How people survive is adapted over time. Through cultivation, the idea of intentionally promoting the growth of certain plants for human use, many societies are able to support more people within their community. Creating a smart and effective way to feed the entire society benefits the society as a whole. With new innovations and techniques cultivation emerged independently in different parts of the world. When comparing horticulture with agriculture the two understand and incorporate cultivation by devoting their time to improve and stabilize the production of crops. Both acquired techniques are adopted to reproduce and support the community. However, they can be contrasted and compared from the different techniques used and how effective …show more content…
Horticulture is the practice of garden cultivation and management. Groups often use the slash and burn technique that requires small plots, simple hand tools, and species diversity. The basic procedure begins by cutting the vegetation and allowing it to dry in the sun. Next you burn it to release nutrients to the soil in order to create ash, meanwhile using a hoe to pull up mounds of soil. Then crops are planted for about 1-3 years and the area is abandoned while moving to a new location. After the forest has replenished and grown back, the group returns back to the abandoned area to the original plots. The group involved with this technique understood that by leaving the area the soil was able replenish itself. Horticulture mainly involves plant cultivation on a smaller scale and frequent mobility is required for this technique. It also had the rights to land by being held communally rather than exclusive ownership. Often times they are held by groups and leaders lead by …show more content…
The technique is a way to grow crops in the tropical areas, while allowing the soil to replenish itself. Throughout the tropical area this technique allows accumulation to increase with less labor involved. This effective idea is used to mobilize the workforce and accumulate wealth. By altering the landscape less, cultivation makes it easier to circulate the environment and allows more time for a nutrient-layer to develop the fertilization of the crops. The slash-and-burn cultivation is more suitable than agriculture because it requires less investment of time and labor. The technique is ecologically superior of growing crops in the tropics because of the fewer tools utilized to benefit the usage of reduced activity. Horticulture is essentially more effective in tropical areas because when growing crops it is a domestic manner of cultivation. It is usually practiced on a smaller scale which allows it to generally be less expensive to Agriculture as well. Evolving the plot rotation and movement it creates a sustainable health of the people among the society. By having more diversity, the crops are less vulnerable to disease and allows for more nutrient diversity. Ultimately making this technique more effective in tropical forests rather than using Agriculture
Polyculture is associated with, but not exclusively limited to, the movement in organic farming (Pollan 144). The main drawback is the work required to maintain the different species being grown. Each plant requires its own growing conditions, so maintenance becomes labor intensive. However, this method of farming greatly increases the biodiversity of the fields which reduces susceptibility to disease and pests, and creates genetically diverse species. Polyculture is very different from monoculture in more ways than simply growing more than one crop. Monoculture is the attempt to control a crop to maximize yield. Polyculture is the acknowledgement of nature’s control and the attempt to grow successful crops through changing the process of growing plants based on the ecological system around them. The people who grew early potatoes on the Andes grew a wide variety of different potato species so that not all of them were likely to susceptible to the same disease (Pollan 131). Pollan’s discussion of these methods leans heavily toward the idea that even though monoculture is simpler and more profitable, it is an inferior method to polyculture that is mainly still in use to feed the capitalistic machine of the global food
Land preparation for farming and animal rearing was done using a method called girdling – tree killing. They will cut around each tree to stop nutrient from getting to the tree and the leaves will later felled down. They will now come back and cut the branches of the trees and burn the underbrush. Farmer starts plowing as the trees stumps decays and stones will be removed from the fields. Fields for farming are always small because of labor and there are boundaries between fields and the neighbors. The house or the farm was viewed as the workplace. And land given out to each family will be fenced to stop cattle from wandering off going into the farm areas. The land allocated to each family will show the family social status within the community. The towns developed individually and community involvement was given a great significant although the community was close knit.
Agriculture plays an enormous part in having a functioning society. The farming fields in the
By implementing new farming techniques provided with the new technological advances in machines we can see abundant harvest in even the poorest third world countries. For example, the Green Revolution has already showed admirable progress in the northern part of India ever since it took start in 1950. By 1997, northern India increased its grain production by 37 percent. This has proven that traditional farming methods are being rendered obsolete. And because by the year 2000, there will be half the land per person in developing countries as there was in 1970, we need to apply ultra-efficient methods to sustain the growing need. Not only does the Green Revolution enhances food output, it also preserves the environment.
Organic foods have become more and more popular over the years, and consumers may or may not be knowledgeable when shopping for organic and/or conventional foods. This report will help define the difference between organic and conventional foods and farming, including the health benefits and risks. The demand for organic foods will also be discussed briefly. The purpose of this research is to describe and identify the advantages and issues that are involved with organic and inorganic foods.
The story of maize domestication is not only an interesting topic to us today, but an impressive realization on how hard it was for people living thousands of years ago to find food for themselves. The people living in modern day Mexico eight thousand, seven hundred years ago found a crop that was not much more than a stick with small pods that could be pried off for a small reward of nutrients. However, with that plant they created one of the most useful foods today because of thousands of years of artificial breeding and domestication. Maize is an extremely useful crop that is easy to grow, and gives giant harvests thanks to the experimentation and instinct of our ancestors, and the act of artificial selection over the passage of time.
