Understanding Agriculture

• Agriculture originates from the Latin words Ager (land/field) and Cultura (cultivation).
• Agriculture succinctly means cultivating land.
• Agriculture is defined as the science and art of producing crops and livestock for economic purposes using the earth's natural resources.

Primary Aim of Agriculture

• The primary goal is to boost the productivity of land.
• Protecting land from deterioration and misuse is vital.

Agriculture Definitions

• Agriculture systematically raises useful plants and livestock under human management.
• It is a purposeful activity to harness nature's elements for plant and animal production.
• It is an industry involved with producing plants and animals for food and fiber.
• Agriculture also involves providing agricultural supplies and services.
• Handling agricultural product processing, marketing, and distribution is part of the industry.

Agriculture: Art, Science, and Business

• Agriculture integrates art, science, and business in crop production.
• Successfully performing farm operations demands knowledge.
• Physical and mental skills are essential.
• Modern technologies based on scientific principles are utilized to maximize yield and profit.
• These technologies include crop improvement, breeding, production, and protection.
• Hybridization, transgenic crops, and biotechnology are key modern practices.
• Agriculture as a business focuses on maximum net return.
• Management of land, labor, water, and capital is involved.
• It utilizes sciences for food, feed, fiber, and fuel production.

Branches of Agriculture

• Crop Science focuses on economic plants, including rice, jute, and potato.
• Animal Husbandry deals with animal production such as cattle, buffalo, goat, and poultry.
• Veterinary Medicine addresses animal diseases and treatments.
• Fisheries involves the rearing and management of fishes.
• Agricultural Engineering concentrates on farm mechanization.
• Agricultural Economics focuses on economic management and the marketing of agricultural products.
• Agro-forestry integrates crop and forest plants production.

Importance of Agriculture: Food

• Agriculture provides Carbohydrates from cereals, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.
• It offers Protein from meat, fish, eggs, and milk.
• Fats are sourced from mustard, grape seed, soybean, groundnut, sunflower, and sesame.
• Vitamins and Minerals come from fruits, vegetables, milk, and butter.

Importance of Agriculture: Clothes

• Agriculture supplies fiber for clothing, with 70% of the world's fiber coming from cotton (Gossypium spp.).
• Other sources include jute, wool, and silk.

Importance of Agriculture: Houses

• Housing materials from agriculture include timber, bamboo, straw, and rope.

Importance of Agriculture: Industry

• Agriculture provides raw materials utilized in diverse industries.
• These industries include medicine, paper, rubber, and soap, candle, and paint manufacturing.
• It provides materials for the perfume, beverage, bakery, sugar, narcotic, and leather industries.

Importance of Agriculture: Fuel

• Fuel sources from agriculture consist of timber, jute-stick, coal, petrol, and plant-based gasses.
• Biodiesel is obtained from plants like Jatropha.

Importance of Agriculture: Earning Source

• Agriculture serves as a direct occupation and means of earning money.
• Approximately 62% of people are engaged in agricultural ventures.
• Agriculture employs about 47.5% of the total workforce in the country.

Importance of Agriculture: Foreign Currency

• Agricultural products, either directly or processed, are exported to earn foreign currency.
• Examples are rice, jute, wheat, tomato, frozen fish, and vegetables.

Importance of Agriculture: International Relationship

• Countries can establish good relations through the export and import of agricultural commodities.

Importance of Agriculture: Revenue Income

• Governments generate revenue through rent and taxes on agricultural land and products.
• Agriculture contributes about 19.29% of the total GDP in Bangladesh, with crop plants alone contributing 13.44%.

Importance of Agriculture: Natural Beauty

• It creates aesthetic value through ornamental plants and landscaping techniques.

Importance of Agriculture: Environmental Balance

• Plants liberate O2; animals liberate CO2, balancing atmospheric gases; agriculture helps in this balance.

Origins of Agriculture: Foundation of Civilization

• Agriculture serves as foundation for civilization, supporting at least 7.5 billion people.
• It has changed human biology and society.

Ideas on the Origin of Agriculture

• Life history theory focuses on reproduction as the main goal.
• Variance compensation hypothesis suggests that a large number of offspring can be a burden when traveling.
• Neolitihic Demographic transition hypothesis prioritizes survival, resulting in a decrease in mortality.
• Malthusian theory posits that the population increases faster than food production.
• Boserup's theory states that people innovate to survive when food is scarce.

The Great Start: Geographic and Temporal Origins

• Agriculture began approximately 9,000 to 11,700 B.P. during the Holocene Warming period.
• It originated in the Fertile Crescent, specifically the Levant toward Mesopotamia in the Near East.
• The Natufian culture, consisting of hunter-gatherers, was a starting group.
• The Pre-pottery Neolithic A culture were the first cultivators.
• Pre-pottery Neolithic B culture were the first domesticators.
• Founder crops were wheat and barley.

