of offspring which may be produced by a small selection of the best quality parent animals. On one hand, this improves the ability of the animals to feed to meat, milk, or fiber more efficiently. On the other, it decreases genetic diversity, increasing the severity of disease outbreaks among other risks. The semi-natural, unfertilized pastures formed by traditional methods in Europe, were managed and maintained by the grazing and mowing of livestock. Animal agriculture is responsible for 20%-33% of all fresh water consumption in the world today, livestock or livestock feed occupies 1/3 of the earth’s ice-free land. Animal agriculture is the cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution. Animal agriculture contributes to species extinction in many ways, the widespread use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers used in the production of feed crops often interferes with the reproductive systems of animals and poison waterways
Animal husbandry
–
Agriculture
Animal husbandry
–
Dairy cattle in Mangskog,
Sweden, 1911.
12.
Cattle
–
Cattle—colloquially cows—are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, cattle are raised as livestock for meat, as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals. Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel, in some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious meaning. From as few as 80 progenitors domesticated in southeast Turkey about 10,500 years ago, according to an estimate from 2011, in 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome. Some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently one of the earliest forms of theft. Cattle were originally identified as three species, Bos taurus, the European or taurine cattle, Bos indicus, the zebu, and the extinct Bos primigenius. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle and these have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies, Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, and Bos taurus taurus. Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu, but also one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks, banteng. Hybrids such as the breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos. However, cattle cannot successfully be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo, the aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals and it was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale principal sum of money, capital, itself derived in turn from Latin caput head. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, the word is a variant of chattel and closely related to capital in the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh cattle, property, which today as fee. The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū, from Common Indo-European gʷōus = a bovine animal, compare Persian gâv, Sanskrit go-, Welsh buwch. The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and a plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, kine, the Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is kye
Cattle
–
Cattle
Cattle
–
Żubroń, a cross between
wisent and cattle
Cattle
–
An
Ongole bull
Cattle
–
A
Hereford bull
13.
Pig farming
–
Pig farming is the raising and breeding of domestic pigs. It is a branch of animal husbandry, pigs are raised principally as food and sometimes for their skin. Pigs are amenable to many different styles of farming, historically pigs were kept in small numbers and were closely associated with the residence of the owner, or in the same village or town. They were valued as a source of meat, fat and for the ability to turn inedible food into meat, pigs have been farmed to dispose of municipal garbage on a large scale. All these forms of pig farm are in use today, in developed nations, commercial farms house thousands of pigs in climate-controlled buildings. Pigs are a form of livestock, with more than one billion pigs killed each year worldwide,100 million of them in the USA. The majority of pigs are used for food but also supply skin, fat and other materials for use as clothing, ingredients for processed foods, cosmetics and other. Each pig farm will tend to adapt to the conditions and food supplies. Almost all of the pig can be used as food and this is also, technically, the case for all other mammals. Although the demand isnt really there, pigs are farmed in many countries, though the main consuming countries are in Asia, meaning there is a significant international and even intercontinental trade in live and slaughtered pigs. Despite having the worlds largest herd, China is a net importer of pigs, the largest exporters of pigs are the United States, European Union, and Canada. As an example, more than half of Canadian production in 2008 was exported, many routine interactions can cause fear, which can result in stress and decreased production. There are various methods of handling pigs which can be separated into those which lead to positive or negative reactions by the animals and these reactions are based on how the pigs interpret a handler’s behavior. Many negative interactions with pigs arise from stockpeople dealing with numbers of pigs. Because of this, many handlers can become complacent about animal welfare, negative interactions include overly-heavy tactile interactions, the use of electric goads and fast movements. It can also include killing them, however, it is not a communly held view that death is a negative interaction. These interactions can result in fear in the animals, which can develop into stress, overly-heavy tactile interactions can cause increased basal cortisol levels. Negative interactions that cause fear mean the escape reactions of the pigs can be extremely vigorous, although the stock is not at risk by his own fault
Pig farming
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Pigs on a farm
Pig farming
–
A sow suckling her piglets.
Pig farming
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Interior of pig farm at
Bjärka-Säby Castle,
Sweden, 1911.
Pig farming
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Finishing hogs on a farm in central
Arkansas.
14.
