AGRICULTURE ECONOMIC INDUSTRY 

          

Agriculture is the first-level industry, which is divided into broad and narrow in modern times. In the broad sense, agriculture is the general term for plantation, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery, while in the narrow sense, it refers purely to plantation . Agricultural products are generally food, fiber, biofuels, drugs, or other items that use natural resources to maintain or enhance human life[1]. The content of this page is agriculture in a broad sense.

Agriculture is primary production and is one of the largest and most important economic activities of mankind. Simply put, it is a system in which humans use their wisdom to change the natural environment, use the growth and reproduction of domesticated animals and plants to obtain products, and further exchange for economic benefits. The history of agriculture can be traced back thousands of years. The development of agriculture in different regions varies greatly with climate, culture and technology. The emergence of various kinds of agriculture is a key factor in the rise of human settlement society. Planting or raising domesticated species will contribute to the development of later civilizations. Agriculture began the cultural inheritance of mankind from tribe to country for thousands of years. The development of cooking and the advanced calendar system are also the most critical knowledge of early farming civilization. However, all agriculture requires technology to expand and maintain land that can grow crops or breed animals. In order to compete for land resources, war broke out. It can be said that agriculture is also closely related to all traditional cultures.


For planting plants, irrigation technology is generally required. However, some plants can be cultivated in dryland (English: dryland farming) (dryland, generally refers to the cultivated land without irrigation facilities, mainly relying on natural precipitation to grow dry crops, including no irrigation facilities, only Cultivated land that depends on flooding and silting irrigation). Animal husbandry is a huge industry, accounting for about one-third of the earth's area not covered by ice or water, and fishery products are obtained from rivers and seas. In developed countries, intensive agriculture with a single crop is generally adopted, which can allow a unit area of land to produce food stably. However, the use of drugs and fertilizers is huge. As human activities lead to changes in the earth’s ecological environment, it will be possible after the 21st century. The proportion of sustainable agriculture is also gradually increasing, including Permaculture and organic agriculture, focusing on ecological balance and the nearby Baili diet. The knowledge about agriculture is called agricultural science.

Etymology edit

Whether it is based on the interpretation of the "Shuowen Jiezi" in the Eastern Han Dynasty or the "Kangxi Dictionary" in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the word "nong" means "cultivation". This means that in ancient China, only planting was called "agriculture." In other words, modern people have merged both animal husbandry and fishery into "agriculture", which actually expanded the original meaning of the Chinese character .


History edit

Main article: Agricultural history

Agriculture originated at least 10,000 years ago, and has developed greatly since the earliest farming era. Some evidence points out that the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East 11 thousand years ago was the first area where planned planting and harvesting of plants that should have been collected in the wild appeared; others believed that the independent development of agriculture occurred in northern and southern China. The Sahel in Africa, New Guinea and some parts of the Americas. 5000 years ago, men from the farming ethnic group in the Middle East came to Europe and intermarried with women from the local hunting and gathering groups to give rise to modern Europeans; this process also spread agriculture to Europe. [2]


The Qi Min Yao Shu published in the Southern and Northern Dynasties is China’s most complete and oldest agricultural and animal husbandry work [3], including Chinese agronomy, horticulture, afforestation, sericulture, animal husbandry, veterinary, breeding, brewing, cooking, and reserves 1500 years ago. , And methods of famine control. Nearly 200 ancient books are cited in the book, including "Pan Sheng Zhi Book", "Si Min Yue Ling" and other important agricultural books of the Han and Jin Dynasties that have been lost, and discuss the relationship between agriculture, commerce, and politics. It is equivalent to a comprehensive study of agricultural society.


Some agricultural farming techniques, such as irrigation, crop rotation, fertilization and pesticide spraying, have been developed very early, but in the last century, there has been significant progress: the Haber ammonia method has allowed crop yields to break through the previous limits. [4].


The characteristic of agriculture in the last century was to increase productivity: the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, breeding and mechanization replaced human labor. Recently, agriculture and administrative issues have been closely linked, such as: water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified crops[5], tariffs and agricultural subsidies. In recent years, there have been waves of opposition to the destruction of the external environment by mechanized agriculture and support for organic agriculture and sustainable agriculture. There is also a kind of scientific and technological agriculture. In addition to freely regulating the growth environment (light, humidity, drip irrigation, culture medium) of the vertical farmland in the multi-storey building, even these greenhouses use robots to produce, and the yield and quality are the highest. , And almost no damage to the natural ecology, can be directly built in the city to save transportation waste, currently limited by the cost, except Japan, the Middle East, Northern Europe, Russia and other countries that are being tested and not yet popularized, but in the world after 2050 It is estimated that there will be an additional 3 billion people. Such "farms" and "farming buildings" are very much needed when almost all the cultivable land is developed today, and they are likely to become the main production method in the future, including going to other planets in the future. Used by people who live in it, such as the growth experiment of plants in low gravity on the International Space Station.


The structure of the agricultural system

Agriculture is a purposeful and planned participation of human beings in production activities by transforming the natural environment. Therefore, it is a kind of organizational system; humans apply technology to the natural environment to obtain economic benefits, so it is also a human interference system, crops- Environment-human ternary structure system. This is essentially different from the biological-environment dual structure of the natural system, and artificial control, utilization and transformation are the characteristics of the system. Its structure includes:


Input edit

Natural environment input (natural environment input) The natural environment of agriculture refers to the sum of various natural conditions from various circles in nature that affect the life activities of agricultural organisms. It is mainly divided into two aspects: biological environment and non-biological environment.


Biological environmental input: including vegetation, weeds, pests, insects and other elements around agricultural organisms and cultivated plant materials, such as seeds, livestock, etc. They restrict each other, depend on each other and form the relationship between producers, predators, and competitors in the ecosystem.


Non-biological environmental input: refers to conditions such as sunshine, temperature, water vapor, terrain, and soil. They provide space, material and energy for the growth, development, and reproduction of crops, and they are indispensable conditions for agriculture.


Human environment input (labor), capital (capital), market (market), transportation (transport), technology (technology), land (land), government (government), personal perception (perception).


Process edit

The operation of an agricultural ecosystem is different from other subsystems in the global ecosystem to which it belongs, such as various natural ecosystems. Although any plant-based natural ecosystem can accumulate solar energy, they do not require labor.


The operation of the agricultural socio-economic system is also different from other subsystems in the national economic system to which it belongs, such as industry. It uses biological life processes to obtain products that people need.


Output edit

The output of the agricultural system is mainly agricultural products such as economically valuable crops and livestock.