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agricultural revolution started in the south western areas of persia, aswell as Iraq, mention of syria should be erased.
Hello all, I found this article from British source 'The Guardian' about Andean South American farming, go to this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2114533,00.html hope it helps.
This page and that of Agriculture should be coordinated. As to how, i have no idea: The finer points of the English language escape me here :-) Perhaps a merge and a redirect? --Anders T?rlind
I think they should be merged. Agriculture says: "Kinds of agriculture include farming, which is raising crops for harvest, and [animal husbandry]?."
Farming says: "Farming is the process of producing food by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals. See also agriculture."
Really I think the two are more or less synonymous. Animal husbandry and raising crops are part of both. -- hagedis
Both the Unesco Thesaurus and Library of Congress subject headings have "Farming: use Agriculture".
I think agriculture is the best term for both the economic sector (usually taken to include animal husbandry), and the practice of producing crops (though here, we often differentiate between "agricultural" and "pastoral" populations and activities, so livestock may sometimes be excluded). The article(s) could refer to such nuances, with links or redirects from/to "Animal husbandry", "Livestock production" or whatever is preferred.
Farming to me suggests shutup a particular form of organisation, usually involving commercial production by a private operator engaged directly on the holding, hence distinct from estate, plantation or communal cultivation (the word itself originates around the 12th century with the leasing of western European estate lands, as in "to farm out" an enterprise). David Parker
It would be wonderful to see agriculture, agricultural policy, futures contract, commodity markets and tax, tariff and trade all rationally related in some way, so that one could figure out in the first paragraph or so what one should be reading. At present futures contract seems to be the trader's view, agriculture the statistician's view, commodity markets the economist's view, tax, tariff and trade the policy-maker's view, and agricultural policy the politician's view! This is all very interesting but maybe it should be easier for such as me, who understand only gardening and Slow Food, to see how these large scale things relate to my small scale life. EofT
As a farmer (and at the same time a practitioner of agriculture), I'd say there's definitely not a whole lot of difference between the two politically. However, animal husbandry (which is farming) might not exactly be agriculture (at least etymologically: agros means field). I just started a new project on horticulture (which is closely related to agriculture, but not usually to animal husbandry... see the problem?), and it would be nice to see one on agriculture as well. I would certainly participate in any case. Also, on the main list of projects page I made a new subcategory to science (applied science), under which I put horticulture. Agriculture would probably go there too (following the old praxis vs. theoria Aristotelian thing.) SB Johnny 15:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Concerning the word "corn" - Maize is called corn in the U.S., but I thought that "corn" in the U.K. means grains in general, primarily, but not only, wheat. Somebody who speaks the Queen's English please verify! :-) -- Marj Tiefert 13:45 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)
I fear you will probably not consider my input acceptable, but when I talk to british people, the word "corn" refers "only" to grain. However, it is about two different types of crops : wheat and oats. Of course oats is not much used anymore. user:anthere
There's a nice story my father in law told me about Corn and Paris liberation by americans. People in Paris were rather hungry. They needed bread badly. At that time, our bread was made from wheat, sometimes from rye. When american people came to Paris, they asked how they could help us in terms of food. Some administrative employee said we needed corn to make bread (we still learn british english...)...We ended up with loads of maize, that basically nobody knew how to cook.
World production
hold on ! Year reference is required for such information. Where does that come from ? In particular, rice production numbers are somehow wrong if what "production" is is not described. User:Anthere
jimfbleak 12:53 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I believe the data is plausable, and of course the U.S. government is an unimpeachable source on any topic :-) >not<.
Most of the worldwide production of corn is fed to animals.
Most of the U.S. production of rice is made into tasteless beer.
The rest of the world eats rice and makes beer out of barley.
In "Diet for a small planet," that onetime manifesto for the vegetarian movement, it is asserted that feeding grain to meat animals is an inefficient way to utilize the grain, compared to feeding grain to people. This is true, in that several pounds of corn (maize) must be fed to a steer for one pound of gain. The ratios are better for poultry and hogs but the principle is the same.
The point being, a great deal of corn is grown and fed to livestock, and it is quite plausable that the corn consumption exceeds rice consumption for this reason.
Also, corn yields more tonnage per acre than rice, even in the U.S., and U.S. yields of everything are higher than yields in China.
And, all kidding aside, I tend to believe that the USDA production estimates are accurate. They are publicly vetted in the trading pits (c.f. futures_contract), and the traders raise the hue and cry if they are off by more than a percentage point (sometimes less).
Reviewing the information accompanying the data on the USDA web site, I believe that they do intend for the figures to include the small, family production of rice (and other grains for that matter) typical of subsistence farms. If you look at the USDA data by country, you see that China is a major producer and the numbers seem to make sense.
If there are no objections, I'll move the production figures back to the Agriculture page later today.
Kat 15:40 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yes. I think it is arguable :-). I think similarly, the development of farming in Europe is of global importance (I presume the "global" mostly refer to trade issues, as well as food security and food safety). Australia and Russia are also having global importance in terms of trade. My country is also producing about half of european food :-)
Let's see...then we need to define what is important in ag history, in the scope of understanding where it stands now.
First the beginning of ag, as it is a major set point in devpt of human civilization.
Perhaps, the different major crops being used in the past, where do they come from (eg, corn from mexican area, wheat in fertile crescent...). The first tools and progress (sickle ?). Development of new techniques (rotation, breeding), related to each civilization (perhaps the wheel). Then, how ag progress could support growing population. Local trade first, followed by worldwide trade, due to transport progress. Modern progress. This is roughly underlined, but should be more detailed.
Along those lines, current soyabean american production is important, as it gives a handle to the USA to impose GM stuff over the world, and it imposes trading rules and commercial pressure. Soya trade is definitly of global importance.
But In the United States, farms spread from the colonies westward along with the settlers. In cooler regions, wheat was the crop of choice when lands were newly settled, leading to a "wheat frontier" that moved westward over the course of years. After the "wheat frontier" had passed through an area, more diversified farms including dairy cattle generally took its place. Warmer regions saw plantings of cotton and herds of beef cattle. is globally of no interest.
In the interest of moving beyond the statistics issue, I have restored the world production figures with a note on the difference between reporting methods for rice.
Anthere, to your point, the food value of a ton of grain varies widely depending on the commodity. I do not have the caloric content figures in front of me, but I believe that #2 yellow corn has somewhat higher caloric content than milled rice because of its greater fat content. Soybeans are higher still.
You can pick apart the figures and so on in many ways but the point is that the milled rice figures are probably more directly comparable to corn and wheat than the paddy rice.
By the way, I believe that the USDA estimates for rice are estimates of the total production, not the output of the milling operations. I believe they apply a standard multiplier to the paddy rice that is not commercially milled to arrive at the figure.
Kat 17:53 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
on the spot ref
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/7538-en.html
How is it not coherent? The FAO and USDA values are within 1% for 2001, which is the link you supplied. I didn't search for 2002 values at FAO; apparently world production dropped considerably. The 2002 value is the one used in our page. Kat 18:52 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I added metric equivalents for the bushels/acre figures, but gave up on the q/ha figures. Firstly, I didn't know if they were US quintals (100 lb) or "metric quintals" (100 kg), and secondly I was confused by the words "q/ha (or t/ha)". Was the writer unsure about which units these figures are measured in? -- Heron
Oh Jesus ! Misnumbering. Of course ! 10 qx/ha is 1 T/ha. Big mistake :-(. Okay, I am sure of my values in qx/ha, but the ones in T/ha have to be divided by 10. A q is a quintal (=100 kg) while a T is a ton (=1000 kg). Ha is hectares (that is 100m on 100 m). When I work with british people, we use q/ha. But I know they also use T/ha. So I dunno which one would be best. Please someone decide what is best. In all cases, bushels per acres is undecipherable for me :-) User:anthere
Sadly, most North American readers know nothing else. The conversion varies by crop. I believe a standard bushel of #2 corn or soybeans is 54 pounds, while with oats it's 32 pounds. Kat 14:59 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yup. American compute by volumes, and most others by weight. It is even worse than conversion by crop. I understood you used a quite small number of varieties for crops such as wheat. Around 200 varieties are available in France for cropping. The 1000 kernels weight varying from simple to double. Since we compute by weight, there is no pb for us, but when we translate in bushels, we have to know the volume/weight ratio for each variety.