Poultry farming
–
Poultry farming is the process of raising domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food. Poultry are farmed in great numbers with chickens being the most numerous, more than 50 billion chickens are raised annually as a source of food, for both their meat and their eggs. Chickens raised for eggs are called layers while chickens raised for meat are often called broilers. In the US, the organization overseeing poultry production is the Food. In the UK, the organisation is the Department for Environment, Food. According to the researchers and scientists, 74% of the poultry meat. One alternative to intensive poultry farming is free-range farming using lower stocking densities, Poultry producers routinely use nationally approved medications, such as antibiotics, in feed or drinking water, to treat disease or to prevent disease outbreaks. Some FDA-approved medications are also approved for improved feed utilization, commercial hens usually begin laying eggs at 16–20 weeks of age, although production gradually declines soon after from approximately 25 weeks of age. In some countries, hens are force moulted to re-invigorate egg-laying, Environmental conditions are often automatically controlled in egg-laying systems. Some commercial breeds of hen can produce over 300 eggs a year, in the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs states that a free-range chicken must have day-time access to open-air runs during at least half of its life. Unlike in the United States, this also applies to free-range egg laying hens. Free-range farming of egg-laying hens is increasing its share of the market, defra figures indicate that 45% of eggs produced in the UK throughout 2010 were free-range, 5% were produced in barn systems and 50% from cages. This compares with 41% being free-range in 2009, suitable land requires adequate drainage to minimise worms and coccidial oocysts, suitable protection from prevailing winds, good ventilation, access and protection from predators. Excess heat, cold or damp can have an effect on the animals. Free-range farmers have less control than farmers using cages in what food their chickens eat, in some farms, the manure from free-range poultry can be used to benefit crops. The benefits of free-range poultry farming for laying hens include opportunities for natural behaviours such as pecking, scratching, foraging, both intensive and free-range farming have animal welfare concerns. Cannibalism, feather pecking and vent pecking can be common, prompting farmers to use beak trimming as a preventative measure. Diseases can be common and the animals are vulnerable to predators, barn systems have been found to have the worst bird welfare
Poultry farming
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Agriculture
Poultry farming
–
Commercial free range hens
Poultry farming
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Free range chickens being fed outdoors
Poultry farming
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Bank of cages
15.
Sheep husbandry
–
Sheep farming is the raising and breeding of domestic sheep. It is a branch of animal husbandry, Sheep are raised principally for their meat, milk, and fiber. They also yield sheepskin and parchment, Sheep can be raised in range of temperate climates, including arid zones. Farmers build fences, housing, shearing sheds and other facilities on their property, such as for water, feed, transport, most farms are managed so sheep can graze pastures, sometimes under the control of a shepherd or sheep dog. The major sources of income for a farm will come from the sale of lambs, farmers can select from various breeds suitable for their region and market conditions. When the farmer sees that a ewe is showing signs of heat or estrus, New born lambs are typically subject to tail docking and males may be castrated. In 2013, the five countries with the largest number of heads of sheep were mainland China, Australia, India, the former Sudan, and Iran. In 2013, the number of heads of sheep were distributed as follows, the top producers of sheep meat were as follows, mainland China, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. The top five producers of meat in 2013 were mainland China, Australia, New Zealand, the former Sudan. In the United States, inventory data on sheep began in 1867, the numbers of sheep peaked in 1884 at 51 million head, and then declined over time to almost 6 million head. Since the 1960s, per capita consumption of lamb and mutton declined from nearly 5 pounds to just about 1 pound, due to competition from poultry, pork, beef, and other meats. Since the 1990s, U. S. sheep operations declined from around 105,000 to around 80,000 due to shrinking revenues and low rates of return. According to the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, New Mexicos Sheep Industry, 1850–1900, Its Role in the History of the Territory. Vanguards of the Frontier, A Social History of the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains from the Fur Traders to the Sod Busters pp 497-508, 1880s-1920s Fraser, Economic aspects of the Scottish sheep industry. Transactions of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland 51, online Jones, Keithly G. Trends in the US sheep industry. The Pioneer Era of Domestic Sheep Husbandry, the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 219-247. Up the Trail From Dixie, Animosity Toward Sheep in the Culture of the US West, australasian Journal of American Studies, 1-18. A comparison of the determinants of wool production in the six leading producing countries, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 51.1, 138-158
Sheep husbandry
–
Australian Merino Sheep
Sheep husbandry
–
Flock of sheep moving through a city early on a holiday morning
Sheep husbandry
–
Yörük shepherd in the
Taurus Mountains
Sheep husbandry
–
Branding sheep after shearing
16.
Dairy farming
–
Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed for eventual sale of a dairy product. Although any mammal can produce milk, commercial farms are typically one-species enterprises. In developed countries, dairy farms typically consist of high producing dairy cows, other species used in commercial dairy farming include goats, sheep, and camels. In Italy, donkey dairies are growing in popularity to produce an alternative source for human infants. Dairy farming has been part of agriculture for thousands of years, historically it has been one part of small, diverse farms. In the last century or so larger farms doing only dairy production have emerged, in the 1800s von Thünen argued that there was about a 100 mile radius surrounding a city where such fresh milk supply was economically viable. Centralized dairy farming as we understand it primarily developed around villages and cities, near the town, farmers could make some extra money on the side by having additional animals and selling the milk in town. The dairy farmers would fill barrels with milk in the morning and bring it to market on a wagon, until the late 19th century, the milking of the cow was done by hand. For most herds, milking took place twice a day. Feeding could occur simultaneously with milking in the barn, although most dairy cattle were pastured during the day between milkings, such examples of this method of dairy farming are difficult to locate, but some are preserved as a historic site for a glimpse into the days gone by. One such instance that is open for this is at Point Reyes National Seashore, dairy farming has been part of agriculture for thousands of years. Historically it has one part of small, diverse farms. In the last century or so larger farms doing only dairy production have emerged, the first milking machines were an extension of the traditional milking pail. The early milker device fit on top of a milk pail. Following each cow being milked, the bucket would be dumped into a holding tank and these were introduced in the early 20th century. This developed into the Surge hanging milker, prior to milking a cow, a large wide leather strap called a surcingle was put around the cow, across the cows lower back. The milker device and collection tank hung underneath the cow from the strap and this innovation allowed the cow to move around naturally during the milking process rather than having to stand perfectly still over a bucket on the floor. The next innovation in automatic milking was the milk pipeline, introduced in the late 20th century and this uses a permanent milk-return pipe and a second vacuum pipe that encircles the barn or milking parlor above the rows of cows, with quick-seal entry ports above each cow
Dairy farming
–
A rotary milking parlor at a modern dairy facility, located in Germany
Dairy farming
–
A dairy farm on the banks of the
Columbia River in
Clark County, Washington (May 1973).
