Agriculture is the cultivation of
animals,
plants,
fungi, and other life forms for
food,
fiber,
biofuel,
medicinal and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of
sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of
domesticated species created food
surpluses that nurtured the development of
civilization. The study of agriculture is known as
agricultural science. The
history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different
climates,
cultures, and technologies. In the civilized world,
industrial agriculture based on large-scale
monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology.