I have some doubts that the average yield for corn is up from 40 bu/acres (25 qx/ha) to 150 bu/acres (94 qx/ha). Unless this value is for the US of course. This value is quite similar to our own yields. However, there are numerous countries where it must be very much lower. Is this value worldwide or US only ? anthere
Thanks for all these responses to my question. I have since discovered that there are lots of varieties of quintal, so I created an article on the subject. By the way, there is an error in what I wrote five paragraphs above. In a surprising reversal of the usual metric/nonmetric preferences, the US quintal is metric while the European quintals (several types) are nonmetric. -- Heron
Re: bushels. I added two types of bushel (wheat and maize) to the U.S. customary units page under a new heading, "Grain Measures". If people know more varieties, perhaps they would consider adding them to this page. If there are European types as well, they should probably go on the Imperial units page. -- Heron
I have removed an item about wood being a product of agriculture that was added by an unregistered user.
While there is not complete unanimity, there would appear to be a consensus that timber and pulpwood production, while closely related to agriculture, are not a part of it. A similar situation prevails with the cultivation of fish, and with the production of ornamental plants, and with the breeding of companion animals such as dogs and cats.
Kat 19:10 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
An anonymous user has tried several times to add a commercial site with links to seed starting information. The sites linked are informational, and would be no problem in themselves, but the anonymous user is obviously using the page as attempted spam. I have therefore removed the link. Pollinator 08:58, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I suggested that this user run some of his/her edits here first to gain some consensus. I have reverted his/her POV for the time being. Pollinator 01:35, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I consider the last edits made today as somehow pov. I would like some opinion of other participants. SweetLittleFluffyThing 08:20, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
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that more than 65% of people farm as their primarily source of income seems unbelievable. what is the source of this info i wonder. i also wonder if the writer of this didn t mean that farming is the most prevalent source of income among forms of economic activity. at any rate i have taken the liberty of changing the statement to a more defendable one than more than 50% of people farm as their main source of money. matthew
The Category:Agriculture has more than 170 articles, and many should be put in subcategories. Can anyone help with this? Thanks. Maurreen 08:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
There were far to many things in the cat, that were well described by a descriptive subcategory. I recategorised lots. [User:Pollinator]] seems to be revernting them all for no apparent reason. I CFD'd plant farming since it is a bad term for something covered by both cat:horticulture and cat:crops.--
nixie 04:31, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I quote Gene's wise words: just because it is in a subcategory doesn't automatically mean it should not be in the parent category. Or in a different subcategory of the same category (one which might also have other categories above it). Sometimes, for example, a term will have a specific meaning or special importance within one subcategory, yet it has a slightly different meaning or applicability in agriculture in general. Furthermore, once you remove something from a category, it becomes hard to find; it vanishes from the page history. The agriculture category is our master index of the subject. Since I do not have the time to cut and paste the category back in, I will continue to revert all your deletions which are actually better characterized as "for no apparent reason," since you neglected to discuss this before starting your campaign. If you want to add, be my guest; if you delete, you are destroying other people's work. Pollinator 04:58, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
There are many articles that were in the general category that are better in a subcat, like books, agricultural organizations and agriculture by country. -- nixie 05:01, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Pollinator, I initially was going to move on. But you changed my mind.
A disagreement does not necessarily mean that you are right and the other person is wrong. Nor does it mean, in and of itself, that you are wrong.
But it is a shame you can not disagree in a more agreeable manner.
Some points for you to consider:
Maurreen 07:05, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I actually live on a farm, but i really dont work that much anymore but I used to. It is very hard and i wouldnt want to be working again but its nice living out in the country! :-) - Rachel Falls
The History section does not mention other centers of agriculture, which developed agriculture independently. Among them were New Guinea, China, and the Inca Empire (this list is not complete). 82.135.90.212 14:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
To become a really excellent article we need a Livestock section equivalent in detail to current Section 3 (Crops). We give lip-service to the idea that animal husbandry is co-equal with crop farming in Agriculture, but the article has about a 10-1 crops-to-livestock imbalance. I'd do it myself, but I'm an urbanite. In a pinch I could scare up enough facts to get by, but it would be better if an Aggie came along and fixed us up. JDG 01:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Is that a plow or a harrow in that photo? KAM 21:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems to be a lot of regional additions lately... a bit much? SB Johnny 17:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I am only new to this Wikki Stuff, and hope not to offend anyone. The Yeild increase's stated in the extract(A) below may be reasonably accurate,(no citation). The last sentence states that the increase in yield is due to genetic improvements. I had recently read a reputable article about the subject that states 68% worldwide is due to crop management.I have provided the extract(B) below, along with a link to the article. I would like to remove "primarily due to improvements in genetics." If there is any evidence to that proves it is due mainly to genetics please provide it to this forum. Is there any objection to removing this statement in the next week or so?
Extract(A) For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001, primarily due to improvements in genetics.
Extract(B) "The proportion of the yield increase that can be attributed to crop management ranges from 47 to 83 per cent worldwide, with an average of 68 per cent," he says.
http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc62/farmmgt2.htm
-- Yendor72 14:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The topic of agriculture in the Americas is conspiciously absent, given its importance to several cultures. Twinxor t 04:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
i was trying to edit a rather opinionated article called factory farming. the article is written as if factory farming was a general term for a certain farming system. i started moving passages to the article on intensive farming, with the idea to leave only passages about the usage of the term factory farming. but now i wonder. intensive farming is not exactly the large scale agriculture that people who speak about factory farming have in mind. a vegetable plot could be intensive farming. should i rather start an article called industrial agriculture and put the factory farming content there. so far industrial agriculture redirects to agriculture. any opinions? trueblood 20:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC) i just changed the redirect industrial agriculture, and turned it into an article to find a home fore stuff from factory farm sections. trueblood 10:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
"The term "farming" covers the wide spectum of agricultrial practices. On one end of the spectum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock."
this list in the article seems to me a random list of words that are related to agriculture. what is it's use? how about a relatively short list entitled see also trueblood 14:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
we have forget about blue agriculture in recent day, there aquaculture and marine culture or mariculture they way farming cause they harsh condition of environment who create aquaculture with support with hydrophonic technology to deal with shortage clear water, to reuse, recycle, water treatment and control the water. And increased demand about sea product seaweed and sea grass for medicine, food and etc who create marine agriculture. if there no obtain i would add this in main articel Daimond 16:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
with new modern technic agriculture have developed some revolution like green revolution who have change the way to plant and cultivated and still world of agriculture try fullfill human foods need. But with certain change of climate and shortage of clear water, the way to cultivation would change too. In near future when human would use the sea surface area to growing wheat and rice and other plantation to fullfill human foods. When human begin looking seeds and plants who able grow and adpet in high salt water (maybe they would able isolated the gene from beach forests plant). The agriculture would move not to depend on climate or rain water or clear water to cultivate. Maybe It would begin in equator(sea around equator area) line, Maybe they would plant near the beach first and evantualy going plantation in middle sea, so marine agriculture would change rapidly to the future needs, not so like now who only seaweed and seagrass cultivated and harvesting Daimond 12:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is being reviewed at WP:GA/R for possible delisting of its Good article status. -- Ling.Nut 04:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this article doesn't contain much on field systems I have removed the redirect. I have put in a link from field system to agriculture. Rjm at sleepers 09:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Please, someone consider adding the UN document titled "Livestock's Long Shadow" in this article. There should be a link to it. It is an extremely important document, and it seems that statistics from it have been used in the article, but it has not been referenced.