Dairy farming
–
Woman hand milking a cow.
Dairy farming
–
Demonstration of a new Soviet milker device.
East Germany, 1952
17.
Dryland farming
–
Dryland farming and dry farming are agricultural techniques for non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands - dry areas characterized by a wet season followed by a warm dry season. Dryland farming was introduced to southern Russia and Ukraine by Ukrainian Mennonites under the influence of Johann Cornies, in Australia, it is widely practiced in all states but the Northern Territory. Dry farming may be practiced in areas that have significant annual rainfall during a wet season, Crops are cultivated during the subsequent dry season, using practices that make use of the stored moisture in the soil. California, Colorado and Oregon, in the United States, are three states where dry farming is practiced for a variety of crops, Dryland farmed crops may include winter wheat, corn, beans, Sunflowers or even watermelon. Successful dryland farming is possible with as little as 9 inches of precipitation a year, native American tribes in the arid Southwest survived for hundreds of years on dryland farming in areas with less than 10 inches of rain. The choice of crop is influenced by the timing of the predominant rainfall in relation to the seasons. For example, winter wheat is more suited to regions with higher winter rainfall areas with summer wet seasons may be more suited to summer growing crops such as sorghum. Dry farmed crops may include grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans and these crops grow using the winter water stored in the soil, rather than depending on rainfall during the growing season. Dryland farming has evolved as a set of techniques and management practices used by farmers to adapt to the presence or lack of moisture in a given crop cycle. In marginal regions, a farmer should be able to survive occasional crop failures. Survival as a dryland farmer requires careful husbandry of the moisture available for the crop, Dryland farming involves the constant assessing of the amount of moisture present or lacking for any given crop cycle and planning accordingly. Dryland farmers know that to be successful they have to be aggressive during the good years in order to offset the dry years. The fact that a period must be included in the crop rotation means that fields cannot always be protected by a cover crop. Some of the theories of dryland farming developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries claimed to be scientific but were in reality pseudoscientific, Dry farming depends on making the best use of the bank of soil moisture that was created by winter rainfall. Some dry farming practices include, Wider than normal spacing, to provide a bank of moisture for each plant. Strict weed control, to ensure that weeds do not consume soil moisture needed by the cultivated plants, cultivation of soil to produce a dust mulch, thought to prevent the loss of water through capillary action. This practice is controversial, and is not universally advocated, selection of crops and cultivars suited for dry farming practices
Dryland farming
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Dryland farming in the
Granada region in Spain
Dryland farming
–
Agriculture
Dryland farming
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Fields in the
Palouse, USA
Dryland farming
–
Dryland farming caused a large
dust storm in parts of
Eastern Washington on October 4, 2009. Courtesey: NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response
18.
Extensive farming
–
Extensive farming or extensive agriculture is an agricultural production system that uses small inputs of labor, fertilizers, and capital, relative to the land area being farmed. Here, owing to the age and poverty of the soils, yields per hectare are very low. Nomadic herding is an example of extensive farming, where herders move their animals to use feed from occasional rainfalls. Extensive farming is found in the sections of most continents. The nature of extensive farming means it requires less rainfall than intensive farming, the farm is usually large in comparison with the numbers working and money spent on it. Extensive farming has a number of advantages over intensive farming, Less labour per unit areas is required to farm large areas, mechanisation can be used more effectively over large, flat areas. Greater efficiency of labour means generally lower product prices, animal welfare is generally improved because animals are not kept in stifling conditions. Lower requirements of such as fertilizers. If animals are grazed on pastures native to the locality, there is likely to be problems with exotic species. Local environment and soil are not damaged by overuse of chemicals, the use of machinery and scientific methods of farming produce a large quantity of crops. Extensive farming can have the problems, Yields tend to be much lower than with intensive farming in the short term. Large land requirements limit the habitat of species, as is the case with intensive farming Intensive farming Canadian Wheat Board Forest gardening Permaculture Polyculture Rural sociology
Extensive farming
–
A small farm in the
Swiss mountains. The land here is mostly rock and the slopes are very steep – likely unusable for agriculture, but can provide productive conditions for pigs
Extensive farming
–
Agriculture
19.
