History of Agriculture

 The word agriculture comes from two Latin words, agar, meaning land, and cultura

meaning to till or cultivate, agriculture therefore means the cultivation or tillage of the

land. This definition describes the earliest form of agriculture, when man first settled

down from being a cultivator of crops. Nowadays the term also includes the rearing of

animals and managing human resources.

Agriculture may be more fully defined as all the processes involved in the

controlled production of plant and animal materials which are of use to man. Agriculture

is primarily concerned with the supply of human needs as food, clothing and shelter

through raising the products of the soil and livestock.

Agriculture involves three material sources or living systems, the soil, plants and

animals which are interdependent. The soil is the basic raw materials of the farmer since

it supplies the plant with food and moisture, and provides it with firm anchorage. The

plant grows in the soil, and with the sun's energy, builds food materials by the process of

photosynthesis. These foods, which are stored in the plant or converted to part of the

structure of the plant can be used directly by eating, or indirectly by eating the animals

which feed on the plants.. Waste agricultural products, including dead plant and animal,

are returned to the soil, where they decay and add plant food to the soil. The energy

stored in the plant and animal residues is also used by the soil micro-organisms during

the decomposition of the organic materials in the soil which results in the production of

humus. It is the mixture of these organic materials and the parents materials withered

from the rocks on the earth's surface which forms the soil in which crops are grown.

Agriculture also encompasses the controlled management of the soil for the

production of plant and animal materials for the use of man. The welfare of man depends

on the soil and for this reason the study of soil science and soil management receives

considerable attention.

Since the appearance of human on the earth's surface, one of his primary needs

Short History of Agriculture

has been that of securing food. He was first a hunter and a nomad wandering from place

to place and hunting and gathering the food he ate. During his period his survival

depended on his ability to subdue nature. The animals he hunted were also subjected to

the same elements of nature but man differed from the animals in having a larger brain,

than animals and adoptable hands with which he could fashion crude tools and defend

Men hunted the animals with primitive weapons made of stones and sticks, and

himself better.

women gathered the fruits, nuts leaves and roots which from experience had been found

safe eating. Early man probably depended on a very large area of land to support his

family, but he soon found that the seeds and the parts of the wild plants he gathered

would germinate when planted and grow to produce the required food. When this was

possible, man no longer had to cover large areas of land to find sufficient food for his

family. He began to gather the seeds and planting materials and grew them in a limited

area. Man also came to understand the habits of the animals he hunted. This knowledge

enable him to start domesticating some of the animals, keeping them within easy reach

for his use. It appear responsible that the domestication of animals and the first

cultivation of plants may have been almost simultaneous.

Man gradually changed from nomadic to the sedentary life. He began to settle in

communities, and to exercise a reasonable degree of control to his environment. The

citing of settlements may have been determined by the abundance or availability of the

nlants and animals used for food. At this period, man started to construct new tools to

facilitate his farm operations, these were more sophistical than the primitive implements

used for hunting and digging up roots at the initial time.

The evolution of settled communities had varied trom place to place and from

continent to continent, for example, the semange of Malaya, the pygmies of Central

Africa, some groups of the fulanis of west Africa and migratory movement is largely

controlled by the availability of food for the herdsman and his animals want

abundant supply of pasture for the animals, the nomads tend to stay much longer before

moving on to other areas.

Thus, the development of agriculture resulted in the settling down of peonle:

single individual into villages, the Villages grew into towns, and final

developed into nations.