Vavilov's Centers of Origin

• The Chinese center is a source of millet, barley, soybean, and onion.
• The Indian center includes the Hindustan center (rice, mungbean, eggplant, mango, bamboo) and the Indo-Malayan center (Job's tears, banana, coconut).
• Central Asiatic center provided pea, lentil, cotton, garlic, and apple.
• Near-eastern center is known for wheat, barley, alfalfa, and fig.
• The Mediterranean center gave wheat, oats, clover, and flax.
• Abyssinian center is the origin of Sorghum, sesame, castor bean, and okra.
• Central American center contributed maize, amaranth, pumpkin, papaya, and cacao.
• South American center originated potato, common bean, tomato, pepper, peanut, and rubber.

The Great Start - Why?

• One idea is that agriculture was a divine gift.
• Another is that agriculture was a discovery.
• Another is that it was a result of stress.
• Another idea is it was an extension of gathering.
• The Oasis theory says that climate drying prompted people to innovate.
• The Post-Pleistocene adaptations theorie is sea rise caused people to innovate.
• The Broad spectrum revolution theorizes that marginal habitats drove people to innovate.

The Great Start - How? Agricultural Era

• Pre-historic (>10,000 BCE) is marked by foraging.
• Neolithic (10,000-4,000 BCE) marks the start of agriculture.
• Ancient agriculture (4,000 -500 BCE) involved early civilization, plows, and irrigation.
• Medieval agriculture (500-1500 CE) utilized feudal and organic farming with crop rotation.
• Early modern (1500-1800 CE) saw the Columbian exchange and breeding.
• Industrial (1800-1900 CE) era introduced mechanization and enclosure movement.
• The Green revolution (1940s-1980s) brought high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and synthetics.
• Modern & precision (1990s-present) involves climate-smart practices, GMOs, GIS, and AI.

Development of the Great Agrarian Systems

• Slash-and-burn/swidden/shifting agriculture involves burning, planting, harvesting, and abandoning.
• Hydraulic Agrarian systems are flood based irrigation, example Egypt.
• Mountain agriculture involves terracing of hardy crops.
• Animal Drawn cultivation (Antiquity) used the Ard and fallowing.
• Animal Drawn cultivation (Middle ages) used plows and crop rotation.
• Early Modern Revolution involved crop rotation instead of fallowing.
• Mechanized animal traction included horse-drawn plows leading to a global crisis.
• The 2nd Modern revolution featured motorized machinery and mineral fertilizers.

World Situationer: Population

• 2000: 6.14 Billion
• 2018: 7.63 Billion
• 2022: 7.95 Billion
• 2060 projection: 10 Billion
• Total World land area: 129.94 Million km²

World Situationer: Land Coverage

• Arable land in 2000: 10.5%
• Arable land in 2018: 10.8%
• Forested land from 2000 to 2016: 31.2% to 30.7%
• Agricultural land from 2000 to 2018: 37.3% to 36.9%

The Great Agrarian Crisis of Developing Countries

• Land degradation is a key problem.
• There is a lack of infrastructure.
• A lack of credit access makes things worse.
• Colonial legacies, inequitable land distribution, and export-oriented agriculture are some of the causes.
• Poor countries had to loan through SAPs, which weakened rural economies and caused food insecurity.
• Government must support small-scale farming via agroecology, land reform, and fair pricing.
• It is important that people control food systems via food sovereignty.

Philippine Agricultural Development Stages

• Pre-colonial: Indo-Malays brought rice production, kaingin, and subsistence farming.
• Colonial: Surplus production, Hacienda system, technological development, and introduction of crops like cacao.
• Post-war: Mechanized, Green Revolution, IRRI, and international trading.

Philippine Agriculture: Situationer

• The Philippines is an archipelagic country with 7,107 islands.
• It is surrounded by four seas including the west Philippine sea, Sulu & Celebes seas, and Philippine Sea.
• Total land area in the Phillipines is 300,000 km².
• The Philippines has marine water (including EEZ) of 2.2 million km.
• The Phillipines is the 71st largest territory in the world.
• In the Philippines, there are 3 island groups: Luzon (47%), Visayas (19%), and Mindanao (34%).
• The coast line stretches for 36,289 km.
• Populations are largely coastal.