Free range
–
Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming, the term is used in two senses that do not overlap completely, as a farmer-centric description of husbandry methods, and as a consumer-centric description of them. There is a diet where the practitioner only eats meat from free-range sources called ethical omnivorism, in ranching, free-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in, as opposed to fenced-in pastures. In many of the economies, free-range livestock are quite common. If one allows free range to include herding, free range was a typical husbandry method at least until the development of barbed wire and chicken wire. In the case of poultry, free range was the dominant system until the discovery of vitamins A and D in the 1920s, before that, green feed and sunshine were necessary to provide the necessary vitamin content. Some large commercial breeding flocks were reared on pasture into the 1950s, nutritional science resulted in the increased use of confinement for other livestock species in much the same way. In the United States, USDA free range regulations currently apply only to poultry, the USDA regulations do not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time an animal must have access to the outside. There have been proposals to regulate by the USDA the labeling of products as free range within the United States. Yarding, as well as floorless portable chicken pens may have some of the benefits of free-range livestock but, in reality, a behavioral definition of free range is perhaps the most useful, chickens kept with a fence that restricts their movements very little. For example, according to Jull, The most effective measure of preventing cannibalism seems to be to give the good grass range. The U. S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service requires that chickens raised for their meat have access to the outside in order to receive the free-range certification. There is no requirement for access to pasture, and there may be access to dirt or gravel. Free-range chicken eggs, however, have no definition in the United States. Likewise, free-range egg producers have no standard on what the term means. The broadness of free range in the U. S. has caused people to look for alternative terms. Pastured poultry is a term promoted by farmer/author Joel Salatin for broiler chickens raised on pasture for all of their lives except for the initial brooding period. The Pastured Poultry concept is promoted by the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, traditional American usage equates free range with unfenced, and with the implication that there was no herdsman keeping them together or managing them in any way
Free range
–
Commercial free range hens
Free range
–
A small flock of mixed free-range chickens being fed outdoors.
Free range
–
Free range ducks in
Hainan Province, China
Free range
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Free range meat chickens seek shade on a U.S. farm
20.
Grazing
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Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on plants such as grasses, or other multicellular organisms such as algae. In agriculture, grazing is one method used whereby domestic livestock are used to convert grass and other forage into meat, milk, many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers, who skim off the highest, tough growth of plants, exposing tender shoots. For terrestrial animals, grazing is normally distinguished from browsing in that grazing is eating grass or forbs, Grazing differs from true predation because the organism being grazed upon is not generally killed. Grazing differs from parasitism as the two live together in a constant state of physical externality. Water animals that feed for example on algae found on stones are called grazers-scrapers, grazers-scrapers feed also on microorganisms and dead organic matter on various substrates. Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on such as grasses. In zoology, graminivory is a form of grazing, a graminivore is an herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on grass. The word is derived from Latin graminis, meaning grass, and vorare, horses, cattle, capybara, hippopotamuses, grasshoppers, geese, and giant pandas are examples of graminivores. Some carnivores, such as dogs and cats, are known to eat grass occasionally, giant pandas have evolved to be obligate bamboo grazers, and 99% of their diet consists of sub-alpine bamboo species. Rabbits are herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs and they graze heavily and rapidly for about the first half-hour of a grazing period, followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours and their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem by using a form of hindgut fermentation and they pass two distinct types of feces, hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as caecotrophs and are immediately eaten. Rabbits reingest their own droppings to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients, capybara are herbivores that graze mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. As with other grazers, they can be selective and will feed on the leaves of one species. They eat a variety of plants during the dry season. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season, the capybaras jaw hinge is not perpendicular and therefore they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side. Capybara are coprophagous, as a source of gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet. They may also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow, as with other rodents, the front teeth of capybara grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses, their cheek teeth also grow continuously
Grazing
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Red Kangaroo grazing
Grazing
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A
Masaai herdsman grazing his cattle inside the
Ngorongoro crater
Grazing
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Green sea turtle grazing seagrass.
Grazing
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Grazing capybara
21.
Hobby farm
–
A hobby farm is a smallholding or small farm that is maintained without expectation of being a primary source of income. Some are merely to provide some land, and perhaps a few horses for the familys children. In the UK, country living is becoming a rather than an occupation. The number of farms in England with “no economic output” in recent surveys jumped in one year from 90,000 to 115,000, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says that nearly half of all farms sold in a recent year were bought by non-farmers. This was said to be “consistent with the new trend of buying houses in the country with 20-60 acres of land -- more than a garden, not quite a fully-fledged farm. ”A house with a garden can be a mini-hobby farm, with vegetables, poultry, rabbits. Willy Newlands, author of Hobby Farm, says, “Hobby agriculture covers a wide spectrum, the nouveau farmer is, above all, enjoying himself. ”In the U. S. a high proportion of farms might be classed as hobby farms. In 2007, over 40% of farms reported less than $2500 in income, in the US, as farms grow in size, older farms become less economically viable. Some are purchased and most of the land combined with nearby farms. These can be sold off with only a lot of real estate. These are usually snapped up quickly by people with well-paying city jobs who wish to live in the country, or to retirees, who wish to be active as part-time farmers. Some, especially in developed areas, are used as gardens, with their own produce stands. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, dimitri, Carolyn, Effland, Anne, Conklin, Neilson. The 20th Century Transformation of U. S. Agriculture and Farm Policy
Hobby farm
–
Agriculture
Hobby farm
–
An old
dairy farm has become a hobby farm near
Leicester, New York
22.
