Questions about agriculture ?
why is it difficult 2 rely on provision of nature at this time the population has increased.?
why is agriculture important to economic aspect?
Answer:
Agriculture (encompasses farming, ranching, and the tending of orchards and vineyards) is the production of food, feed, fiber, fuel and other goods by the systematic raising of plants and breeding and feeding animals.
Agri is from Latin ager, meaning "a field", and culture is from Latin cultura, meaning "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil". A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field". In modern usage, the word agriculture covers all activities essential to food/feed/fiber production, including all techniques for raising and "processing" livestock. Agriculture is also short for the study of the practice of agriculture — more formally known as agricultural science.
The history of agriculture is a major element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change, including wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to ambitions and enterprises other than food acquisition.
Forty-two percent of the world's laborers are employed in agriculture, making it by far the most common occupation. However, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the Gross World Product (an aggregate of all Gross Domestic Products).The term "farming" covers the wide spectrum of agricultural practices. On one end of the spectrum 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.
Modern agriculture extends well beyond the traditional production of food for humans and animal feeds. Other agricultural production goods include timber, fertilizers, animal hides, leather, industrial chemicals (starch, sugar, ethanol, alcohols and plastics), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).
The twentieth century saw massive changes in agricultural practice, particularly in agricultural chemistry and in mechanization. Agricultural chemistry includes the application of chemical fertilizer, chemical insecticides (see pest control), and chemical fungicides, soil makeup, analysis of agricultural products, and nutritional needs of farm animals. Up to and including the 1970s, surface runoff of fertilizer and pesticides was a growing, uncontrolled problem. Starting roughly in 1980, many Western nations, prodded by dozens of environmental action groups, began to implement effective controls on agriculture-related pollution, and the green revolution spread many of the benefits of agricultural chemistry to farms throughout the world, without the extreme pollution that originally accompanied them. Mechanization has also enormously increased farm efficiency and productivity in most regions of the world, especially in the form of the tractor and various gins (short for "engine") like the cotton gin, semi-automatic balers and threshers and, above all, the Combine (see agricultural machinery).
Other recent changes in agriculture include hydroponics, plant breeding, hybridization, gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved weed control. Genetic engineering has yielded crops which have capabilities beyond those of naturally occurring plants, such as higher yields and disease resistance. Modified seeds germinate faster, and thus can be grown in an extended growing area. Genetic engineering of plants has proven controversial, particularly in the case of herbicide-resistant plants.
Engineers may develop plants for irrigation, drainage, conservation and sanitary engineering, particularly important in normally arid areas which rely upon constant irrigation, and on large scale farms.
The packing, processing, and marketing of agricultural products are closely related activities also influenced by science. Methods of quick-freezing and dehydration have increased the markets for farm products (see food preservation and meat packing industry).
Animals, including horses, mules, oxen, camels, llamas, alpacas, and dogs, are often used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to markets. Animal husbandry not only refers to the breeding and raising of animals for meat or to harvest animal products (like milk, eggs, or wool) on a continual basis, but also to the breeding and care of species for work and companionship.
Airplanes, helicopters, trucks, tractors, and combines are used in Western (and, increasingly, Eastern) agriculture for seeding, spraying operations for insect and disease control, harvesting, aerial topdressing and transporting perishable products. Radio and television disseminate vital weather reports and other information such as market reports that concern farmers. Computers have become an essential tool for farm management.According to the National Academy of Engineering in the United States, agricultural mechanization is one of the 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century. Early in the century, it took one American farmer to produce food for 2.5 people. By 1999, due to advances in agricultural technology, a single farmer could feed over 130 people.[2] This comes at a cost, however. A large energy input, often from fossil fuels, is required to maintain such high levels of output. With the impending loss of access to inexpensive petroleum inputs, and with no alternative spot power source on the horizon, the single-farmer-to-people-fed ratio could well fall back to early 20th century levels.
In recent years, some aspects of intensive industrial agriculture have been the subject of increasing discussion. The widening sphere of influence held by large seed and chemical companies, meat packers and food processors has been a source of concern both within the farming community and for the general public. Another issue is the type of feed given to some animals that can cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. There has also been concern because of the disastrous effect that intensive agriculture has on the environment. In the US, for example, fertilizer has been running off into the Mississippi for years and has caused a dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi empties. Intensive agriculture also depletes the fertility of the land over time, potentially leading to desertification.In 2005, the agriculture of China was the largest in the world, accounting for almost one-sixth world share followed by the EU, India and the USA, reports the International Monetary Fund.Historically, agriculture and the rural milieu have been important to the economy and to society as a whole in the hemisphere. Their importance continues to grow today, due to their interdependent and multisectoral natures and the variety of their contributions to the economy, macroeconomy, the environment and governance which, combined, have had an impact on economic growth, and the welfare and quality of life of all inhabitants, both rural and urban, throughout the hemisphere. Thus, now and in the future, agriculture and the rural milieu will continue to be a matter of strategic importance for all the countries of the hemisphere.The strategic importance of agriculture and the rural milieu stem from the fact that they constitute a way of life for millions of individuals who depend on them for their work and sustenance. However, in most of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, rural inhabitants are chronically and overwhelmingly at a disadvantage in terms of access to resources, means of livelihood, and income. This has given rise to a situation of structural inequality and the impoverishment of very large sectors of the rural population.