Good Luck to all
TusharMehta
This just came out in Science and should probably worked into the article. I wish I had time to do it myself, but I don't. But I wanted you all to know:
-- Margareta 03:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
hello can anybody help me to summary about ontario canada ? ty
Can somebody tell me exactly how many times (and where) Agriculture was independently invented? I know it was obviously created in the Fertile Crescent first and defiantly in South America (or is it Central America?), independently so that's two at-least. This article seems to be also saying it developed independently in China as well, though I'm not quite clear on India, was it invented there also or did it just come in from the middle-east? (or China?). I ask this firstly for my own personal interest, and secondly because I think it would be an interesting fact to have in the article. -- Hibernian 04:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Some scholars have the abitude of classify Egypt and Mesopotamia under the "Fertile Crescent" label, while the peruvian invention was questioned by some until one decade ago. The article History of agriculture expose some of this information, though it doesn't mention an explicit list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.226.217.121 ( talk) 14:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Donald Axel says:
The term agriculture is in academic terms cultivation of soil as correctly stated in the intro to this article. The popular usage includes livestock, but why not keep livestock in the other article, "Farming"?
But as I read on I get the feeling that the focus is missing. Agriculture/Farming - just tool-words, not knowledge. Wikipedia is kind of authority on history, computerscience and technical aspects, but agricultural subjects seem to be lagging behind a little - well not much, the grass (poaceae) article has evolved enormously the last couple of months!
// I hope this comment is put in the right place:-) Regards from Donald Axel. 2007-10-01_20:27-UTC -- d-axel 20:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Then why not make it one of the ones that go across the bottom of the page with well sorted links, rather than one that interferes with reading the article? Making an infobox "slightly larger" so that the article itself cannot be read does not help navigate Wikipedia, it merely blocks reading the article. Try it on a low bandwidth internet connection and small screen some time to see how awful this makes the article look. KP Botany 01:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if the page addressed the significant safety and health risks involved in farming.
Agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries. Farmers are at high risk for fatal and nonfatal injuries, work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, and certain cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. Farming is one of the few industries in which the families (who often share the work and live on the premises) are also at risk for injuries, illness, and death. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/agriculture National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Agriculture
Child agriculture injury is also a topic of concern. An estimated 1.26 million children and adolescents under 20 years of age resided on farms in 2004, with about 699,000 of these youth performing work on the farms. In addition to the youth who live on farms, an additional 337,000 children and adolescents were hired to work on U.S. farms in 2004. On average, 103 children are killed annually on farms (1990-1996). Approximately 40 percent of these deaths were work-related. In 2004, an estimated 27,600 children and adolescents were injured on farms; 8,100 of these injuries were due to farm work. (
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aginjury National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Agriculture Injury)
--
Tisdalepardi 02:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This new section has been deleted wholesale three times by WAS 4.250, and reinstated twice, all without discussion. Can I suggest that the issue is now discussed here before further editing? The explanation for the latest deletion by WAS 4.250 was: "this section is utter nonsense. create a section on ENERGY prices and agriculture if you wish, but as a source of raw material, coal can be used for anything oil can be used for". Here is the deleted text:
Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petrochemical derived pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanization. Called the Green Revolution, this has allowed world population to grow more than double over the last 50 years. Some arguing that because every joule in modern food that one eats requires 5-15 joules to produce and deliver, it is inevitable that a decreasing supply of oil will cause industrial agriculture to collapse. Such a collapse would lead to a drastic decline in food production, food shortages and possibly even mass starvation, unless the uses of fossil fuels in agriculture can be efficiently replaced with alternatives. For example, by far the biggest fossil fuel input to agriculture is the use of natural gas as a hydrogen source for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer-creation process citation needed. Natural gas is used because it is the cheapest currently available source of hydrogen citation needed. Were natural gas to become too expensive, other sources (such as electrolysis powered by solar energy or hydropower) would have to be used to provide the hydrogen to create these fertilizers without relying on fossil fuels.
Oil shortages may force a return to organic agriculture methods. While some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming (but without the use of fossil-fuel-intensive artificial fertilizers or pesticides) [1] [2] [3] [4], this may be more labor-intensive citation needed and require a population shift from urban to rural areas, reversing the trend towards urbanization which has predominated in industrial societies.
Besides adjusting for increased fuel costs, farmers are now planting non-food crops such as corn to help mitigate peak oil, with the result of lower food production. [5] Others point out that rising food and fuel costs will limit the abilities of charitable donors to send food aid to starving populations. [6] In the UN, some warn that the recent 60% rise in wheat prices could cause "serious social unrest in developing countries." [7]
-- Richard New Forest ( talk) 16:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Why go on? It's unsourced crap. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 19:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: Oh, you've deleted it again... Your edit summary was "consensus appears to favor removal". Which consensus was that then? I make numbers (for what those are worth) balanced 2:2 at present, but the subject is still very much under discussion, and so your yet-further delete was indecently hasty. Can it be right to wait until you have just one other person agreeing with you and then to call that "consensus"? I don't agree – my own view remains that the section is a valuable contribution and that it should be restored, and then edited where necessary. I have yet to see any reasoned argument to show it should be removed wholesale, and you have yet to respond to many of the counter-arguments made so far.
Mumia-w-18: I'm not really clear on your current view. Could you please explain it? --
Richard New Forest (
talk) 14:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: I see you are keeping several archives of agricultural articles. I assume that means you care a lot about the subject, and probably know about it as well. Why not help us out with the sources and explain what's wrong with the reasoning? Your main issues seem to be that:
If you explain the problem instead of throwing around epithets maybe we can reach consensus.
