Agriculture

The agricultural activities are those that integrate the agricultural call sector. All the economic activities that this sector includes, have their foundation in the operation of the ground or the appeals that this one originates in natural way or by the action of the man: cereals, fruits, vegetables, I graze, forages and others varied vegetal foods.

Agriculture is the human agricultural activity that includes/understands everything a set of actions who transforms natural environmental pollution, with the purpose of to make it more apt for the growth of the sowings.

It is an activity of strategic major importance like fundamental base for the self-sufficient development and wealth of the nations.

The science that studies the practice of agriculture is agronomy.

History

The birth of agriculture

The origin of agriculture is in the Neolithic period, when the economy of the human companies maneuvered from the harvesting, the fighter aircraft and the fishing to agriculture and the cattle ranch. The first cultivated plants were the wheat and the barley. Their origins are lost in the prehistory and its development was developed in several cultures practiced that it of independent form, like that they arose in the fertile Increasing denominated one (Middle East between Mesopotamia and Antiguo Egypt), the pre-Columbian cultures of Central America, the culture developed by the Chinese to the east of Asia, etc.

A transition, generally gradual takes place, from the economy of fighter aircraft and harvesting to the agriculturist. The ratios of the development of agriculture could more have to climate changes towards temperate temperatures; also they could be due to the fighter aircraft shortage or harvesting foods, to the desertización of ample regions, etc. In spite of its advantages, according to some anthropologists, agriculture meant a reduction of the variety in the diet, creating an exchange in the evolution of the species towards more vulnerable individuals, and employees of an enclave, that the homínidos previous types of.

Agriculture allowed highest density of population that the economy of fighter aircraft and harvesting by the food availability for a maximum number of individuals. With agriculture the companies are sedentarizando themselves and the property stops being a law only on mobile objects to also move to real estate, extends division of labor and arises one more a more complex company with non-industrial activities and commercial specialized, the agricultural fire positions and the conflicts by the interpretation of property edges give legal and governmental origin to the first system.

Agriculture in Rome

In Rome cereals, leguminous and vegetables were cultivated mainly. Later other species were introduced as the grapevine and the olive tree. The plow with oxen was used, being the farmer the one that worked with its family, unless it had a slave or servant. Some contributions to agriculture are the Roman plow, oil presses, techniques of irrigated land and the introduction of the fertilizer.

Middle Age

Throughout the Middle Age important technological new developments arise that they will contribute some positive elements to the work of the farmers. The plow of wheels and vertedera was gotten up throughout century XI in the regions of the north of the Alps, whereas the Mediterranean area followed tie the Roman plow. Another new development will be the frontal yoke and the ironworks of the animal, emphasizing the paper of the horse in numerous regions. The wind mills and hydraulic engineers will avoid many efforts to the labriegos, like the progresses in the rastrilleo or I beat and the incorporation of a new type of sickle. The triennial rotation will be an important new development. The Earth is divided in three zones that are dedicated respectively to winter cultivations, of primrose and fallow land, which will increase the production and it will do it more diversified. The cattle farming also will have a major role in the life farmer. In spite of the progresses, medieval agriculture always indicated signs of uncertainty due to his under yield and its close dependancy to the natural conditions.

The main innovations in medieval agriculture were:

1. The use of the heavy plow with wheels,
2. The use of the horse
3. The introduction of the rotation of three fields by harvest to replace the old rotation of two fields.

These exchanges caused a growth, as much in the variety as in the amount of harvests, at that moment it had significant effects in the diet of the European. The exchange of the ox by the horse was the result of two technological developments - the use of the horseshoe and the development of collera- that allowed the horse to fire easily of a load. The use of horses to fire increased the efficiency of the transport by ground, as much for the commerce as for the military campaigns. This lead to the growth of the industry of transport by ground. Also it allowed a general improvement of the road network and increased trade opportunities for some communities located in the crossroads. The use of the horse allowed the expansion of arable lands and contributed to the increase in production of foods, at the same time as it accompanied the aggressive agricultural expansion that invariably left straggler to the medieval forest.

