CHAPTER 2: THE TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE

     Objectives

      In this chapter, we learnt about
➠ Evolution of Agriculture from pre-historic to modern agriculture    
➠ Religion in Agriculture
➠ Initiative program to conserve resource
➠ Modernization of Agriculture
➠ Enactments and schemes in Agriculture




                         🌽🌽 Evolution Of Agriculture🌽 🌽 

  ➨Pre-historic Era
    consist of 3 age which are stone age, bronze age and iron age.

1) Stone Age (1 million ago)
   -They prefer to hunt and gather food source such as fruits. 🍑🍒🍓🍐🍏

  -People from stone age usually take fruits such berry, mango, apple and banana while hunter kill           animals such as wild boar, deer, buffalo and cow to get meat.🐐🐏🐂🐃

  -People from this age only create simple tools and weapons such as knife, spear and wood crusher        from stone and stick. 🔪🔨🔧

                                                   

                         

The Stone Age Knife

Example of Stone Age Agriculture

The Stone Age Axe

 2) Bronze Age

 - In this age, people start metal working such bronze, copper and tin to create many things

 - There are many varieties of tools made from metal such sword, copper axe, spear, sickle and hoe         which are better tools for agriculture. So, people can speed up their production in plantation.

 - people from this age also knew to breed livestock as cow, goat and sheep to get meat, milk and         cotton.

Examples of tools in bronze age

 3) Iron Age

Body armor from Iron Age found in North Korea 

    In this age, people already found another metal source which is iron. Iron is easily to be found in soil. Iron also can be sharpen easily, so many type of tools, weapons and decoration are produced during that age such as blade, body armor, shield, cross and many more. When there are many tools, so production from agriculture can be speed up.

Artifact from Iron Age

Agriculture in the Middle Age

      Agriculture in the middle age are more advance than agriculture in Pre-historic Era because there are many engineers that create machines and advance tools. New varieties of crops are introduced to farmers to produce many type of foods. During that age, human population start to increase, so many foods are needed. Thus, the ruler of kingdom supports farmers to produce many types of food for thier people and income for country.

      Muslim people also have created irritagion system with machines, dams and reservoirs to water crops efficiently
  

                                      Modern Agriculture  
Agriculture technologies advanced rapidly in the second half of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. These developments forever changed the way farmers work.





1960s

The Green Revolution

In the mid-1940s U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace spearheaded a program to help developing nations feed their growing populations. The program included four scientists, one of whom was Dr. Norman Borlaug.

Borlaug started a growing process that allowed plants to thrive with new irrigation and crop management techniques. By the 1960s, the benefits of what was nicknamed the “Green Revolution” were apparent when successful new wheat varieties were made available in countries across the globe.

1974

-Roundup® agricultural herbicide released

Monsanto developed a new herbicide using glyphosate as the active ingredient. Glyphosate-based herbicide is used by farmers to control weeds in their crops. Roundup also made its way into lawn and garden products, which allow landowners to kill weeds along sidewalks, driveways, gardens, and fences.

1975 
-Rotary combines are introduced

The first twin-rotor system combine was created by Sperry-New Holland. This allowed the crop to be cut and separated in one pass over the field. For corn, it not only separated the husk and ears, but shelled the kernels, and chopped the stalks.

1982
-First genetically modified plant cell

Scientists working at Monsanto Company became the first in the world to genetically modify a plant cell. The team used Agrobacterium to introduce a new gene into the petunia plant and announced their achievement the following year. Within five years, Monsanto researchers planted their first outdoor trials of a genetically modified crop – tomatoes that were resistant to Roundup agricultural herbicide, insects, or viruses. The Agrobacterium method first used in 1982 is still in use today by Monsanto scientists and by other companies’ scientists.

1994

Satellite technology advances farming

For the first time, farmers were able to use satellite technology to see their farms from overhead, allowing for better tracking and planning.

1996

Monsanto’s first GMO crops become commercially available

Monsanto introduced Roundup Ready® soybeans and Bollgard® insect-protected cotton, the first GMO row crops available to farmers. The soybeans provided tolerance to Roundup agricultural herbicide. The GMO traits in cotton provided protection against the cotton bollworm, tobacco budworm, and pink bollworm

2000s

Software and mobile devices helps farmers have better harvests

Like many people, farmers started carrying mobile devices, which allowed them to stay connected to colleagues while in the field. This also meant they now had access to data needed while on-the-go, including the ability to place orders for seed or fertilizer at any time or in any place.

2015

Data revolutionizes farming potential

Farmers make decisions based on the information they have on-hand, which is why data has helped them harness the power of information to make better-informed decisions that allow them to use resources more sustainably. The Climate Corporation’s Climate FieldView™ is a digital platform that brings together data collection, agronomic modeling, and local weather monitoring, which gives farmers a better understanding of their fields. These tools allow farmers to plan for better harvests and make decisions that are better for the planet.

Here’s a look at some ancestors of modern produce and how plant breeding has transformed fruits and vegetables.

According to the National Watermelon Board, the first recorded harvest of the fruit was 5,000 years ago in Egypt. When those first watermelons were harvested, they were a fraction of the size they are now, measuring around two inches in diameter. The watermelons were also bitter, tasting nothing like the sweet fruit we now devour during the summer months. Traditional breeding was used to continually transform watermelon over the last several thousand years into larger, more desirable fruit.

The banana is an easy snack, often packed in school and work lunches. According to Smithsonianmag.com, the smooth, bright yellow fruit we eat today has a thin ancestor that produced pods similar to okra pods, and it was called Musa acuminata.

About 6,500 years ago Musa acuminate was cross-bred with Musa balbisiana and produced plantains, another relative of modern bananas. Plantains look similar to bananas, but they do not taste the same. They have less sugar and are starchier, and they are typically cooked before they are served in Latin American countries.

Also known as maize, modern-day corn goes back about 10,000 years, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah reports. Its ancestor, called teosinte, was a grass that looks very different from today’s maize plant. It produced small, thin “cobs,” that were two or three inches long and contained five to 12 hard kernels.

Humans used traditional breeding techniques to breed the most desirable traits from each generation of teosinte to create today’s 12-inch ears of field and sweet corn. Teosinte’s hard kernels were difficult for humans to chew, so the firmness was bred out of the plant. Today, more than 500 easily-chewable kernels adorn each ear of sweet corn.

According to the World Carrot Museum, carrots were originally cultivated in and around Afghanistan and were not the familiar orange color we associate with the vegetable today.

Carrots were originally yellow and purple and bred to be white and orange in the 1600s, and then red in the 1700s. Purple carrots are still grown in Europe and Asia, and red carrots can still be found in China and India.

What do kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts have in common? They can be considered cousins, because they share a common ancestor – a green, leafy plant called brassica.

As far back as 10,000 years ago, different traits in the plant were targeted by humans, leading to the breeding of many vegetables we’re familiar with today, including Beneforté^® broccoli.

Beneforté^® was developed after scientists went out in search of uncultivated varieties of broccoli that could produce higher levels of phytonutrients. What they found was a wild broccoli variety that had an ability to naturally produce broccoli that, on a per-serving basis, contains two to three times the phytonutrient glucoraphanin as a serving of other leading commercial broccoli varieties produced under similar growing conditions. Scientists bred this wild broccoli with traditional broccoli to produce one of Beneforté^® parents. The broccoli was bred over several years to produce Beneforté^®, which tastes just like traditional broccoli.