History of agriculture
This article describes the history of agriculture. For the history, scientific discipline, see agricultural history.
Early History of Agriculture
The history of agriculture began with the transition from living as hunter-gatherers to that of farmers and livestock farmer ( Neolithic Revolution ).
Europe
The culture of the Linear Pottery 5500 BC brought the crop from the Balkans to Central Europe along the Danube; previously the cardial or Impressokultur brought agriculture along the Italian Mediterranean coast to the south of France, and from there to the rest of France and Spain. A named after the French town of La Hoguette culture came before the Pottery Maas and the Rhine. Agriculture was initially operated mainly on river terraces and areas with loess. The additional land acquisition done by deforestation.
From the 6th millennium BC was the spread of Pflugbau and later the use of crop rotation. To increase the soil fertility was fertilized with manure, with patches of grass were mixed with the animal manure.
From finds in ancient ceramics ( as grave goods etc.) one knows some of the cultivated plants of the Celts: spelled, emmer, einkorn, poppy seeds, goats, wheat, barley, millet, broad beans, lentils, flax oil and fiber production.
In ancient times, wheat, wine and oil trees have been grown in the Mediterranean, associated with livestock in the heavily deforested mountains. There were also fruit and vegetable production, which was broadcast as the wine by the Romans to Central Europe. The Arabs introduced the cotton and sugar cane cultivation and irrigation techniques in Spain.
In Northern and Eastern Europe in addition to the clearing of forests, the draining of swamps and bogs using drainage ditches was an important source of new farmland.
Modern History of Agriculture
Since the 8th century continued in Europe, the three-field system with winter and spring cereals and fallow land ( one-year rest of the floors ) by, but regionally there was certainly also many other forms of crop rotation.
A large part of the income of farmers in the early modern period was from farming, accordingly, the animal production has been neglected. This was caused by the since the 16th century, ever-increasing price of corn, only in 1650 and 1800, the price suddenly dropped by up to 50 %. Also in the livestock sector for a long time could not be solved the problem of winter feeding, so that the livestock had to stay necessarily small.
Since the 16th century there was a growing intensification of agriculture, the production method of the three-field system was abandoned by the transition to a continuous crop rotation in the 18th century. This period also saw the improvement of existing and the introduction of new agricultural techniques falls ( eg, soil turning plow and shoeing the horses, which are increasingly the oxen as draft animals used previously replaced ). Through the careful selection of seeds and breeding animals, the revenues increased. Then there were the cultivation of wastelands, and the larger spread of new crops ( beets, clover, rape, potatoes ).
The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by the further mechanization and specialization of agriculture. Justus von Liebig in 1840 described in his book " Organic chemistry in its application to Agricultur and Physiology", abbreviated " Agriculturchemie ", the possibility of the use of mineral fertilizers. From the end of the 19th century could be made cheaper synthetic fertilizer. He allowed as well as successes in plant and animal breeding and the development of new machines, an increase in income by a multiple. However, the productivity gap between areas opened with modern and traditional agriculture with the task that have become uneconomic holdings as lasting result. Because of the shortage of manpower in large surfaces to be machined, the mechanization placed first by the United States. They eventually recorded with the Industrial Revolution and the associated migration of many workers from the countryside to the industrial cities of the rest of the industrialized countries since the 1960s as part of the Green Revolution in developing countries.
- See also Agricultural Revolution
- See also mechanization of agriculture
- See also agriculture and agricultural policy in the German Empire (1933-1945)
- See also agriculture in the GDR
Global developments
The European colonization was also the beginning of a global expansion of the agricultural economy and of world trade in agricultural products. This included the transfer of production forms in other continents, the emergence of a new export and capital-oriented form of operation ( plantation economy ) - often at the expense of the self-sufficiency of the population - and the spread of crops and livestock far beyond their original home areas beyond ( Columbian Exchange).