What achievments do you believe have been the most signifigant in the history of agriculture?

Question

This is really important!!!! Let me know what you think!!!

Answer 1

Consider that to look at yesterday is to look at history. With that in mind it is my opinion that history will view the study of and move to implement sustainable agriculture as that one act that will save us, as a society and as a planet. All other ideas and inventions all have a negative effect even if they provided a way to increase agricultural production. The plow (and associated equipment), for all it has done destroys the physical structure of the soil and exposes it to damage from wind and water while ruining the rhizosphere. Chemical fertilizers increased production but they contaminate the water from the fields where they are used to the deepest oceans that receive those waters. Look at the current plight of the Gulf of Mexico and the disappearing fishes and altered ocean dynamics. Pesticides? That just gets worse as now we must contend with the new genetically altered varieties. We design a plant to be glyphosphate herbicide resistant so we can spray weed killer everywhere and not harm those plants. That weed killer will be everywhere, and in the case of corn for ethanol production, even considering that the questioned chemical is suppose to have a short life in the environment, it will still be those degraded forms that will spread out. All the great advancements have come with a cost and we have a huge world to feed. Sustainable agriculture comes with far less of a cost and attempts to address a lot of issues that we have to now pay for given all the hundreds of years of accrued cost; the environmental damage and the threat of world poverty and the issues of climate change. Take a minute to research sustainable agricultural systems.

Answer 2

the hoe, domestic animals, plows, crazy machines, the farmer

Answer 3

discovery of means to preserve food. If the crop is rooten or eaten by animals agriculture is worthless.

Answer 4

I think the first was the use of animals to provide strong labor.  Then came the wooden plow. Later variants using steel and steam or diesel power were refinements not breakthroughs.

Answer 5

its the green revolution

Answer 6

Record keeping... tracking what has worked well over prolonged periods, and passing this information on to others has had more to do with the advancement of agriculture than any single development.

The accidental discovery of various grasses like rice, wheat, oats, barley might be classified as great achievements. Even discovering that some plants treated as weeds are very nutritious  could classify as an achievement. But they were each and every one achievements of consumers who found that they could eat these plants. In essence most of them predate real agricultural use of the plant.

Answer 7

irrigation

Answer 8

The development of the cultivator. The invention of the iron plow.

Eli Whitney and his cotton gin. McCormick and his grain reaper.

The founding and development of the fertilizer industry. The mechanical cotton picker, and the introduction of the modern combine. Not to mention the old wind mill.

Answer 9

The most important achievements in the history of agriculture has been plant breeding. The development of new, better, higher yielding varieties of plants. This has contributed more than any other thing to successful agriculture. Animal breeders have been successful as well, but over all the plant breeders have contributed more because of the importance of plants as a food source.

Answer 10

The invention of the rice mill!  Because before, after harvest, farmers used to pound the palay.