Intensive farming
–
Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is any of various types of agriculture that involve higher levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area. It is characterised by a low ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital and labour. This is in contrast to agriculture in which the inputs per unit land are lower. The term intensive has various senses, some of which refer to organic farming methods and others of which refer to nonorganic, both increase the yields of food and fiber per acre as compared to traditional animal husbandry. In CAFO, feed is brought to the animals, while in MIRG the animals are repeatedly moved to fresh forage. Most commercial agriculture is intensive in one or more ways, forms that rely especially heavily on industrial methods are often called industrial agriculture, which is characterised by innovations designed to increase yield. Techniques include planting multiple crops per year, reducing the frequency of fallow years, intensive farms are widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced by such farms, smaller intensive farms usually include higher inputs of labor and more often use sustainable intensive methods. The farming practices commonly found on farms are referred to as appropriate technology. These farms are widespread in both developed countries and worldwide, but are growing more rapidly. Most of the food available in specialty markets such as farmers markets is produced by these smallholder farms, agricultural development in Britain between the 16th century and the mid-19th century 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, historians cited enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation, and selective breeding as the most important innovations. Industrial agriculture arose along with the Industrial Revolution, by the early 19th century, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks and cultivars had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages. The industrialization phase involved a process of mechanization. Horse-drawn machinery such as the McCormick reaper revolutionized harvesting, while inventions such as the cotton gin reduced the cost of processing, during this same period, farmers began to use steam-powered threshers and tractors, although they were expensive and dangerous. Mechanical harvesters, planters, transplanters and other equipment were then developed and these inventions increased yields and allowed individual farmers to manage increasingly large farms. The identification of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, in 1909 the Haber-Bosch method to synthesize ammonium nitrate was first demonstrated. Farmers adopting this approach were initially referred to as humus farmers, chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides
Intensive farming
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Agriculture
Intensive farming
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Early 20th century image of a tractor ploughing an
alfalfa field.
Intensive farming
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A commercial chicken house raising broiler pullets for meat.
Intensive farming
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Satellite image of circular crop fields in
Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops of
corn and
sorghum are green (Sorghum may be slightly paler).
Wheat is brilliant gold. Fields of brown have been recently harvested and plowed under or have lain in fallow for the year.
23.
Intensive animal farming
–
The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether factory farming is sustainable and ethical, there are differences in the way factory farming techniques are practiced around the world. There is a debate over the benefits, risks and ethical questions of factory farming. The issues include the efficiency of production, animal welfare, whether it is essential for feeding the growing global population. The practice of animal agriculture is a relatively recent development in the history of agriculture. Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 19th century generally parallel developments in production in other industries that characterized the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. The discovery of vitamins and their role in nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors. 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 distribution of agricultural produce feasible. Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 to feed a population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002. During the same period, the number of involved in farming dropped as the process became more automated. The United Nations writes that intensification of production was seen as a way of providing food security. In 1966, the United States, United Kingdom and other industrialized nations, commenced factory farming of beef and dairy cattle, in 1990 factory farming accounted for 30% of world meat production and by 2005 this had risen to 40%. Factory farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs, turkeys, or chickens, often indoors, the aim of the operation is to produce large quantities of meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost. Physical restraints, e. g. fences or creeps, are used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable, breeding programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined conditions and able to provide a consistent food product. Intensive production of livestock and poultry is widespread in developed nations, Industrial production was estimated to account for 39 percent of the sum of global production of these meats and 50 percent of total egg production. In the U. S. according to its National Pork Producers Council,80 million of its 95 million pigs slaughtered each year are reared in industrial settings, in the United States, chickens were raised primarily on family farms until 1965. Originally, the value in poultry was eggs, and meat was considered a byproduct of egg production
Intensive animal farming
–
Agriculture
Intensive animal farming
–
A commercial
chicken house with open sides raising broiler pullets for meat
Intensive animal farming
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Hens in Brazil
Intensive animal farming
–
Example of self made recirculation Aquaculture system
24.