Overall economic performance, and the performance of agriculture and the rural milieu in particular, have shown that, although the new globalized economic growth model has had an impact on all the countries, impact has varied in terms of intensity, dynamism and timing, meaning that it has not been a linear process and results have varied from country to country and from region to region. Although macroeconomic accounts have maintained relative equilibrium, the recovery growth rate as a whole is still far below 1970 levels and below the levels of competing regions in other parts of the developing world; it cannot be said that development has been equitable in the region.
Social welfare indicators have shown significant improvements, but they still have not translated into a satisfactory reduction of poverty, especially in rural areas. In the 1990s, some headway was made to turn around the accelerated deterioration experienced in the 1980s. Unfortunately, however, inequitable income distribution returned to its earlier high levels after a marked decline in the 1970s, and today LAC is the most inequitable region of the world. Until the early 1990s, there was no visible manifestation of significant change in agriculture and the rural milieu. As of 1994, however, changes began to be observed at different levels. The growth of agricultural production became more dynamic; the production structure was visibly transformed to make greater use of natural advantages; there was a greater diversification of production, especially in the oilseed-livestock and fruit-vegetable systems. Growth was observed in agroindustry, agroindustrial and agricultural exports, the productivity of croplands, the size of the agricultural labor force, and the use of production factors., Although these changes were not the same for all the countries, they can generally be divided into two large groups. In the first, about half the countries have a dynamic and growing agricultural sector, accompanied by a similar level of economic performance. Falling into this group are most of those countries that have boosted their per capita food output, agricultural productivity and yields. It also includes most that have made significant progress in their reform processes and in efforts to reduce poverty, are net foreign exchange contributors, and have the highest per-worker export values.The other half includes most countries with lower agricultural and lower economic growth rates and includes most whose per capita food output has fallen, a good part of those with minimal productivity and yield increases, and those that have more recently implemented economic reforms of narrower scope. This group also includes those that have made less progress in reducing poverty or where poverty has actually increased, those that have contributed less significantly to alleviating the trade deficit for total goods, and those requiring foreign exchange to cover their imports. Most of the countries in this group are net food importers.Most of the countries have not fully developed strategic support activities for the extended agricultural sector. A rapid review of institutional assessments provides the following parameters for the current situation: a) investment levels for research and technology transfer services as a proportion of agricultural GDP are low; b) food safety is growing in strategic and public importance but is still at an incipient level of development; c) mechanisms have not been institutionalized at the regional level for the purpose of reaching agreement and negotiating, which would contribute to improving the processes to build consensus among actors of agri-industrial chains on integration and more specific matters; d) shortcomings in communications and information in general, and price and market information in particular, prevent them from being determining elements of competitiveness; and e) serious constraints prevent training, education, and extension from becoming effective vectors of growth, developing competitiveness, boosting revenues, adopting technology, and upgrading management abilities in general, and natural resource and environmental management in particular. Several countries have undertaken to reform and adapt public and private agricultural institutions at the central, regional and local levels, but these still seem to be incipient and occasional attempts.
Finally, it is of particular concern to observe in an open and competitive economy that there is a growing gap in the production, technology, information sciences, education, management, institutional and social sectors within the countries of the region, and between all of them and competing countries and regions, as well as our trading partners.
Agriculture and the rural milieu can contribute very concretely to, and also have specific limitations for, improving overall competitiveness and overcoming rural poverty. Circumstances have shown that boosting the competitiveness of agriculture and the rural milieu and overcoming rural poverty are not solely and exclusively within the purview of agriculture and the rural milieu. The two are intimately interrelated parts of the same phenomenon that must be addressed with multisectoral and differing scopes of action, and involve persons from outside the sector, including stakeholders in other activities and the rest of the economy. Because the causes producing a given level of competitiveness and poverty are multisectoral and multidimensional, each specific situation will provide the opportunity to observe the composition of intervening factors, the relationship between them and their relative importance.
Sounds like an assignment question here.
ag is the growing of plants and animals for human use normally for food
nature is normally slow to change. it is possible to increase productivity of land but normally ittakes time. if a pop boom occurs normally ag can't keep up. for example, you raise cattle and you have set up to bring 20 head to market each year, you can do this be breeding a certain amount each year so every year 20 animals mature and are ready for market. If all of a sudden you need 30 animals, how do you do it. you can't bring 30 imediately or you will be short on breeding stock. you may be able to increase your breeding stock but then you need to reduce the amount you bring to market until births have increased.
the last one - economics drives ag and ag is important part of the overall economy. Everybody's gotta eat
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