ENVS 1000U Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Pearson Education, Biological Pest Control, Sustainable Agriculture
25 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
The practice of raising crops and livestock for human use and consumption. Land used is ~ 38% of earth"s surface. All usable land in use search for more land often poorer quality land for agriculture. Cropland = land used to raise plants for human use. Rangeland or pasture = land used for grazing livestock. Agriculture arose 10,000 years ago: agriculture invented independently by different cultures, the earliest plant and animal domestication is from the fertile crescent of the. Wheat, barley, rye, corn, peas, lentils, onions, goats, sheep. Traditional agriculture fed more people: biologically powered agriculture, using human and animal muscle power, subsistence agriculture = families produce only enough food for themselves, intensive agriculture = produces excess food to sell. Industrialized agriculture is a recent phenomenon: monocultures for crops using large-scale mechanization and fossil fuels to boost yields uses pesticides, irrigation and chemical fertilizers uses machinery and fossil fuels.