The “Games” of Alfonso X of Castile defines to the farmers like the “that they work the Earth and they fazen in her those things by which the men have to live and to stay”. Doubt that does not fit with this definition we can consider to the peasantry like the fundamental force of the work in the medieval company. And it is that the field was the great protagonist in the European Middle Age. The appeals that contributed to agriculture and the cattle ranch were the base of the economy and the Earth was the center of the social reports, leaving to the margin the urban revolution that is lived as of century XIII.

According to the estimations appeared, growth rate inter-annual average of the European population during period 1000-1300 was of 0.2%. If one takes only western people of Europe, growth rate is very similar. This slow growth, in addition, was distributed unequally between individual regions. Nevertheless, we are in the presence of a sustained growth, by weak that is their rate. One of the causes of the sustained growth was a reduction of mortality rate due to the restoration of a greater political stability than it avoided huge number of wars and them improvement in the feeding product of the incorporation of the eighth amino acid, thanks to the consumption of the lentil.

The present time

Century XX, especially with the appearance of the tractor, the demanding missions to seed, to harvest and to beat can be realized of fast form and on a before unimaginable scale. According to the Academy the International of Engineering of EE.UU, agrarian mechanization he is one of the 20 majors profits of the engineering of century XX. At the beginning of century XX, in EE.UU a farmer was needed to feed on 2 5 people, whereas today, thanks to the technology, the present agroquímicos and varieties, a farmer can feed 130 people. The cost of this productivity is the great energy consumption, generally of fossil fuels.

The diffusion of the radium and the television (mass media), as well as of computer science, are helpful, when facilitating weather reports, studies of market, etc.

Besides food for humans and their animal, other things take place more and more, like flowers, ornamental plants, wood, fertilizers, skins, leather, chemical products (ethanol, plastics, sugar, starch), fibers (cotton, hemp, linen), biofarmacéuticos fuel (biodiésel, the own ethanol, that now already is being obtained from the maize), products, and legal drugs as as much illegal (tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine). Also plants created by genetic engeneering exist that produce specialized substances (like, for example, the transgenic maize, that, like the ethanol obtaining, is modifying the economy of the cultivations of this plant and the life of the communities that of her continue depending).

The genetic manipulation, the best management of the nutrients of the ground and the improvement in the control of the seeds have increased enormously the harvests by unit of surface, in return these seeds have become more sensible to plagues and diseases, which entails a last necessity of these major on the part of the agriculturist; Proof of it is the resurgence of old varieties, very resistant to the diseases and plagues, by its hardiness. At the same time, mechanization has reduced the skilled labor exigency. The harvests are generally smaller in the poorest countries, when lacking the capital, the scientific technology and necessary knowledge.

Modern agriculture enormously depends on the technology and physical and biological sciences. The irrigation, the drainage, the conservation and the health, that are vital for a successful agriculture, demand the specialist knowledge of engineer agronomists. The agricultural chemist, however, deals with the application fertilizers, insecticides and fungicides, the ground repair, the agricultural product analysis, etc.

The varieties of seeds have been improved until the point to be able to germinate more express and to adapt to brief climate stations different. The present seeds can resist to pesticides able to exterminate to all the green plants. The hidropónicos cultivations, a method to cultivate without ground, being used solutions of chemical nutrients, can help to cover the growing demand with production as the world population increases.

Other modern techniques that have contributed to the development of agriculture are those of packaging, prosecution and trade. Thus, the prosecution of foods, as congealed fast and the dehydration has abierto new horizons to marketing of products and increased the possible markets.

Types of agriculture

The types of agriculture can be divided according to very different criteria from classification:

According to its dependancy of the water:

• Of dry land: it is the agriculture produced without water contribution on the part of the same agriculturist, nourishing itself the ground of rain and/or underground waters.
• Of irrigated land: one takes place with the water contribution on the part of the agriculturist, by means of the provision that attracts of natural or artificial superficial channels, or by means of the underground water extraction of wells.

According to the magnitude of the production and its report with the market:

• Agriculture of subsistence: it consists of the production of the minimum amount of food necessary to cover the needs with the agriculturist and their family, without hardly surpluses that to commercialize. The technical level is primitive.
• Industrial agriculture: expensive means of production take place great amounts, using, to obtain marketable surpluses and to sell them with the hope to obtain profits. Typical of industrialized countries, the developing countries and the internationalized sector of the poorest countries. The technical level is of technological order. Also it can be defined as Agriculture of market.