Intensive crop farming
–
Intensive crop farming is a modern form of intensive farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops. These methods are widespread in developed nations, the practice of industrial agriculture is a relatively recent development in the history of agriculture, and the result of scientific discoveries and technological advances. Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 19th century generally parallel developments in production in other industries that characterized the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. The identification of nitrogen and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, 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 produce feasible. High mechanization – automated machinery sustain and harvest crops, critics of intensively farmed crops cite a wide range of concerns. On the food quality front, it is held by critics that quality is reduced when crops are bred and grown primarily for cosmetic and shipping characteristics. Environmentally, industrial farming of crops is claimed to be responsible for loss of biodiversity, degradation of quality, soil erosion, food toxicity. The projects within the Green Revolution spread technologies that had already existed and these technologies included pesticides, irrigation projects, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The novel technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of what some referred to as “miracle seeds. ”Scientists created strains of maize, wheat, since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. Norin 10 wheat, a variety developed by Orville Vogel from Japanese dwarf wheat varieties, was instrumental in developing Green Revolution wheat cultivars, photosynthetic investment in the stem is reduced dramatically as the shorter plants are inherently more stable mechanically. Assimilates become redirected to grain production, amplifying in particular the effect of chemical fertilisers on commercial yield, HYVs significantly outperform traditional varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers. In the absence of these inputs, traditional varieties may outperform HYVs, wheat is a grass that is cultivated worldwide. Globally, it is the most important human food grain and ranks second in production as a cereal crop behind maize. Wheat and barley were the first cereals known to have been domesticated, because of the loss of seed dispersal mechanisms, domesticated wheats have limited capacity to propagate in the wild. Agricultural cultivation using horse collar leveraged plows increased cereal grain productivity yields, with population growth rates falling, while yields continue to rise, the area devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time in modern human history. Organic wheat typically halves yield attainable but costs less as there are no fertiliser, while winter wheat lies dormant during a winter freeze, wheat normally requires between 110 and 130 days between planting and harvest, depending upon climate, seed type, and soil conditions. Crop management decisions require the knowledge of stage of development of the crop, in particular, spring fertilizers applications, herbicides, fungicides, growth regulators are typically applied at specific stages of plant development
Intensive crop farming
–
Agriculture
Intensive crop farming
–
A corn heap at the harvest site,
India
25.
Natural farming
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Natural farming is an ecological farming approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer and philosopher, introduced in his 1975 book The One-Straw Revolution. Fukuoka described his way of farming as 自然農法 in Japanese and it is also referred to as the Fukuoka Method, the natural way of farming or do-nothing farming. The title refers not to lack of effort, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs, natural farming is related to fertility farming, organic farming, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, ecoagriculture and permaculture but should be distinguished from biodynamic agriculture. The system exploits the complexity of living organisms that shape each particular ecosystem, Fukuoka saw farming both as a means of producing food and as an aesthetic or spiritual approach to life, the ultimate goal of which was, the cultivation and perfection of human beings. He suggested that farmers could benefit from closely observing local conditions, natural farming is a closed system, one that demands no human-supplied inputs and mimics nature. Fukuokas ideas challenged conventions that are core to modern agro-industries, instead promoting an approach takes advantage of the local environment. Natural farming differs from conventional farming, which Fukuoka considered to be another modern technique that disturbs nature. Fukuoka claimed that his approach prevents water pollution, biodiversity loss and soil erosion, in India, natural farming is often referred to as Rishi Kheti. In India natural farming or rishi kheti includes ancient vedic principles of farming including use of waste and herbs for controlling pests. The rishi or Indian sages use cow products like buttermilk, milk, curd, the Rishi or Vedic farming is regarded as non -violent farming without any usage of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. Principally, natural farming minimises human labour and adopts, as closely as practical, natures production of such as rice, barley. Without plowing, seeds germinate well on the surface if site conditions meet the needs of the seeds placed there. Fukuoka used the presence of spiders in his fields as a key indicator of sustainability. }Fukuoka specifies that the ground remain covered by weeds, white clover, alfalfa, herbaceous legumes. Ground cover is present along with grain, vegetable crops and orchards, chickens run free in orchards and ducks and carp populate rice fields. Periodically ground layer plants including weeds may be cut and left on the surface, returning their nutrients to the soil and this also facilitates the sowing of seeds in the same area because the dense ground layer hides the seeds from animals such as birds. For summer rice and winter barley grain crops, ground cover enhances nitrogen fixation, straw from the previous crop mulches the topsoil. Each grain crop is sown before the one is harvested by broadcasting the seed among the standing crop. Later, this method was reduced to a single direct seeding of clover, barley, the result is a denser crop of smaller, but highly productive and stronger plants
Natural farming
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Masanobu Fukuoka, originator of the natural farming method
Natural farming
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Ladybirds consume
aphids and are considered beneficial by natural farmers that apply
biological control.
26.
Orchard
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An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive purpose. A fruit garden is generally synonymous with an orchard, although it is set on a smaller non-commercial scale, most temperate-zone orchards are laid out in a regular grid, with a grazed or mown grass or bare soil base that makes maintenance and fruit gathering easy. Orchards are sometimes concentrated near bodies of water, where climatic extremes are moderated, an orchards layout is the technique of planting the crops in a proper system. There are different methods of planting and thus different layouts, some of these layout types include, Square method Rectangular method Quincunx method Triangular method Hexagonal method Contour method For different varieties, these systems may vary to some extent. The most extensive orchards in the United States are apple and orange orchards, the most extensive apple orchard area is in eastern Washington state, with a lesser but significant apple orchard area in most of Upstate New York. Extensive orange orchards are found in Florida and southern California, where they are widely known as groves. In eastern North America, many orchards are along the shores of Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, in Canada, apple and other fruit orchards are widespread on the Niagara Peninsula, south of Lake Ontario. This region is known as Canada Fruitbelt and, in addition to large-scale commercial fruit marketing, murcia is a major orchard area in Europe, with citrus crops. New Zealand, China, Argentina and Chile also have extensive apple orchards, tenbury Wells in Worcestershire has been called The Town in the Orchard, since the 19th century, because it was surrounded by extensive orchards. Today, this heritage is celebrated through an annual Applefest, streuobstwiese is a German word that means a meadow with scattered fruit trees or fruit trees that are planted in a field. Streuobstwiese, or a meadow orchard, is a landscape in the temperate. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Streuobstwiesen were a kind of a community orchard that were intended for productive cultivation of stone fruit. In recent years, ecologists have successfully lobbied for state subsidies to valuable habitats, biodiversity and natural landscapes, both conventional and meadow orchards provide a suitable habitat for many animal species that live in a cultured landscape. Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts was the residence of American celebrated writer Louisa May Alcott, fruita, Utah part of Capitol Reef National Park has Mormon pioneer orchards maintained by the United States National Park Service. The Orchard Link organisation provides advice on how to manage and restore the county of Devons orchards, an organisation called Orchards Live carries out similar work in North Devon. Peoples Trust for Endangered Species has mapped every traditional orchard within England, the UK Biodiversity Partnership lists traditional orchards and a priority UK Biodiversity Action Plan habitat
Orchard
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A
lemon orchard in the
Upper Galilee in
Israel.