Philippine Agriculture

• Agricultural land represents 49% (14.0 M ha).
• Labour is intensive but generally small farms are run by landless farmers.
• The Philippines has a population of 116.78 M.
• There is 0.05 hectares of arable land per person.
• 0.15% of agricultural GDP is spent of investment in R&D.
• Agriculture only contributes 8.0% of GDP, and its contribution is declining.
• 21.1% of people are employeed in agriculture.
• Most households derived 68% if their income from agriculture.
• The average farm size is 1.29 of an hectare.
• 59% of agricultural housholds are in proverty.
• Cropped area measures 13.57 M ha.
• The agricultural area is planted with - rice, corn and coconut
• The island consists of small farms with a humid tropical climate and variable weather.
• The Philippine agricultural system is marked by differing topographies and soil types.
• There is diverse flora and fauna.
• There is a mélange of cultures within numerous communities.

Constraints for Philippine Agriculture

• The crops are prone to pests and disease.
• There us low use of yield-enhancing varieties.
• Lack of available technology.
• The land is degrades.
• There is a lower shortage.
• Limited capital avaialble to farmers.
• There are few incentives for agricultural businesses.
• There is failed extension projects.
• There are weak institutions.

Development Programs for Philippine Agriculture

• Intensive Rice Production Program (IRPP) for import substitution.
• Comprehensive agricultural loan fund (CALF) to reform rural credit
• Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for land distribution.
• Livelihood enhancement for agri. Dev. (LEAD) to speed farmers access to resources
• Rice Action Plan (RAP) and Corn Production Enhancement Program (CPEP) increase exportation.
• Medium-Term Agricultural Development Plan (MTADP) - increase global competitiveness in key commodities.
• Gintong-Ani program boosts production by grouping farmers into cooperatives.
• Liberalization of International Trade - Agriculture is to enable the enaction of AFMA (led to RTL).
• Agrikulturang makamasa program to operationalize AFMA.
• Masaganang Ani Cares assists those involved in agriculture finacially.
• The Roll on, roll off (RORO) program aims to streamline shipping and transport.
• AGRI PINOY Program - focus on irrigation, trading centers, organic agriculture (OA act)
• “Plant, Plant, Plant" Program to increase agricultural output during COVID

Insitutions Involved within Agricultural Research

• State Colleges and Universities.
• Department of Agriculture Research Networks.

National Commodity Research Centers

• Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA).
• National Tobacco Administration (NTA).
• Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).
• Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA).
• Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA).
• PRCRTC (Philippine Rootcrops Research and Training Center).
• Northern Philippines Rootcrops Research and Training Center (NPRCRTC).
• National Abaca Research Center (NARC).

Specialized Descipline Oriented Research Centers

• Institutue of Plant Breeding (IPB).
• National Crop Protection Center (NCPC).
• National Plant Genetic Resource Laboratory (NPGRL)
• Postharvest Horticulture Training and Research Center (PHTRC).
• National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH).

Major International Research Organizations.

• International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
• Centro International de Mejoramiento de Maize y Trigo (CIMMYT).
• Centro International de Patatas (CIP)
• International Center for Research in the Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
• Centro de International de Agricultural Tropical (CIAT).

More Insitutions Involved within Agricultural Research

• International Center for Agricultural Research for Dry Areas (ICARDA).
• International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
• Centre for International Forestry Research (ICRAF).
• Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC).
• Bioversity.
• Private Seed Companies.

Private Seed Companies

• East west.
• Syngenta.
• Pioneer.
• Monsanto.
• Allied Botanicals.

Agriculture and Biotechnological Innovations

• Gene Editing (e.g., CRISPR) – Developing pest-resistant, drought-tolerant, and nutrient-rich crops. --Drought-Resistant Crops – Genetically enhanced to thrive under water scarcity. -Synthetic Biology – Engineering microbes to produce biofertilizers or enhance plant growth. -Alternative Proteins – Lab-grown meat and plant-based alternatives reducing pressure on traditional agriculture.

Agriculture and Digital & Data-Driven Technologies

• Precision Agriculture – GPS, sensors, and analytics to optimize inputs and monitor crop health.
• AI & Machine Learning – Predicts disease outbreaks, manages planting schedules, and improves yields.
• Satellite Imaging & Remote Sensing – Monitors large-scale crop health and forecasts yields.
• Blockchain in Agriculture – Ensures transparency and traceability in the food supply chain.

Agriculture and Automation & Smart Systems

-Robotics & Automation – Machines for planting, weeding, harvesting; reduces labor dependency. -Smart Irrigation Systems – IoT-based systems that optimize water usage via real-time monitoring.

Agriculture and Eco-Friendly & Sustainable Practices

• Biofertilizers & Biopesticides – Natural alternatives to synthetic chemicals, improving soil health. -Carbon Farming Techniques – Practices like cover cropping and agroforestry that sequester carbon.
• Soil Health Monitoring – Sensors and analytics for site-specific soil nutrient management.

Agriculture and Controlled Environment Farming

• Vertical Farming – Indoor, stacked crop production using less land and water with higher yields.