As for Peak oil being controversial, I think Mumia-w-18 addressed that just fine above. That article is extremely well sourced and no one has stepped forward to deny that. Even King Abdulah of S.Arabia and the former head of Aramco's exploration division (not to mention more local oil execs) have been saying there's a looming problem. Look up the Hirsch report and see that the US gov is worried. [GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 23:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I never said there wasn't an oil issue that needed to be responded to. I said this the original research conclusions offered about its affect on agriculture were nonsense. Changes in energy and agriculture toward sustainability is official policy in all technologically advanced nations with billions of dollars being spent to implement sustainability. Yes, there is an issue. Yes, it is being dealt with. Yes, we should have articles on it. Yes we do. Not enough. We are very lacking in agriculture and national policy articles. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 01:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Any objections to this wording? "More than 10 kcalories (kilogram-calories or "large calories") of exosomatic energy are spent in the U.S. food system per kcalorie of food delivered to the consumer. Put another way, the food system consumes ten times more energy than it provides to society in food energy... About 330 quads (1 quad = 1015 BTU) of all forms of energy per year are used worldwide by humans. A large fraction of this energy, about 81 percent, is provided by fossil energy worldwide each year. Moreover, about 50 percent of all solar energy captured by photosynthesis worldwide is already used by humans, but most of it is captured as food and other agricultural products, which are not included in the 330 quads. That agricultural output is already inadequate to meet human needs for food and forest products. We would be in grim trouble if we had to derive our energy needs from current basic photosynthetic production, as our ancestors did. Given the anticipated decline in fossil fuel use, and the continued growth of human populations, that problem is ahead of us rather than behind us... Clearly, there is a room for substitutability among fossil energy sources, and natural gas and coal are expected to increase their share as soon as oil supply will decrease. However, gas supplies are not at all that much better off. Coal is not infinite and it exacts a high environmental cost or a high price to clean it up... Currently worldwide there is serious degradation of land, water, and biological resources generated by the increasing use of fossil energy by the world's population. Already, more fossil energy is used than is available in the form of a sustainable supply of biomass, more nitrogen fertilizer is used per year than could be obtained by natural supply, water is pumped out of underground reservoirs at a higher rate than it is recharged, and more minerals are taken out of mines than are formed by biogeochemical cycles. Fossil energy and technology enabled humans to (temporarily) sustain excesses. At present and projected world population levels, the current pattern of human development is not ecologically sustainable. The world economic system is built on depleting, as fast as possible, the very natural resources on which human survival depends... Approximately 1/3rd of the world's arable land and forests were lost during the past 40 years due to mismanagement and degradation. Currently, there is only 0.28 ha of arable land per capita with a world population of 5.5 billion people. It is estimated that about 0.5 ha per capita is needed for a diverse and varied diet. With the world population to double to 11 billion people, there will be less than 0.15 ha per capita in just 40 years (very close to a "Chinese situation"). At the same time, evidence suggests that arable land degradation is increasing as poor farmers burn more crop residues and dung as fuel f or cooking and other purposes, instead of returning them to the land... The level of energy consumption that will be enjoyed by a future "sustainable society" will lie below the one reached today by developed countries (based on the relentless exploitation of fossil fuels) and above the one typical of pre-industrial societies which rely completely on photosynthesis. Renewable energies have to play a major role to substitute for the role currently played by fossil energy. The lower the population density, the lower will be the demand of energy for food production, the lower the environmental impact of agriculture, the larger the choice of possible alternative energy sources and in the last analysis, the higher the probability of achieving an acceptable standard of living and eco-compatibility." [1]
Mario Giampietro wrote his doctoral thesis on "Complex systems theory applied to the analysis of sustainability of agriculture: developing innovative tools and procedures for bridging social, economic and ecological analyses," and is now ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
David Pimentel teaches Environmental Policy in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. He was a an Oxford fellow and a consulting ecologist in the Nixon Whitehouse.[GW] 24.225.185.179 21:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: some of your recent edits are kind of puzzling. Shouldn't a really long history section be in a seperate history article? Shouldn't the entemology be in wikionary? Why did you delete that graph that showed some very interesting effects of modern agriculture on the work force? [GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 15:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
High prices increase the profits of crop growers, but they put pressure on the slim margins of livestock farmers. [8] While biofuels are often viewed as environmentally friendly, the cultivation of biofuels has been criticized for its unintended consequences. [9] Strong demand for biofuels provides an incentive for farmers in the developing world to raze forests and plant crops such as palm oil, putting further stress on the environment. [10]
I moved this here because the sources provided do not establish the claims being made. The claims are phrased as general truths, while the sources establish a much narrower claim limited in time and location and circumstance. It's like using a link that is only about climate change in Alaska to source a claim that the whole world in undergoing a climate change or a link to a bank robbery by a gang of women to claim something about crime in general or women in general. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 10:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I argue that the sources do not make the same claims as are articulated in the statements that they are attached to and you agree pleading "self evident". No. Not self evident. Get a source for the claim, not an example. Examples don't prove more general statements. You can't claim it always rains on Sunday in New York and then provide an example of it raining on Sunday in New York. Higher prices only increase profit if costs have not increased proportionately. WAS 4.250 16:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petrochemical derived pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanization. This has allowed world population to grow more than double over the last 50 years. Every energy unit delivered in food grown using modern techniques requires over ten energy units to produce and deliver. The vast majority of this energy input comes from fossil fuel sources. Because of modern agriculture's heavy reliance on petrochemicals and mechanization, as well as the lack of any quickly available non-petroleum based alternatives, the 10:1 energy equation has caused many agriculture, petroleum, sociology, and ecology experts to warn that the ever decreasing supply of oil (the dramatic nature of which is known as peak oil. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]) will inflict major damage on the modern industrial agriculture system, causing a collapse in food production ability and food shortages as energy becomes increasingly unavailable for food production (a list of over 20 published articles and books supporting this thesis can be found here in the section: "Food, Land, Water, and Population").
One example of this chain reaction is the effect of petroleum supplies on fertilizer production. By far the biggest fossil fuel input to agriculture is the use of natural gas as a hydrogen source for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer-creation process citation needed. Natural gas is used because it is the cheapest currently available source of hydrogen citation needed. When oil production becomes so scarce that natural gas is used as a partial stopgap replacement, and hydrogen use in transportation increases, natural gas will become much more expensive. If other sources of hydrogen are not available to replace the Haber process, in amounts sufficient to supply transportation and agricultural needs, this major source of fertilizer would either become extremely expensive or unavailable. This would either cause food shortages or dramatic rises in food prices.
One effect of oil shortages (and by far the most sustainable alternative) is a full return to organic agriculture methods. This conversion would take time, as well as major reconditioning of soil which now relies on chemical fertilizers to be produce enough food to meet demands. Also, while some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming (but without the use of fossil-fuel-intensive artificial fertilizers or pesticides) [16] [17] [18] [19], this may be more labor-intensive citation needed and require a shift of work force from urban to rural areas.
Farmers have also begun raising crops such as corn for non-food use in an effort to help mitigate peak oil. This has already lowered food production [20], an effect which will be exacerbated when demand for ethanol fuels rises. Rising food and fuel costs has already limited the abilities of some charitable donors to send food aid to starving populations. [21] In the UN, some warn that the recent 60% rise in wheat prices could cause "serious social unrest in developing countries." [22] [GW] 24.225.185.179 23:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
The comments and suggested text to add to the article are much improved and I thank everyone for their wonderful efforts. I don't want to make anyone frustrated or discouraged, so don't take this lecture on sources the wrong way. In fact the improvements are already good enough that directly adding to the article and editing it from there might be advised so as not to look like I'm trying to own the page and it is more fun that way and it respects authorship attribution better. But there are still sourcing issues that you guys need to hear about and do your best to accommodate to maintain compliance with Wikipedia content policies.
The general idea is to use the best sources to establish that a claim is relevant to the article and generally believed by those in the best position to know. Primary sources are not as good for this as secondary sources. Let's take the above source http://www.dieoff.com/page69.htm as an example. the authors check out ok, but the site http://www.dieoff.com/ is self published and thus unacceptable as a reliable source in general. As a list of sources it seems ok. The article is summarized at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=12178986&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google which is a reliable source and should be used. The full article has a major problem in that it is essentially an opinion piece that is a primary source. At best one could say "Mario Giampietro and David Pimentel have stated that ..." but the relevance of their opinion should be established by some other more general source - in other words we can use what they say here for claims that are given credibility elsewhere. This is a process at wikipedia, and we don't have to make it perfect before we add it to the article, but we should not add claims that we have reason to believe are contested opinions without also giving the other opinions due weight so the article can be WP:NPOV.
See WP:NOR for more information. WAS 4.250 15:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
"You have some basic naivete about your own condescending attitude and how it affects your relationship with others. I'll take the opinion of the experts over yours any day. I'm glad you are helping with the [agriculture] articles. I just wish you would add as much data as you delete. I always saw my role as adding sourced data that then others would polish/edit. I should not have to write a perfect encyclopedia paragraph for it not to be deleted. All I'm saying is don't delete based on imperfect writing. Deleting and tagging is child's work; try adding sourced data or polishing existing data to make it read better - now that's a job for an adult."
Lead currently reads:
"As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture[1] (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. "
That sounds like it contradicts itself. Anyone know which it is?[GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 04:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
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agricultural revolution started in the south western areas of persia, aswell as Iraq, mention of syria should be erased.
Hello all, I found this article from British source 'The Guardian' about Andean South American farming, go to this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2114533,00.html hope it helps.
