Agriculture

is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food  that enabled people to live in towns and cities. The began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep, and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least eleven regions of the world.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meat, milk, eggs and fungi. Over four-fiths of the world’s workers are employed in agriculture.

Developments such as crop rotation have sharply increased crop yields while selective breeding and animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat. Agriculture is both a cause of and sensitive to environmental degradation, such as soil degradation which can cause decreases in crop yield.

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