Agriculture & Agricultural Technology
Agriculture, the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms—wet-rice production in Asia, wheat farming in Europe, cattle ranching in the Americas, and the like—but a more holistic perspective holds that humans are environmental engineers who disrupt terrestrial habitats in specific ways.
Agriculture & Agricultural Technology Encyclopedia Articles
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farm machinery
Farm machinery, mechanical devices, including tractors and implements, used in farming to save labour. Farm machines include a great variety of devices with a wide range of complexity: from simple hand-held...
crop rotation
Crop rotation, the successive cultivation of different crops in a specified order on the same fields, in contrast to a one-crop system or to haphazard crop successions. Throughout human history, wherever...
agricultural technology
Agricultural technology, application of techniques to control the growth and harvesting of animal and vegetable products. Mechanical processing of soil so that it is in the proper physical condition for...
origins of agriculture
Origins of agriculture, the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations...
collectivization
Collectivization, policy adopted by the Soviet government, pursued most intensively between 1929 and 1933, to transform traditional agriculture in the Soviet Union and to reduce the economic power of the...
terrace cultivation
Terrace cultivation, method of growing crops on sides of hills or mountains by planting on graduated terraces built into the slope. Though labour-intensive, the method has been employed effectively to...
aquaculture
Aquaculture, the propagation and husbandry of aquatic plants, animals, and other organisms for commercial, recreational, and scientific purposes. Aquaculture is an approximate aquatic equivalent to agriculture—that...
organic farming
Organic farming, sustainable agricultural system that uses ecologically based pest controls and biological fertilizers derived largely from animal and plant wastes and nitrogen-fixing cover crops. Modern...
livestock farming
Livestock farming, raising of animals for use or for pleasure. In this article, the discussion of livestock includes both beef and dairy cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, mules, asses, buffalo, and camels;...
crop
Crop, in agriculture, a plant or plant product that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. By use, crops fall into six categories: food crops, for human consumption (e.g., wheat,...
poultry farming
Poultry farming, raising of birds domestically or commercially, primarily for meat and eggs but also for feathers. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese are of primary importance, while guinea fowl and squabs...
beekeeping
Beekeeping, care and management of colonies of honeybees. They are kept for their honey and other products or their services as pollinators of fruit and vegetable blossoms or as a hobby. The practice is...