This page and that of Agriculture should be coordinated. As to how, i have no idea: The finer points of the English language escape me here :-) Perhaps a merge and a redirect? --Anders T?rlind
I think they should be merged. Agriculture says: "Kinds of agriculture include farming, which is raising crops for harvest, and [animal husbandry]?."
Farming says: "Farming is the process of producing food by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals. See also agriculture."
Really I think the two are more or less synonymous. Animal husbandry and raising crops are part of both. -- hagedis
Both the Unesco Thesaurus and Library of Congress subject headings have "Farming: use Agriculture".
I think agriculture is the best term for both the economic sector (usually taken to include animal husbandry), and the practice of producing crops (though here, we often differentiate between "agricultural" and "pastoral" populations and activities, so livestock may sometimes be excluded). The article(s) could refer to such nuances, with links or redirects from/to "Animal husbandry", "Livestock production" or whatever is preferred.
Farming to me suggests shutup a particular form of organisation, usually involving commercial production by a private operator engaged directly on the holding, hence distinct from estate, plantation or communal cultivation (the word itself originates around the 12th century with the leasing of western European estate lands, as in "to farm out" an enterprise). David Parker
It would be wonderful to see agriculture, agricultural policy, futures contract, commodity markets and tax, tariff and trade all rationally related in some way, so that one could figure out in the first paragraph or so what one should be reading. At present futures contract seems to be the trader's view, agriculture the statistician's view, commodity markets the economist's view, tax, tariff and trade the policy-maker's view, and agricultural policy the politician's view! This is all very interesting but maybe it should be easier for such as me, who understand only gardening and Slow Food, to see how these large scale things relate to my small scale life. EofT
As a farmer (and at the same time a practitioner of agriculture), I'd say there's definitely not a whole lot of difference between the two politically. However, animal husbandry (which is farming) might not exactly be agriculture (at least etymologically: agros means field). I just started a new project on horticulture (which is closely related to agriculture, but not usually to animal husbandry... see the problem?), and it would be nice to see one on agriculture as well. I would certainly participate in any case. Also, on the main list of projects page I made a new subcategory to science (applied science), under which I put horticulture. Agriculture would probably go there too (following the old praxis vs. theoria Aristotelian thing.) SB Johnny 15:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Concerning the word "corn" - Maize is called corn in the U.S., but I thought that "corn" in the U.K. means grains in general, primarily, but not only, wheat. Somebody who speaks the Queen's English please verify! :-) -- Marj Tiefert 13:45 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)
I fear you will probably not consider my input acceptable, but when I talk to british people, the word "corn" refers "only" to grain. However, it is about two different types of crops : wheat and oats. Of course oats is not much used anymore. user:anthere
There's a nice story my father in law told me about Corn and Paris liberation by americans. People in Paris were rather hungry. They needed bread badly. At that time, our bread was made from wheat, sometimes from rye. When american people came to Paris, they asked how they could help us in terms of food. Some administrative employee said we needed corn to make bread (we still learn british english...)...We ended up with loads of maize, that basically nobody knew how to cook.
World production
hold on ! Year reference is required for such information. Where does that come from ? In particular, rice production numbers are somehow wrong if what "production" is is not described. User:Anthere
jimfbleak 12:53 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I believe the data is plausable, and of course the U.S. government is an unimpeachable source on any topic :-) >not<.
Most of the worldwide production of corn is fed to animals.
Most of the U.S. production of rice is made into tasteless beer.
The rest of the world eats rice and makes beer out of barley.
In "Diet for a small planet," that onetime manifesto for the vegetarian movement, it is asserted that feeding grain to meat animals is an inefficient way to utilize the grain, compared to feeding grain to people. This is true, in that several pounds of corn (maize) must be fed to a steer for one pound of gain. The ratios are better for poultry and hogs but the principle is the same.
The point being, a great deal of corn is grown and fed to livestock, and it is quite plausable that the corn consumption exceeds rice consumption for this reason.
Also, corn yields more tonnage per acre than rice, even in the U.S., and U.S. yields of everything are higher than yields in China.
And, all kidding aside, I tend to believe that the USDA production estimates are accurate. They are publicly vetted in the trading pits (c.f. futures_contract), and the traders raise the hue and cry if they are off by more than a percentage point (sometimes less).
Reviewing the information accompanying the data on the USDA web site, I believe that they do intend for the figures to include the small, family production of rice (and other grains for that matter) typical of subsistence farms. If you look at the USDA data by country, you see that China is a major producer and the numbers seem to make sense.
If there are no objections, I'll move the production figures back to the Agriculture page later today.
Kat 15:40 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yes. I think it is arguable :-). I think similarly, the development of farming in Europe is of global importance (I presume the "global" mostly refer to trade issues, as well as food security and food safety). Australia and Russia are also having global importance in terms of trade. My country is also producing about half of european food :-)
Let's see...then we need to define what is important in ag history, in the scope of understanding where it stands now.
First the beginning of ag, as it is a major set point in devpt of human civilization.
Perhaps, the different major crops being used in the past, where do they come from (eg, corn from mexican area, wheat in fertile crescent...). The first tools and progress (sickle ?). Development of new techniques (rotation, breeding), related to each civilization (perhaps the wheel). Then, how ag progress could support growing population. Local trade first, followed by worldwide trade, due to transport progress. Modern progress. This is roughly underlined, but should be more detailed.
Along those lines, current soyabean american production is important, as it gives a handle to the USA to impose GM stuff over the world, and it imposes trading rules and commercial pressure. Soya trade is definitly of global importance.
But In the United States, farms spread from the colonies westward along with the settlers. In cooler regions, wheat was the crop of choice when lands were newly settled, leading to a "wheat frontier" that moved westward over the course of years. After the "wheat frontier" had passed through an area, more diversified farms including dairy cattle generally took its place. Warmer regions saw plantings of cotton and herds of beef cattle. is globally of no interest.
In the interest of moving beyond the statistics issue, I have restored the world production figures with a note on the difference between reporting methods for rice.
Anthere, to your point, the food value of a ton of grain varies widely depending on the commodity. I do not have the caloric content figures in front of me, but I believe that #2 yellow corn has somewhat higher caloric content than milled rice because of its greater fat content. Soybeans are higher still.
You can pick apart the figures and so on in many ways but the point is that the milled rice figures are probably more directly comparable to corn and wheat than the paddy rice.
By the way, I believe that the USDA estimates for rice are estimates of the total production, not the output of the milling operations. I believe they apply a standard multiplier to the paddy rice that is not commercially milled to arrive at the figure.
Kat 17:53 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
on the spot ref
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/7538-en.html
How is it not coherent? The FAO and USDA values are within 1% for 2001, which is the link you supplied. I didn't search for 2002 values at FAO; apparently world production dropped considerably. The 2002 value is the one used in our page. Kat 18:52 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I added metric equivalents for the bushels/acre figures, but gave up on the q/ha figures. Firstly, I didn't know if they were US quintals (100 lb) or "metric quintals" (100 kg), and secondly I was confused by the words "q/ha (or t/ha)". Was the writer unsure about which units these figures are measured in? -- Heron
Oh Jesus ! Misnumbering. Of course ! 10 qx/ha is 1 T/ha. Big mistake :-(. Okay, I am sure of my values in qx/ha, but the ones in T/ha have to be divided by 10. A q is a quintal (=100 kg) while a T is a ton (=1000 kg). Ha is hectares (that is 100m on 100 m). When I work with british people, we use q/ha. But I know they also use T/ha. So I dunno which one would be best. Please someone decide what is best. In all cases, bushels per acres is undecipherable for me :-) User:anthere
Sadly, most North American readers know nothing else. The conversion varies by crop. I believe a standard bushel of #2 corn or soybeans is 54 pounds, while with oats it's 32 pounds. Kat 14:59 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Yup. American compute by volumes, and most others by weight. It is even worse than conversion by crop. I understood you used a quite small number of varieties for crops such as wheat. Around 200 varieties are available in France for cropping. The 1000 kernels weight varying from simple to double. Since we compute by weight, there is no pb for us, but when we translate in bushels, we have to know the volume/weight ratio for each variety.