According to it is tried to obtain the maximum yield or the minimum use of other means of production, which will determine a major or minor treads ecological:

• Intensive farming: it looks for a great production in little space. It entails a greater wearing down of the site. Own of the industrialized countries.
• Extensive farming: it depends on a greater surface, that is to say, it causes minor pressure on the place and its ecological reports, although their commercial gains usually are smaller.

According to the method and targets:

• Traditional farming: it uses the typical systems of a place, that have formed the culture of the same, in periods more or less prolonged.
• Industrial agriculture: cradle mainly in intensive systems, is focused to produce great amounts of foods in less time and space - but with greater ecological wearing down, directed to move commercial huge profits.
• Organic farming and Organic farming: they create diverse production systems that respect the ecological characteristics of the places and geobiológicas of grounds, trying to respect the stations and the natural distributions of the plant species.

• Natural agriculture.

Agriculture and environmental pollution

Agriculture has an major impact in environmental pollution. In the last years, some aspects of the intensive farming at industrial level have been more and more controversial. The increasing influence of the producing major companies of seeds and chemical products and the processors of food worry as much to the agriculturists as to the general public more and more. The disastrous effect on the surroundings of the intensive farming has caused that vast previously fertile areas have stopped being it completely, as it happened in times with the Middle East, the long ago Earth of more fertile cultivation of the world and now a desert.

Some current problems

• Contamination by nitrogen and fósforomagnesio in rivers, Lagos and underground waters
• Erosion of the terrain.
• Mineral exhaustion of the ground.
• Salinization of the ground in dry zones.

Many of these problems are exhausting and desertizando the ground, forcing to abandon areas sandarac tree other new ones that, as well, are run out, creating a vicious circle that is destroying the surroundings. An clear example is the progressive deforestation of the forest of the Amazon.

Machineries, equipment and agricultural tools

Agricultural machineries

The machineries are elements that are used to direct the activity of labor forces with energy; on the other hand in the agricultural field, the mechanisms to engine that are used in these workings lighten the production and improve the methods of cultivation. Between the used agricultural machines more in the workings of the field they are mentioned:

• tractor: it is a very useful agricultural machine, with designed wheels or imprisonments to move with facility in the terrain and power of traction that allows to realize agricultural major tasks, in terrains even flooded. It has two pedals of brake and is preparing to haul drags. There are two types of tractors: the tracked one, of great stability and force, and the one of wheels, able to move until by highways; it owns major speed that the tracked one.
• cultivator: it is an agricultural machine of a single axis and one operates by handles; it has median power and directed force of engine for hortícolas workings and ornament; it can work in strong terrains, but it is used preferably in construction of gardens.
• harvester: or harvester is an agricultural machine of powerful engine, cutting comb to harvest the mature cereal plants and a long rake that goes in front of the machine and turns on a horizontal axis.

Agricultural equipment

The agricultural equipment is a group of designed apparatuses/airplanes abrir Earth furrows, to crumble, to fumigate and to fertilize in the ground.

• Plow: it is an agricultural equipment designed abrir Earth furrows; it is made up of a blade, grate, vertedera, log, bed, rudder and mancera, which serve to cut and to balance the Earth, to maintain the pieces of the plow, to determine the shot and to serve as grip. Diverse types of plows exist but the most known they are:
  • plow of vertedera, formed by the grate, blades and the vertedera
  • disc plow, formed by concave discs abrir deep furrows
  • superficial plow, to remove the layer superior of the ground
  • subsoil plow, to remove the Earth to depth.

• Drag: it is an agricultural equipment designed to crumble the parts or portions of ground that have been removed by the plow; they are composed by a frame, that can be of wood and metal, the teeth and the enlistment unites that it to the tractor.

• Asperjadora: it is an agricultural equipment designed to fumigate; it is composed by a tank of liquid, bomb of pressure, covers, belt, mouth, tank and control valve, hose, key and fuze by where it leaves the liquid to fumigate, is insecticide, fungicide or weed killer. The asperjadora manual is invested in the rearguard of the sprayer and this it takes invested in the mouth and nose a special mask to avoid that the strong scents dismissed by the substance that expele the asperjadora does damage to him.

