EDUCATION: Definition/Meaning of Agriculture

AGRICULTURE

According to Oxford English Dictionary, Agriculture is the science or practice of farming. Farming is the raising of crops or livestock; the use of land for rearing animals and cultivation of crops.

According to Wikipedia, Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization(Wikipedia).

Some authors define Agriculture as the science, art, or occupation concerned with cultivating land, raising crops, and feeding, feeding and raising livestock; farming.

British Dictionary defined Agriculture as the science or occupation of cultivating land and rearing crops and livestock; farming; husbandry related adjective geoponic. 

However, the term Agriculture is beyond rearing of livestock and cultivation of crops. Agriculture in its modern and general sense also includes Horticulture, Mechanization, Marketing, Extension services, Economics, etc; it is all encompassing.

The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology(Wikipedia)

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have in many cases sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production. Genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries(Wikipedia). Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts. Significant degradation of land and water resources, including the depletion of aquifers, has been observed in recent decades, and the effects of global warming on agriculture and of agriculture on global warming are still not fully understood.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibres, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meats and spices. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. Over one third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector, although the percentages of agricultural workers in developed countries has decreased significantly over the past several centuries (Wikipedia).

Future Of Agriculture

"The evolution of agriculture within the last 11,000 years marked the first major inflection point in food yield and changed forever the character of the human condition(Crop Science, Society Of America). The application of technology to agriculture early in the 20th century induced the next major crop yield inflection point. Identifying the technological wellspring from which increased rates of productivity will be obtained in the decades ahead is far less obvious than during the last century. The agronomic challenge for the decades to come is to increase productivity per unit of land enough to preclude appropriation of other ecosystems for cropland expansion while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of production inputs, reducing their leakage to the environment, and sustaining the integrity of those ecological processes that undergird these intense biological production systems."(Fred P. Miller, retired Professor of Soil Science at the School of Environmental and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University).