Over the 10,000 years since agriculture began to be developed, people everywhere have discovered the food value of wild plants and animals and domesticated and bred them.
By 8000 BC the people who dwelled in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys had began to plant seeds themselves and grow their own barley and wheat. They were also rearing their own goats and sheep.
Independently a type of agriculture centered upon maize in Peru and rice in South Eastern Asia had emerged by 7500 BC.
The first agricultural revolution of Medieval Europe begins in 1050 AD with a shift to the northern lands for cultivation, a period of improved climate from 700 to 1200 in western Europe, and the widespread use and perfection of new farming devices. Technological innovations include the use of the heavy plow, the three-field system of crop rotation, the use of mills for processing cloth, crushing pulp for paper manufacture, and the widespread use of iron and horses.
During the 16th century in Europe, between 55 and 75% of the population was engaged in agriculture; by the 19th century, this had dropped to between 35 and 65%.
Mechanical improvements of the traditional wooden plow began in the mid-1600s with small iron points fastened onto the wood with strips of leather. Other notable inventions included the seed drill of the English agriculturist Jethro Tull, developed in the early 1700s.
In 1790, 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture.
Since the Industrial Revolution, many countries have made the transition to developed economies, and the proportion of people working in agriculture has steadily fallen.
Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan on February 12, 1855. It was the United States' first agricultural college.
President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill into law creating the independent United States Bureau of Agriculture on May 15, 1862. The USBA was headed by a commissioner without Cabinet status, and the agriculturalist Isaac Newton was appointed to be the first such commissioner. Lincoln called it the "people's department." It was later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
The distribution in the mid-1990s of the world’s labor force employed in agriculture ranged from 60 percent of the economically active population in Africa and Asia to less than 3 percent in the United States and Canada.
At the start of the 21st century, some one billion people, or over one third of the available workforce, were employed in agriculture.
The service sector overtook the agricultural sector as the largest global employer in 2007.
By 2015, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, followed by the European Union, India and the United States.
Agricultural exports create nearly one million American jobs both on and off the farm.
Much of the foreign exchange earned by a country may be derived from a single commodity; for example, Denmark specializes in dairy products, Sri Lanka depends on tea, Australia focuses on wool, and New Zealand and Argentina on meat products.
The world's most northerly agriculture is practiced in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean only 800 miles (1,100 km) from the North Pole. Svalbard's agriculture takes the form of greenhouse growing and indoor animal husbandry.
By 8000 BC the people who dwelled in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys had began to plant seeds themselves and grow their own barley and wheat. They were also rearing their own goats and sheep.
Independently a type of agriculture centered upon maize in Peru and rice in South Eastern Asia had emerged by 7500 BC.
The first agricultural revolution of Medieval Europe begins in 1050 AD with a shift to the northern lands for cultivation, a period of improved climate from 700 to 1200 in western Europe, and the widespread use and perfection of new farming devices. Technological innovations include the use of the heavy plow, the three-field system of crop rotation, the use of mills for processing cloth, crushing pulp for paper manufacture, and the widespread use of iron and horses.
During the 16th century in Europe, between 55 and 75% of the population was engaged in agriculture; by the 19th century, this had dropped to between 35 and 65%.
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| The Harvesters. Pieter Bruegel – 1565 |
Mechanical improvements of the traditional wooden plow began in the mid-1600s with small iron points fastened onto the wood with strips of leather. Other notable inventions included the seed drill of the English agriculturist Jethro Tull, developed in the early 1700s.
In 1790, 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture.
Since the Industrial Revolution, many countries have made the transition to developed economies, and the proportion of people working in agriculture has steadily fallen.
Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan on February 12, 1855. It was the United States' first agricultural college.
President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill into law creating the independent United States Bureau of Agriculture on May 15, 1862. The USBA was headed by a commissioner without Cabinet status, and the agriculturalist Isaac Newton was appointed to be the first such commissioner. Lincoln called it the "people's department." It was later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
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| The Jamie L. Whitten Building in Washington D.C., the USDA headquarters. |
At the start of the 21st century, some one billion people, or over one third of the available workforce, were employed in agriculture.
The service sector overtook the agricultural sector as the largest global employer in 2007.
By 2015, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, followed by the European Union, India and the United States.
Agricultural exports create nearly one million American jobs both on and off the farm.
Much of the foreign exchange earned by a country may be derived from a single commodity; for example, Denmark specializes in dairy products, Sri Lanka depends on tea, Australia focuses on wool, and New Zealand and Argentina on meat products.
The world's most northerly agriculture is practiced in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean only 800 miles (1,100 km) from the North Pole. Svalbard's agriculture takes the form of greenhouse growing and indoor animal husbandry.
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