I have some doubts that the average yield for corn is up from 40 bu/acres (25 qx/ha) to 150 bu/acres (94 qx/ha). Unless this value is for the US of course. This value is quite similar to our own yields. However, there are numerous countries where it must be very much lower. Is this value worldwide or US only ? anthere
Thanks for all these responses to my question. I have since discovered that there are lots of varieties of quintal, so I created an article on the subject. By the way, there is an error in what I wrote five paragraphs above. In a surprising reversal of the usual metric/nonmetric preferences, the US quintal is metric while the European quintals (several types) are nonmetric. -- Heron
Re: bushels. I added two types of bushel (wheat and maize) to the U.S. customary units page under a new heading, "Grain Measures". If people know more varieties, perhaps they would consider adding them to this page. If there are European types as well, they should probably go on the Imperial units page. -- Heron
I have removed an item about wood being a product of agriculture that was added by an unregistered user.
While there is not complete unanimity, there would appear to be a consensus that timber and pulpwood production, while closely related to agriculture, are not a part of it. A similar situation prevails with the cultivation of fish, and with the production of ornamental plants, and with the breeding of companion animals such as dogs and cats.
Kat 19:10 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
An anonymous user has tried several times to add a commercial site with links to seed starting information. The sites linked are informational, and would be no problem in themselves, but the anonymous user is obviously using the page as attempted spam. I have therefore removed the link. Pollinator 08:58, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I suggested that this user run some of his/her edits here first to gain some consensus. I have reverted his/her POV for the time being. Pollinator 01:35, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I consider the last edits made today as somehow pov. I would like some opinion of other participants. SweetLittleFluffyThing 08:20, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
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that more than 65% of people farm as their primarily source of income seems unbelievable. what is the source of this info i wonder. i also wonder if the writer of this didn t mean that farming is the most prevalent source of income among forms of economic activity. at any rate i have taken the liberty of changing the statement to a more defendable one than more than 50% of people farm as their main source of money. matthew
The Category:Agriculture has more than 170 articles, and many should be put in subcategories. Can anyone help with this? Thanks. Maurreen 08:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
There were far to many things in the cat, that were well described by a descriptive subcategory. I recategorised lots. [User:Pollinator]] seems to be revernting them all for no apparent reason. I CFD'd plant farming since it is a bad term for something covered by both cat:horticulture and cat:crops.--
nixie 04:31, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I quote Gene's wise words: just because it is in a subcategory doesn't automatically mean it should not be in the parent category. Or in a different subcategory of the same category (one which might also have other categories above it). Sometimes, for example, a term will have a specific meaning or special importance within one subcategory, yet it has a slightly different meaning or applicability in agriculture in general. Furthermore, once you remove something from a category, it becomes hard to find; it vanishes from the page history. The agriculture category is our master index of the subject. Since I do not have the time to cut and paste the category back in, I will continue to revert all your deletions which are actually better characterized as "for no apparent reason," since you neglected to discuss this before starting your campaign. If you want to add, be my guest; if you delete, you are destroying other people's work. Pollinator 04:58, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
There are many articles that were in the general category that are better in a subcat, like books, agricultural organizations and agriculture by country. -- nixie 05:01, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Pollinator, I initially was going to move on. But you changed my mind.
A disagreement does not necessarily mean that you are right and the other person is wrong. Nor does it mean, in and of itself, that you are wrong.
But it is a shame you can not disagree in a more agreeable manner.
Some points for you to consider:
Maurreen 07:05, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I actually live on a farm, but i really dont work that much anymore but I used to. It is very hard and i wouldnt want to be working again but its nice living out in the country! :-) - Rachel Falls
The History section does not mention other centers of agriculture, which developed agriculture independently. Among them were New Guinea, China, and the Inca Empire (this list is not complete). 82.135.90.212 14:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
To become a really excellent article we need a Livestock section equivalent in detail to current Section 3 (Crops). We give lip-service to the idea that animal husbandry is co-equal with crop farming in Agriculture, but the article has about a 10-1 crops-to-livestock imbalance. I'd do it myself, but I'm an urbanite. In a pinch I could scare up enough facts to get by, but it would be better if an Aggie came along and fixed us up. JDG 01:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Is that a plow or a harrow in that photo? KAM 21:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems to be a lot of regional additions lately... a bit much? SB Johnny 17:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I am only new to this Wikki Stuff, and hope not to offend anyone. The Yeild increase's stated in the extract(A) below may be reasonably accurate,(no citation). The last sentence states that the increase in yield is due to genetic improvements. I had recently read a reputable article about the subject that states 68% worldwide is due to crop management.I have provided the extract(B) below, along with a link to the article. I would like to remove "primarily due to improvements in genetics." If there is any evidence to that proves it is due mainly to genetics please provide it to this forum. Is there any objection to removing this statement in the next week or so?
Extract(A) For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the USA have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001, primarily due to improvements in genetics.
Extract(B) "The proportion of the yield increase that can be attributed to crop management ranges from 47 to 83 per cent worldwide, with an average of 68 per cent," he says.
http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc62/farmmgt2.htm
-- Yendor72 14:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The topic of agriculture in the Americas is conspiciously absent, given its importance to several cultures. Twinxor t 04:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
i was trying to edit a rather opinionated article called factory farming. the article is written as if factory farming was a general term for a certain farming system. i started moving passages to the article on intensive farming, with the idea to leave only passages about the usage of the term factory farming. but now i wonder. intensive farming is not exactly the large scale agriculture that people who speak about factory farming have in mind. a vegetable plot could be intensive farming. should i rather start an article called industrial agriculture and put the factory farming content there. so far industrial agriculture redirects to agriculture. any opinions? trueblood 20:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC) i just changed the redirect industrial agriculture, and turned it into an article to find a home fore stuff from factory farm sections. trueblood 10:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
"The term "farming" covers the wide spectum of agricultrial practices. On one end of the spectum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock."
this list in the article seems to me a random list of words that are related to agriculture. what is it's use? how about a relatively short list entitled see also trueblood 14:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
we have forget about blue agriculture in recent day, there aquaculture and marine culture or mariculture they way farming cause they harsh condition of environment who create aquaculture with support with hydrophonic technology to deal with shortage clear water, to reuse, recycle, water treatment and control the water. And increased demand about sea product seaweed and sea grass for medicine, food and etc who create marine agriculture. if there no obtain i would add this in main articel Daimond 16:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
with new modern technic agriculture have developed some revolution like green revolution who have change the way to plant and cultivated and still world of agriculture try fullfill human foods need. But with certain change of climate and shortage of clear water, the way to cultivation would change too. In near future when human would use the sea surface area to growing wheat and rice and other plantation to fullfill human foods. When human begin looking seeds and plants who able grow and adpet in high salt water (maybe they would able isolated the gene from beach forests plant). The agriculture would move not to depend on climate or rain water or clear water to cultivate. Maybe It would begin in equator(sea around equator area) line, Maybe they would plant near the beach first and evantualy going plantation in middle sea, so marine agriculture would change rapidly to the future needs, not so like now who only seaweed and seagrass cultivated and harvesting Daimond 12:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is being reviewed at WP:GA/R for possible delisting of its Good article status. -- Ling.Nut 04:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this article doesn't contain much on field systems I have removed the redirect. I have put in a link from field system to agriculture. Rjm at sleepers 09:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Please, someone consider adding the UN document titled "Livestock's Long Shadow" in this article. There should be a link to it. It is an extremely important document, and it seems that statistics from it have been used in the article, but it has not been referenced.