The definition of conventional farming is “Intensive farming or intensive agriculture as an agricultural production system characterized by a low fallow ratio and the high use of inputs such as capital, labor, or heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area.” Conventional farming is the method that a majority of farmers use. Although they have to use a lot more chemicals and fertilizers, conventional farming is cheaper than organic farming. Conventional farming has significantly higher crop yields than organic thus, producing more money, making it much more farmer friendly. Conventional farmers also use genetically engineered seeds that are sometimes referred to as “miracle seeds” because of their ability to fight against certain diseases or produce higher yields. The technical term for these seeds is HYV’s or high yield varieties (Qaim). Conventional farming also incorporates the use...
“How Slash and Burn Agriculture Affects Geography." About.com Geography. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014." About.com Geography. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
“Everyday, everyone is affected by agronomy. The food you eat, the coffee you drink, the ethanol-based gas in your car, the grass on the golf course, the natural fibers of the clothing you wear-are all products of agronomy and the work of agronomists.”(Illinois State University) An agronomist even finds the best way to plant and harvest any source of food. Agronomy is a science in which an agronomist views agriculture in an integrated perspective.(Agronomy.org)
They take pride in caring for the land, water and natural resources in several ways. One way is by using cover crops which are plants grown to protect the soil and put healthy nutrients back into it, while slowing erosion, controlling pests, and increasing organic matter. They also use crop rotation by planting different crops in the same field but during different times. This keeps the land fertile because not all of the nutrients are being used with each crop. Buffer zones are another technique farmers use to plant strips of vegetation between the fields and bodies of water to keep the soil out of the water source. No till fields are used to keep the soil in place when it rains, helping moisture stay in the
Gardening or horticulture is the activity tending and cultivating a garden especially as a pastime. In the other words, gardening is the job or activity of working in a garden, growing and taking care of plants, and keeping it attractive. Retrieved from dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/English/gardening. Horticultural therapy is a relatively new discipline combining horticulture and rehabilitation disciplines. It employs plants and gardening activities in therapeutic and rehabilitation activities to improve human wellbeing. Gardening is a very good therapeutic activity for someone who have disabled and mentally ill especially depression because it can be effective for healing, restoring and improving health and wellbeing in the recovery of depressive symptoms (Letitcia Y. Alston, 2010). This can be
The Neolithic Agrarian Revolution was the world’s first historically confirmable revolution in agriculture. It was the progression of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, which was supported with a big increasing population. This agriculture involved the domestication of plants and animals, which developed around 9,500 B.C. During this age various types of plants and animals derived in different locations all over the world. It converted the small groups of hunters and gatherers into more intelligent agricultural people. Those groups then formed into sedentary societies that built towns and villages, while they also altered they natural environment around them by food-crop fertilization. Therefore, allowing them to have an abundance for their food production. Just these few developments have provided high population density settlements, complex labor diversification, trading economics, the development of portable art, architecture, culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, and systems of knowledge.
Agriculture is quite possibly the most important advancement and discovery that humanity has made. It produces the one thing that we need the most: food. It has been around since 9500 BC, and can be the oldest sign of mankind’s acumen and the development and evolving of our minds and creations. Agriculture has been mastered throughout hundreds of years and is one of our most important resources on Earth, along with water and fossil fuels. Although the older farming methods from ancient times seem somewhat mediocre and barbaric, they were very ingenious and advanced for that time period. Over thousands of years, we have improved the way agriculture is used, how land is cultivated, the various techniques of farming and irrigation, and the tools and mechanics used. Numerous things that we see as aboriginal today, such as using a hand plow, were extremely contemporary in ancient times, and played key roles in the development of man and society, since quick labor was not abundant before this time. We are now extremely advanced in agriculture and irrigation and the tools used to farm and grow and harvest crops. We have learned from our past and ancestors how to grow and evolve in our methods and have advanced forward greatly.
Establishing an adequate supply of food is historically one of the fundamental challenges facing mankind. The modern food infrastructure employed by contemporary society is rooted in the creation and innovation of food production. Its effective utilization decreases the level of societal labor contribution required and discourages food shortage trepidation amongst individuals. It is hard to fathom given the current status of our society massive agricultural-industrial complex that the hunter-gatherer organization of society dominated for more than 99 percent of our existence (Fagan 2007: 126). The hunter-gatherer population was characterized by their primary subsistence method, which involved the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild. The primary methods employed were foraging and hunting, which were conducted without any significant recourse to the domestication of either food source (Fagan 2007: 129). Food production is presumed to have emerged approximately 12,000 years ago as a system of “deliberate cultivation of cereal grasses, edible root plants, and animal domestication” (Fagan 2007: 126). The pronounced change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and domestication can be simplistically designated the Agricultural or Neolithic Revolution (Pringle 1998). The catalytic developments of the Neolithic Revolution mark a major turning point in the history of humankind. The resulting animal and plant domestication established the foundation on which modern civilization was built.
To understand why is agriculture important in the world of today, then first of all we must know what agriculture is? Agriculture is the basic material production of society, the use of land for agriculture and livestock, mining plants and animals as raw materials and labor to produce mainly food and some raw materials for industry. Agriculture is a major industry, covering many disciplines: planting, breeding and processing of agricultural products; in the broadest sense, also including forestry and fisheries. Agriculture is an important economic sector in the economy of many countries, especially in the past century , when the industry has not yet developed. Since the dawn of history, agriculture has been one of the importance means of producing