• Sowing machine of direct sowing: it is an equipment to invest the simientes ones on the sowing bed, without previous working.
• Guarantor: it is an agricultural equipment designed to distribute fertilizers; she is composed by three main parts: the hopper or tank of the fertilizer, the tube of fall of the fertilizer and the distributer of the fertilizer.

Agricultural tools

The agricultural tools are instruments that are used to work the Earth, to load sand, to deshierbar, to remove the Earth, abrir ditches, to transport fertilizer or material, etc. Are many and very varied the agricultural tools, between which they are mentioned:

• Blades: they are metal laminae, preferably steel, that are used to work the Earth; they can be of end or wide form; they have edge inferior with sharp edge and long wood mango finished in a metal handle.
• Tips: are instruments composed of a part of steel whose ends finish in the form of rectangular blade, on the one hand, and by the Earth in vertical form; it has a rectangular blade with edge inferior of edge and mango of wood or metal.
• You weed: they are tools with end in the form of blade; it is of metal with edge inferior of sharp edge; it serves to remove the Earth.
• Machetes: are designed tools to cut; they have a steel leaf long and sharpened, together with a wood mango.
• Rakes: designed to cover or to rake seeds; they have one divides metal horizontal and formed by thin or heavy teeth according to the use.
• Transplantadores: they are small blades of metal in the form of spoon small, sharpened edges and wood mango. They serve to remove seeds.
• Small carts: they are small charges that have a wheel and serve to load and to unload agricultural material, is sand, ground, fertilizers.
• Pickaxes: they are finished steel handles in leaf it plants and it stands of the same metal, median mango longitude.
• Regaderas: they are metal packages with tank for water, with a tube that finishes in a round piece with many small holes; it serves to water plants.

Differences between machineries, equipment and tools according to its use

The difference is that the machineries are in charge to remove the Earth, whereas the equipment is in charge to help the terrain, to undo than would not have to be in the Earth, and the tools help to transport and to excavate to seed a new cultivation.

Importance of the machineries, equipment and tools in the agricultural work

The importance that exists in:

• The agricultural machineries are used to drag, to crumble or to remove the Earth, cleaning and to seed.
• The agricultural equipment is used to work the Earth, to eliminate the weeds, to fumigate the plants and to fertilize the ground.
• The agricultural tools are used abrir ditches, to load ground, to extract roots, to take grass, to perforate the ground and to sprinkle with water the plants.

Agricultural policies

The agricultural policy is very complex due to the necessity to balance the ecology, the social needs of the country and problems on those who live on the field.

Agriculture is an key issue in the fight by global justice. In spite of to exist excess of food in world markets, that causes that the prices fall of continued form, not yet has solved the problem of the hunger in the world. The fast loss of arable lands and the diminution of the amount of fresh water available, of which a 70% are used for agriculture, are today one of the main causes of the poverty. The fight against the hunger that undergoes 800 million human beings is not possible without a radical reform of the global agricultural policy.

The rich countries protect their agriculturists, either through production subsidies, or through strong tariffs to foreign products. This cause that the agriculturists of poor countries are themselves incapable to compete in equality, reason why at the moment exists a great opposition on the part of many sectors to these supports.

The patents granted to the companies that develop new seed types by genetic engeneering have allowed that receives the master's degree to the agriculturists the seeds of form very similar to the used one to license software. This has changed the balance to be able for the manufacturers of seeds, that can now dictate to terms and before impossible conditions. Because if the agriculturist does not accede to the demands of the company, this does not sell the seed to him. This has caused that many accuse to them of biopiratería, since many of these companies are dedicated to investigate the properties of the plants, starting off of millenarian knowledge. Occurring the paradox of which when patenting these knowledge, forcing to the towns of which they have learned this knowledge, to pay to them by its use.

Bibliography

• IROULEGUY VICTORIA* Of agrarische geschiedenis go West-Europe, Utrecht-Antwerp 1962

It is also seen

• Agriculture of precision
• Agriculture of dry land
• Harvest
• Chronology of the technologies of agriculture and feeding
• Rural geography
• Farming zero
• Common agricultural policy of the EU
• Vestibule: Rural
• Green revolution
• Agricultural subsidies

External Links

Commons

• Wikimedia Commons lodges content multimedia on Agriculture.