Good Luck to all
TusharMehta
This just came out in Science and should probably worked into the article. I wish I had time to do it myself, but I don't. But I wanted you all to know:
-- Margareta 03:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
hello can anybody help me to summary about ontario canada ? ty
Can somebody tell me exactly how many times (and where) Agriculture was independently invented? I know it was obviously created in the Fertile Crescent first and defiantly in South America (or is it Central America?), independently so that's two at-least. This article seems to be also saying it developed independently in China as well, though I'm not quite clear on India, was it invented there also or did it just come in from the middle-east? (or China?). I ask this firstly for my own personal interest, and secondly because I think it would be an interesting fact to have in the article. -- Hibernian 04:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Some scholars have the abitude of classify Egypt and Mesopotamia under the "Fertile Crescent" label, while the peruvian invention was questioned by some until one decade ago. The article History of agriculture expose some of this information, though it doesn't mention an explicit list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.226.217.121 ( talk) 14:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Donald Axel says:
The term agriculture is in academic terms cultivation of soil as correctly stated in the intro to this article. The popular usage includes livestock, but why not keep livestock in the other article, "Farming"?
But as I read on I get the feeling that the focus is missing. Agriculture/Farming - just tool-words, not knowledge. Wikipedia is kind of authority on history, computerscience and technical aspects, but agricultural subjects seem to be lagging behind a little - well not much, the grass (poaceae) article has evolved enormously the last couple of months!
// I hope this comment is put in the right place:-) Regards from Donald Axel. 2007-10-01_20:27-UTC -- d-axel 20:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Then why not make it one of the ones that go across the bottom of the page with well sorted links, rather than one that interferes with reading the article? Making an infobox "slightly larger" so that the article itself cannot be read does not help navigate Wikipedia, it merely blocks reading the article. Try it on a low bandwidth internet connection and small screen some time to see how awful this makes the article look. KP Botany 01:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if the page addressed the significant safety and health risks involved in farming.
Agriculture ranks among the most hazardous industries. Farmers are at high risk for fatal and nonfatal injuries, work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, and certain cancers associated with chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. Farming is one of the few industries in which the families (who often share the work and live on the premises) are also at risk for injuries, illness, and death. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/agriculture National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Agriculture
Child agriculture injury is also a topic of concern. An estimated 1.26 million children and adolescents under 20 years of age resided on farms in 2004, with about 699,000 of these youth performing work on the farms. In addition to the youth who live on farms, an additional 337,000 children and adolescents were hired to work on U.S. farms in 2004. On average, 103 children are killed annually on farms (1990-1996). Approximately 40 percent of these deaths were work-related. In 2004, an estimated 27,600 children and adolescents were injured on farms; 8,100 of these injuries were due to farm work. (
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aginjury National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Agriculture Injury)
--
Tisdalepardi 02:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This new section has been deleted wholesale three times by WAS 4.250, and reinstated twice, all without discussion. Can I suggest that the issue is now discussed here before further editing? The explanation for the latest deletion by WAS 4.250 was: "this section is utter nonsense. create a section on ENERGY prices and agriculture if you wish, but as a source of raw material, coal can be used for anything oil can be used for". Here is the deleted text:
Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petrochemical derived pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanization. Called the Green Revolution, this has allowed world population to grow more than double over the last 50 years. Some arguing that because every joule in modern food that one eats requires 5-15 joules to produce and deliver, it is inevitable that a decreasing supply of oil will cause industrial agriculture to collapse. Such a collapse would lead to a drastic decline in food production, food shortages and possibly even mass starvation, unless the uses of fossil fuels in agriculture can be efficiently replaced with alternatives. For example, by far the biggest fossil fuel input to agriculture is the use of natural gas as a hydrogen source for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer-creation process citation needed. Natural gas is used because it is the cheapest currently available source of hydrogen citation needed. Were natural gas to become too expensive, other sources (such as electrolysis powered by solar energy or hydropower) would have to be used to provide the hydrogen to create these fertilizers without relying on fossil fuels.
Oil shortages may force a return to organic agriculture methods. While some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming (but without the use of fossil-fuel-intensive artificial fertilizers or pesticides) [1] [2] [3] [4], this may be more labor-intensive citation needed and require a population shift from urban to rural areas, reversing the trend towards urbanization which has predominated in industrial societies.
Besides adjusting for increased fuel costs, farmers are now planting non-food crops such as corn to help mitigate peak oil, with the result of lower food production. [5] Others point out that rising food and fuel costs will limit the abilities of charitable donors to send food aid to starving populations. [6] In the UN, some warn that the recent 60% rise in wheat prices could cause "serious social unrest in developing countries." [7]
-- Richard New Forest ( talk) 16:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Why go on? It's unsourced crap. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 19:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: Oh, you've deleted it again... Your edit summary was "consensus appears to favor removal". Which consensus was that then? I make numbers (for what those are worth) balanced 2:2 at present, but the subject is still very much under discussion, and so your yet-further delete was indecently hasty. Can it be right to wait until you have just one other person agreeing with you and then to call that "consensus"? I don't agree – my own view remains that the section is a valuable contribution and that it should be restored, and then edited where necessary. I have yet to see any reasoned argument to show it should be removed wholesale, and you have yet to respond to many of the counter-arguments made so far.
Mumia-w-18: I'm not really clear on your current view. Could you please explain it? --
Richard New Forest (
talk) 14:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: I see you are keeping several archives of agricultural articles. I assume that means you care a lot about the subject, and probably know about it as well. Why not help us out with the sources and explain what's wrong with the reasoning? Your main issues seem to be that:
If you explain the problem instead of throwing around epithets maybe we can reach consensus.