Orchard
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A community
apple orchard originally planted for productive use during the 1920s, in
Westcliff on Sea (
Essex, England)
Orchard
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Streuobstwiese, a rural community orchard, traditionally for productive use. Today endorsed for its quality of habitat and biodiversity
Orchard
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Apple orchards in
Azwell, Washington surrounding a community of
pickers' cabins
27.
Organic farming
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Organic farming is an alternative agricultural system which originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Organic agriculture continues to be developed by various organic agriculture organizations today and it relies on fertilizers of organic origin such as compost, manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. Biological pest control, mixed cropping and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged, in general, organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin and rotenone are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers, synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur and Ivermectin. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, since 1990 the market for organic food and other products has grown rapidly, reaching $63 billion worldwide in 2012. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland that grew from 2001 to 2011 at a rate of 8. 9% per annum. As of 2011, approximately 37,000,000 hectares worldwide were farmed organically, Agriculture was practiced for thousands of years without the use of artificial chemicals. Artificial fertilizers were first created during the mid-19th century and these early fertilizers were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport in bulk. Similar advances occurred in chemical pesticides in the 1940s, leading to the decade being referred to as the pesticide era, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, soil biology scientists began to seek ways to remedy these side effects while still maintaining higher production. Biodynamic agriculture was the first modern system of agriculture to focus exclusively on organic methods and its development began in 1924 with a series of eight lectures on agriculture given by Rudolf Steiner. The one hundred eleven attendees, less than half of whom were farmers, came from six countries, primarily Germany, the lectures were published in November 1924, the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course. In 1921, Albert Howard and his wife Gabrielle Howard, accomplished botanists, stimulated by these experiences of traditional farming, when Albert Howard returned to Britain in the early 1930s he began to promulgate a system of natural agriculture. One of the purposes of the conference was to bring together the proponents of various approaches to organic agriculture in order that they might cooperate within a larger movement. Howard attended the conference, where he met Pfeiffer, in the following year, Northbourne published his manifesto of organic farming, Look to the Land, in which he coined the term organic farming. The Betteshanger conference has been described as the link between biodynamic agriculture and other forms of organic farming. In 1940 Howard published his An Agricultural Testament, in this book he adopted Northbournes terminology of organic farming. Howards work spread widely, and he became known as the father of organic farming for his work in applying scientific knowledge and these became important influences on the spread of organic agriculture. Further work was done by Lady Eve Balfour in the United Kingdom, increasing environmental awareness in the general population in modern times has transformed the originally supply-driven organic movement to a demand-driven one
Organic farming
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Agriculture
Organic farming
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Vegetables from organic farming. A 10-year-long study showed that fruits and vegetables from organic farming contains up to 180 times less
pesticide residues than conventional products..
Organic farming
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Organic cultivation of mixed vegetables in
Capay, California. Note the
hedgerow in the background.
Organic farming
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Chloroxylon is used for Pest Management in Organic Rice Cultivation in Chhattisgarh, India
28.
Ranch
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A ranch is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Canada, people who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a used to raise less common livestock such as elk, American bison or even ostrich, emu. Ranches generally consist of areas, but may be of nearly any size. In the western United States, many ranches are a combination of owned land supplemented by grazing leases on land under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management. If the ranch includes arable or irrigated land, the ranch may also engage in an amount of farming, raising crops for feeding the animals, such as hay. Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called guest ranches or, colloquially, most working ranches do not cater to guests, though they may allow private hunters or outfitters onto their property to hunt native wildlife. Ranching is part of the iconography of the Wild West as seen in Western movies, the person who owns and manages the operation of a ranch is usually called a rancher, but the terms cattleman, stockgrower, or stockman are also sometimes used. If this individual in charge of management is an employee of the actual owner. A rancher who primarily raises young stock sometimes is called an operator or a cow-calf man. This person is usually the owner, though in cases, particularly where there is absentee ownership. The people who are employees of the rancher and involved in handling livestock are called a number of terms, including cowhand, ranch hand, people exclusively involved with handling horses are sometimes called wranglers. Ranching and the tradition originated in Spain, out of the necessity to handle large herds of grazing animals on dry land from horseback. During the Reconquista, members of the Spanish nobility and various military orders received large land grants that the Kingdom of Castile had conquered from the Moors and these landowners were to defend the lands put into their control and could use them for earning revenue. When the Conquistadors came to the Americas in the 16th century, followed by settlers, they brought their cattle, huge land grants by the Spanish government, part of the hacienda system, allowed large numbers of animals to roam freely over vast areas. A number of different traditions developed, often related to the location in Spain from which a settlement originated. For example, many of the traditions of the Jalisco charros in central Mexico come from the Salamanca charros of Castile, however, there were cattle on the eastern seaboard. Deep Hollow Ranch,110 miles east of New York City in Montauk, New York, claims to be the first ranch in the United States, the prairie and desert lands of what today is Mexico and the western United States were well-suited to open range grazing
Ranch
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View of the
Grant-Kohrs Ranch near
Deer Lodge,
Montana.
