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Importance of wheat in agriculture
Importance of wheat in agriculture
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“Here is bread, which strengthens man’s heart, and therefore called the staff of life,” said Matthew Henry, a greatly famous English Churchman (“Matthew Henry......”). This quote better shows the profound positive effects that wheat has had on humanity and reinstates the importance this cereal grain has to industrialized nations today. Known for being the driving force behind a vast number of different industries, wheat has given birth to countless other commodities, including bread, pasta, beer, and cereal (“Wheat.......”). This widely over-looked crop’s importance has persisted from the earliest, innovation-laden times to the most modern, bustling societies. Without a doubt, wheat has facilitated both ancient and current civilizations as it has grown to become one of the most fundamental staple foods that exists today.
Dating back 11,000 years ago to the Middle-East, this advantageous crop was first grown by the hunter-gatherers and nomadic people who first inhabited the Mesopotamian region. However, it was only 7,000 years later until civilizations started taking advantage of the bountiful amount of assets that come along with this otherwise-wasted cereal grain. For instance, the Egyptians, known for their ingenious inventions, started using wheat to make bread for the first time using the newly - invented bread oven (“Karen.....”). About 2,000 years later, the Romans discovered yet another aspect of harvesting wheat - the use of animal power to plow wheat (“The History....”).
Although, the Egyptians and Romans had already greatly enriched the art and technique of wheat harvesting by the Industrial Revolution, the mass-production of machinery was furthermore beneficial to the development of this crop. During this perio...
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...wheat has been a great asset to this world. Our world and youth today all revolve around one common thing-technology. However, wheat has set the foundation of technology, and therefore the world, and has revolutionized both ancient and present-day civilizations. Times are changed and technology continues to improve. Wheat and technology are two opposing assets joined by one common bond-humanity.
Works Cited
Carr, Karen. "Wheat." Food History for Kids. Portland State University, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
"The History of Wheat." Wheat. John Innes Centre, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Long-Sol, and "Columbian Exchange." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. "Columbian Exchange.” Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2003. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
"Matthew Henry Quote." Iz Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
"Wheat." Wheat. The Robinson Library, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Wheat grown by traditional farming methods assuages the fundamental conditions for natural selection and is thus able to withstand environmental shifts in the future. However, wheat that is genetically uniform doesn’t satisfy the required circumstances for natural selection to occur. Therefore, it cannot survive prospective advancements. It is innate that a genetically diverse crop will be better able to subsist than a genetically engineered uniform crop. Kingsolver’s argument influences beyond intuition to exemplify why genetic diversity is preferable when compared to genetic uniformity with recognition to food
Corn soon became the crop of choice to Iowa farmers. They found that it was more resistant to disease than the other crops they were growing, such as barley, oats, wheat, and apples. With this newfound “wonder crop”, Iowans found that farming had become the ideal way of life. Working on the farm involved all of the members of the family, which brought them together and made them stronger through hardships and great opportunities.
After a brief history of corn, comparing the United States with China, and Hungary will give a wide range of countries and cultures to display how each view corn. Then, ancient legends of how corn came to be, how it is revered, and how it was planted according to the Native Americans will be examined.
George Washington once stated, “Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man.” Agriculture has always been one of the most, if not the most, depended on industry for humans to survive. For over 12,000 years, farming practices have been used as a reliable food source. Farming has been practiced almost everywhere in the world, and has created a food source from the domestication of plants, such as rice, corn, and soybeans as well as animals, such as cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry ("The Development of Agriculture."). After the American Civil War and post-reconstruction, the 2nd Industrial Revolution created many agricultural developments, and advancements, including the first gas-powered tractor, the redesigned
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Oats (grain)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
One of the most successfully crops was traded from the Americas to Europe. Once corn arrived in Europe it was used as animal fodder, but the value of corn as human food proved itself. Corn has been one of the stimulants to population growth in the ‘old’ world. It helped to improve diets by providing much needed nutrition and calories.
Corn has always been an essential to American agriculture. Yet the corn grown by our ancestors is unlike the corn we grow today; corn has changed in its quality, quantity, usage, and its inherent compromise. The age of industrialization provided new technology and techniques for farming. Agriculture became modernized in response to increased demand in the job and food markets. However, farming is no longer a way of life but a business. It has begun to attract those more interested in gain than in those actually interested in preserving the American heritage of agriculture.
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.
All technologies are shaped by their particular cultural context. Different physical environments and geographies create different needs that require solutions. A number of examples can be found in the Levant of the Middle East, where the first Mesopotamian civilizations developed. About 10,000 years ago, sedentary populations in this area started domesticating the native cereal p...
In India, it began in 1960s with the implementation of new techniques and high yield crop varieties. It was a period when the productivity of global agriculture suddenly increased. In 1963, wheat was first introduced in India by American agronomist Dr.Norman Borlaug, who is also known as “the father of the Green Revolution”. The new methods adopted included the use of high yield variety of seeds along with the use of modern farming
Agriculture has been around for about 11,000 years. Around 9.500 BC, the first signs of crops began to show up around the coastlines of the Mediterranean. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the first crops that started to show up in this area, with barley, peas, lentils, chick peas, and flax following shortly. For the most part, everyone was a nomad and just travelled along with where a herd went. This went on until around 7.000 BC, and then the first signs of sowing and harvesting appeared in Mesopotamia. In the first ...
The first people that started to depend on farming for food were in Israel and Jordan in about 80000 B.C.. Farming became popular because people no longer had to rely on just searching for food to get their food. In about 3000 B.C. Countries such as Egypt and Mesopotamia started to develop large scale irrigation systems and oxen drawn plows. In about 500 B.C. the Romans started to realize that the soil needed certain nutrients in order to bare plants. They also realized that if they left the soil for a year with no plants, these important nutrients would replenish. So they started to leave half of a field fallow (unplanted). They then discovered that they could use legumes, or pulses to restore these vital nutrients, such as nitrogen, to the soil and this started the process known as rotating crops. They would plant half the field one year with a legume...
... Chapter 25: Origins of Food Production. Oxford University Press. University of California Davis. Pg 476, 482, 478, 479-480
Farming has been an occupation since 8,500 B.C. On that year in the Fertile Crescent farming first began when people grew plants instead of picking them in the wild. Then nearly 5,000 years later oxen, horses, pigs, and dogs were domesticated. During the middle ages, the nobles divide their land into three fields. The reasoning for this was to plant two and leave one to recover. This was the start of crop rotation which is a big part of farming today. Burning down forest and then moving to another area is a farming technique used by the Mayans called Slash and burn. Mayan farmers also were able to drain swampy areas to farm them buy building canals. In 1701 Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and a horse drawn how that tilled the land. In Denmark they would plant turnips in the previously unplanted field. The turnips help restore the nutrients in the ground thus crop rotation is born. In England people began moving there fields closer to each other for a more efficient way of planting. Later in the 18th century selective breeding was introduce which made bigger, stronger, and more milk producing livestock. In the mid 1800’s a steam plough was invented. By the 1950 tractors, milking machines, and combines were used by almost farmers. The latest f...