As for Peak oil being controversial, I think Mumia-w-18 addressed that just fine above. That article is extremely well sourced and no one has stepped forward to deny that. Even King Abdulah of S.Arabia and the former head of Aramco's exploration division (not to mention more local oil execs) have been saying there's a looming problem. Look up the Hirsch report and see that the US gov is worried. [GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 23:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I never said there wasn't an oil issue that needed to be responded to. I said this the original research conclusions offered about its affect on agriculture were nonsense. Changes in energy and agriculture toward sustainability is official policy in all technologically advanced nations with billions of dollars being spent to implement sustainability. Yes, there is an issue. Yes, it is being dealt with. Yes, we should have articles on it. Yes we do. Not enough. We are very lacking in agriculture and national policy articles. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 01:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Any objections to this wording? "More than 10 kcalories (kilogram-calories or "large calories") of exosomatic energy are spent in the U.S. food system per kcalorie of food delivered to the consumer. Put another way, the food system consumes ten times more energy than it provides to society in food energy... About 330 quads (1 quad = 1015 BTU) of all forms of energy per year are used worldwide by humans. A large fraction of this energy, about 81 percent, is provided by fossil energy worldwide each year. Moreover, about 50 percent of all solar energy captured by photosynthesis worldwide is already used by humans, but most of it is captured as food and other agricultural products, which are not included in the 330 quads. That agricultural output is already inadequate to meet human needs for food and forest products. We would be in grim trouble if we had to derive our energy needs from current basic photosynthetic production, as our ancestors did. Given the anticipated decline in fossil fuel use, and the continued growth of human populations, that problem is ahead of us rather than behind us... Clearly, there is a room for substitutability among fossil energy sources, and natural gas and coal are expected to increase their share as soon as oil supply will decrease. However, gas supplies are not at all that much better off. Coal is not infinite and it exacts a high environmental cost or a high price to clean it up... Currently worldwide there is serious degradation of land, water, and biological resources generated by the increasing use of fossil energy by the world's population. Already, more fossil energy is used than is available in the form of a sustainable supply of biomass, more nitrogen fertilizer is used per year than could be obtained by natural supply, water is pumped out of underground reservoirs at a higher rate than it is recharged, and more minerals are taken out of mines than are formed by biogeochemical cycles. Fossil energy and technology enabled humans to (temporarily) sustain excesses. At present and projected world population levels, the current pattern of human development is not ecologically sustainable. The world economic system is built on depleting, as fast as possible, the very natural resources on which human survival depends... Approximately 1/3rd of the world's arable land and forests were lost during the past 40 years due to mismanagement and degradation. Currently, there is only 0.28 ha of arable land per capita with a world population of 5.5 billion people. It is estimated that about 0.5 ha per capita is needed for a diverse and varied diet. With the world population to double to 11 billion people, there will be less than 0.15 ha per capita in just 40 years (very close to a "Chinese situation"). At the same time, evidence suggests that arable land degradation is increasing as poor farmers burn more crop residues and dung as fuel f or cooking and other purposes, instead of returning them to the land... The level of energy consumption that will be enjoyed by a future "sustainable society" will lie below the one reached today by developed countries (based on the relentless exploitation of fossil fuels) and above the one typical of pre-industrial societies which rely completely on photosynthesis. Renewable energies have to play a major role to substitute for the role currently played by fossil energy. The lower the population density, the lower will be the demand of energy for food production, the lower the environmental impact of agriculture, the larger the choice of possible alternative energy sources and in the last analysis, the higher the probability of achieving an acceptable standard of living and eco-compatibility." [1]
Mario Giampietro wrote his doctoral thesis on "Complex systems theory applied to the analysis of sustainability of agriculture: developing innovative tools and procedures for bridging social, economic and ecological analyses," and is now ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
David Pimentel teaches Environmental Policy in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. He was a an Oxford fellow and a consulting ecologist in the Nixon Whitehouse.[GW] 24.225.185.179 21:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
WAS 4.250: some of your recent edits are kind of puzzling. Shouldn't a really long history section be in a seperate history article? Shouldn't the entemology be in wikionary? Why did you delete that graph that showed some very interesting effects of modern agriculture on the work force? [GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 15:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
High prices increase the profits of crop growers, but they put pressure on the slim margins of livestock farmers. [8] While biofuels are often viewed as environmentally friendly, the cultivation of biofuels has been criticized for its unintended consequences. [9] Strong demand for biofuels provides an incentive for farmers in the developing world to raze forests and plant crops such as palm oil, putting further stress on the environment. [10]
I moved this here because the sources provided do not establish the claims being made. The claims are phrased as general truths, while the sources establish a much narrower claim limited in time and location and circumstance. It's like using a link that is only about climate change in Alaska to source a claim that the whole world in undergoing a climate change or a link to a bank robbery by a gang of women to claim something about crime in general or women in general. WAS 4.250 ( talk) 10:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I argue that the sources do not make the same claims as are articulated in the statements that they are attached to and you agree pleading "self evident". No. Not self evident. Get a source for the claim, not an example. Examples don't prove more general statements. You can't claim it always rains on Sunday in New York and then provide an example of it raining on Sunday in New York. Higher prices only increase profit if costs have not increased proportionately. WAS 4.250 16:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Since the 1940s, agriculture has dramatically increased its productivity, due largely to the use of petrochemical derived pesticides, fertilizers, and increased mechanization. This has allowed world population to grow more than double over the last 50 years. Every energy unit delivered in food grown using modern techniques requires over ten energy units to produce and deliver. The vast majority of this energy input comes from fossil fuel sources. Because of modern agriculture's heavy reliance on petrochemicals and mechanization, as well as the lack of any quickly available non-petroleum based alternatives, the 10:1 energy equation has caused many agriculture, petroleum, sociology, and ecology experts to warn that the ever decreasing supply of oil (the dramatic nature of which is known as peak oil. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]) will inflict major damage on the modern industrial agriculture system, causing a collapse in food production ability and food shortages as energy becomes increasingly unavailable for food production (a list of over 20 published articles and books supporting this thesis can be found here in the section: "Food, Land, Water, and Population").
One example of this chain reaction is the effect of petroleum supplies on fertilizer production. By far the biggest fossil fuel input to agriculture is the use of natural gas as a hydrogen source for the Haber-Bosch fertilizer-creation process citation needed. Natural gas is used because it is the cheapest currently available source of hydrogen citation needed. When oil production becomes so scarce that natural gas is used as a partial stopgap replacement, and hydrogen use in transportation increases, natural gas will become much more expensive. If other sources of hydrogen are not available to replace the Haber process, in amounts sufficient to supply transportation and agricultural needs, this major source of fertilizer would either become extremely expensive or unavailable. This would either cause food shortages or dramatic rises in food prices.
One effect of oil shortages (and by far the most sustainable alternative) is a full return to organic agriculture methods. This conversion would take time, as well as major reconditioning of soil which now relies on chemical fertilizers to be produce enough food to meet demands. Also, while some farmers using modern organic-farming methods have reported yields as high as those available from conventional farming (but without the use of fossil-fuel-intensive artificial fertilizers or pesticides) [16] [17] [18] [19], this may be more labor-intensive citation needed and require a shift of work force from urban to rural areas.
Farmers have also begun raising crops such as corn for non-food use in an effort to help mitigate peak oil. This has already lowered food production [20], an effect which will be exacerbated when demand for ethanol fuels rises. Rising food and fuel costs has already limited the abilities of some charitable donors to send food aid to starving populations. [21] In the UN, some warn that the recent 60% rise in wheat prices could cause "serious social unrest in developing countries." [22] [GW] 24.225.185.179 23:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
The comments and suggested text to add to the article are much improved and I thank everyone for their wonderful efforts. I don't want to make anyone frustrated or discouraged, so don't take this lecture on sources the wrong way. In fact the improvements are already good enough that directly adding to the article and editing it from there might be advised so as not to look like I'm trying to own the page and it is more fun that way and it respects authorship attribution better. But there are still sourcing issues that you guys need to hear about and do your best to accommodate to maintain compliance with Wikipedia content policies.
The general idea is to use the best sources to establish that a claim is relevant to the article and generally believed by those in the best position to know. Primary sources are not as good for this as secondary sources. Let's take the above source http://www.dieoff.com/page69.htm as an example. the authors check out ok, but the site http://www.dieoff.com/ is self published and thus unacceptable as a reliable source in general. As a list of sources it seems ok. The article is summarized at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=12178986&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google which is a reliable source and should be used. The full article has a major problem in that it is essentially an opinion piece that is a primary source. At best one could say "Mario Giampietro and David Pimentel have stated that ..." but the relevance of their opinion should be established by some other more general source - in other words we can use what they say here for claims that are given credibility elsewhere. This is a process at wikipedia, and we don't have to make it perfect before we add it to the article, but we should not add claims that we have reason to believe are contested opinions without also giving the other opinions due weight so the article can be WP:NPOV.
See WP:NOR for more information. WAS 4.250 15:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
"You have some basic naivete about your own condescending attitude and how it affects your relationship with others. I'll take the opinion of the experts over yours any day. I'm glad you are helping with the [agriculture] articles. I just wish you would add as much data as you delete. I always saw my role as adding sourced data that then others would polish/edit. I should not have to write a perfect encyclopedia paragraph for it not to be deleted. All I'm saying is don't delete based on imperfect writing. Deleting and tagging is child's work; try adding sourced data or polishing existing data to make it read better - now that's a job for an adult."
Lead currently reads:
"As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture[1] (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation. However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. "
That sounds like it contradicts itself. Anyone know which it is?[GW] 24.225.185.179 ( talk) 04:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
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