Ranch
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The historic 101 Ranch in Oklahoma showing the ranchhouse, corrals, and out-buildings.
Ranch
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An 1898
photochrom of a round-up in or near the town of
Cimarron, Colorado.
Ranch
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Cattle near the
Bruneau River in
Elko County, Nevada
29.
Sharecropping
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Sharecropping is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Sharecropping has a history and there are a wide range of different situations. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law, legal contract systems such as the Italian mezzadria, the French métayage, the Spanish mediero, or the Islamic system of muqasat, occur widely. Sharecropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the tenant and it encourages the cropper to remain on the land, solving the harvest rush problem. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares of his harvest, owners and croppers share the risks of harvests being large or small and of prices being high or low. Because tenants benefit from larger harvests, they have an incentive to work harder, however, by dividing the working force into many individual workers, large farms no longer benefit from economies of scale. On the whole, sharecropping was not as efficient as the gang agriculture of slave plantations. In the U. S. tenant farmers own their own mules and equipment, and sharecroppers do not, Sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland, Ireland and colonial Africa, and came into wide use in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era. The South had been devastated by war - planters had ample land, at the same time, most of the former slaves had labor but no money and no land - they rejected the kind of gang labor that typified slavery. A solution was the system focused on cotton, which was the only crop that could generate cash for the croppers, landowners, merchants. Poor white farmers, who previously had done little cotton farming, needed cash as well, jeffery Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by political conservatism and long lasting tenure, tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store. Their work is heavily supervised as slave plantations were and this form of tenure tends to be replaced by wage slavery as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord, plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor, leases are very short which leads to peasant radicalism. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate, use of the sharecropper system has also been identified in England. It is still used in many poor areas today, notably in Pakistan. It has therefore been seen as an issue of reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, there are three different types of contracts
Sharecropping
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Agriculture
Sharecropping
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FSA photo of cropper family chopping the weeds from cotton near
White Plains, in Georgia, USA (1941)
Sharecropping
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Sharecroppers at roadside after eviction (1936)
Sharecropping
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An early 20th century Texas sharecropper's home diorama at the
Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum in 2015
30.
Slash-and-burn
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Slash-and-burn agriculture, or fire–fallow cultivation, is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. In subsistence agriculture, slash-and-burn typically uses little technology and it is often applied in shifting cultivation agriculture and in transhumance livestock herding. Slash-and-burn is used by 200–500 million people worldwide, in 2004 it was estimated that in Brazil alone,500,000 small farmers each cleared an average of one hectare of forest per year. The technique is not scalable or sustainable for large human populations, methods such as Inga alley farming have been proposed as alternatives which would cause less environmental degradation. Historically, slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced throughout much of the world and this happened in the river valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Due to this decrease in food hunting, as human populations increased. Some groups could easily plant their crops in fields along river valleys. In this context, humans used slash-and-burn agriculture to more land to make it suitable for plants. Thus, since Neolithic times, slash-and-burn techniques have been used for converting forests into crop fields. Fire was used before the Neolithic as well, and by hunter-gatherers up to present times, clearings created by fire were made for many reasons, such as to draw game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants such as berries. Slash-and-burn fields are used and owned by a family until the soil is exhausted. At this point the ownership rights are abandoned, the family clears a new field, after a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructuary rights. In such a system there is no market in farmland, so land is not bought or sold in the open market. In slash-and-burn agriculture, forests are typically cut months before a dry season, the slash is permitted to dry, and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes the soil and the field is then planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crops such as upland rice, maize, cassava. Most of this work is typically done by hand, using basic tools as machetes, axes, hoes. Large families or clans wandering in the lush woodlands long continued to be the most common form of life through human prehistory, axes to fell trees and sickles for harvesting grain were the only tools people might bring with them. All other tools were made from materials found at the site, such as fire stakes of birch, long rods
Slash-and-burn
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Slash-and-burn practices in
Eno, Finland, 1893
Slash-and-burn
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This satellite photograph illustrates slash-and-burn forest clearing along the Rio Xingu (
Xingu River) in the state of
Mato Grosso,
Brazil.
Slash-and-burn
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Agriculture
Slash-and-burn
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Painting by
Eero Järnefelt showing forest burning
Agriculture and agronomy portal
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