History of agriculture

The history of agriculture traces how people domesticated plants and animals, produced food, and reshaped societies through farming across time.

Neolithic Revolution: The transition in several regions from mobile foraging to settled communities that cultivated crops and raised animals. It names the broad transition that began agriculture in multiple regions.
Slash-and-burn agriculture: A farming method that clears vegetation by cutting and burning it, using the resulting ash to enrich soil temporarily. It illustrates how farmers adapted cultivation to soils that lose fertility over time.
Sedentism: A way of life based on permanent or long-term residence in one place. Cultivation and stored food supported more permanent settlements.
Subsistence agriculture: Agriculture in which production is primarily intended to meet the needs of the producing household or community. It contrasts with farming organized mainly for distant markets and commercial profit.
Fertile Crescent: A crescent-shaped region of Southwest Asia where some of the earliest farming communities developed. Its communities domesticated several crops and livestock central to early farming.
Crop rotation: The planned sequence of different crops on the same land across successive growing seasons. Rotations helped maintain soil fertility and manage weeds and pests.
Urbanization: The growth of towns and cities and the concentration of people in them. Agricultural surpluses could support specialists and populations outside farming.
Plantation economy: An economic system centered on large estates producing cash crops, historically often through coerced labor. Plantations show how export farming linked land, labor, and global trade.
Agriculture in China: The development of farming in China, including early rice cultivation in the south and millet cultivation in the north. Independent crop domestication there shows agriculture arose along distinct regional paths.
Irrigation: The artificial application of water to land or crops to support plant growth. Water control expanded cultivation and enabled intensive farming in dry regions.

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History of botanyRelated: Botanical research influenced crop improvement and agricultural practice.