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Agriculture |
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Agricultural technology or agrotechnology (abbreviated agtech, agritech, AgriTech, or agrotech) is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability. Agricultural technology can be products, services or applications derived from agriculture that improve various input and output processes. [1] [2]
Advances in agricultural science, agronomy, and agricultural engineering have led to applied developments in agricultural technology. [3] [4]
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The history of agriculture has been shaped by technological advances. Agricultural technology dates back thousands of years. Historians have described a number of agricultural revolutions, which identify major shifts in agricultural practice and productivity. These revolutions have been closely connected to technological improvements.
Around 10,000 years ago, the Neolithic Revolution catalyzed an epochal transformation. Humanity transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to stable agricultural communities. This transition bore witness to the domestication of vital plants and animals, including wheat, barley, and livestock, fundamentally altering the agricultural landscape. The surplus food production that ensued fueled population growth and laid the cornerstone for nascent civilizations. Irrigation technology was developed independently by a number of different cultures, with the earliest known examples dated to the 6th millennium BCE in Khuzistan in the south-west of present-day Iran. [5] [6] The ancient Egyptian use of the Nile River's flooding, marked another significant advancement.
The Roman era ushered in notable contributions to agricultural technology. The Romans introduced innovative implements, such as the Roman plough, a notable refinement in soil cultivation. In tandem, they compiled comprehensive agricultural manuals like "De Re Rustica," serving as invaluable records of contemporary farming techniques.
The Middle Ages bequeathed significant agricultural progress. Concepts like crop rotation and the three-field system enhanced soil fertility and crop yields, while the introduction of the heavy plow, driven by draft animals, facilitated the cultivation of previously uncultivated lands.
A major turning point for agricultural technology is the Industrial Revolution, which introduced agricultural machinery to mechanise the labour of agriculture, greatly increasing farm worker productivity. Revolutionary inventions like the seed drill, mechanical reaper, and steam-powered tractors reshaped the farming landscape. This period also witnessed the establishment of agricultural societies and colleges dedicated to advancing farming methodologies. In modern mechanised agriculture powered machinery has replaced many farm jobs formerly carried out by manual labour or by working animals such as oxen, horses and mules.
Advances in the 19th century included the development of modern weather forecasting and invention of barbed wire. Improvement to portable engines and threshing machines led to their widespread adoption. Guano became a popular fertilizer in the 1800s and was widely extracted for this purpose. Guano use rapidly declined after 1910 with the development of the Haber–Bosch process for extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere.Citation needed
The 20th century saw major advances in agricultural technologies, including the development of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and new agricultural machinery including mass produced tractors and agricultural aircraft for aerial application of pesticides. More recent advances have included agricultural plastics, genetically modified crops, improved drip irrigation, integrated pest management, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics.
In the first decades of the 21st century, Information Age technologies have been increasingly applied to agriculture. Agricultural robots, agricultural drones and driverless tractors have found regular use on farms, while digital agriculture and precision agriculture make use of extensive data collection and computation to improve farm efficiency. [7] Precision agriculture includes such areas as precision beekeeping, precision livestock farming, and precision viticulture.
Israel's agtech scene is considered second only to the US. [8] Israel holds several institutions of agricultural research including the Volcani center. [9] Israeli milk cows have the highest production of milk in the world. [9] The modern cherry tomato was developed in Israel. [9]
Hydroponics is a method of cultivating plants without soil. Instead, it relies on a nutrient-rich water solution to deliver essential minerals and nutrients directly to the plant roots. This approach allows for precise control over growing conditions and can lead to increased crop yields and faster growth rates.
Vertical farming is a contemporary agricultural technique that cultivates crops in vertically stacked layers or inclined surfaces within controlled indoor settings. This innovative approach leverages technology and controlled environments to enhance crop growth. [10]
A growing global population and urbanization strain traditional agriculture, with declining arable land per person. To ensure food security for a projected 9.7 billion people by 2050, solutions like urban vertical farming are emerging. This technology-intensive approach utilizes stacked layers within controlled indoor environments to potentially increase food production while reducing its environmental footprint. Proponents tout its advantages as a clean and controlled system, potentially free from pests, diseases, and weather variations, while also reducing transportation needs. However, a comprehensive evaluation of both potential benefits and drawbacks, alongside further economic analysis, is crucial to inform policymakers and guide future decisions related to sustainable food production. [11]
Agricultural drones, also known as "ag drones," are specialized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) tailored for agricultural applications. These drones are outfitted with an array of sensors, cameras, and advanced technology to aid in agricultural and land management tasks. Their purposes encompass crop monitoring, efficient irrigation management, early pest and disease detection, precise crop spraying, and detailed crop mapping, among others.
Agro-textiles is the segmented class of technical textiles that deals focuses on the agriculture sector, with an approach to crop protection and crop development and reducing the risks of farming practices. Primarily agro-textiles offer weather resistance and resistance to microorganisms and protection from unwanted elements and external factors. Agro-textiles helps to improve the overall conditions with which crop can develop and be protected. There are the various textile products, fabrics forms, fibers and techniques used in agro-textiles which are useful for agriculture mainly for crop protection and in crop development for instance shade nets, thermal insulation and sunscreen materials, windshield, antibird nets, which provide minimal shading and proper temperature, air circulation for protecting plants from direct sunlight and birds. Agrotextiles involves mulch mats, hail protection nets, and crop covers, etc. Agro-textiles are useful in horticulture, aquaculture, landscape gardening and forestry also. More examples of use and application are covering livestock protection, suppressing weed and insect control, etc. [12]
The following is a 2021 list of by startup genome ranking Global Agtech & New Food tech ranking. [13]
Rank | Hub |
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1 | Sillicon Valley |
2 | New York City |
3 | London |
4 | Tel Aviv |
5 | Denver-Boulder |
6 | Los Angeles |
7 | Boston |
8 | Beijing |
9 | Vancouver |
10 | Research Triangle |
11 | Toronto-Waterloo |
12 | Seattle |
13 | Bengaluru |
14 | Amsterdam-Delta |
15 | Stockholm |
16 | Shanghai |
17 | Singapore |
18 | San Diego |
19 | Sydney |
20 | Washington D.C |
21 | Paris |
22 | Hangzhou |
23 | New Zealand |
24 | Shenzhen |
26-30 | Tokyo |
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to agriculture:
Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring and responding to temporal and spatial variability to improve agricultural production sustainability. It is used in both crop and livestock production. Precision agriculture often employs technologies to automate agricultural operations, improving their diagnosis, decision-making or performing. The goal of precision agriculture research is to define a decision support system for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources.
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming, conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area. It is characterized by a low fallow ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital, labour, agrochemicals and water, and higher crop yields per unit land area.
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. It is the application of a combination of sciences such as biology, chemistry, economics, ecology, earth science, and genetics. Professionals of agronomy are termed agronomists.
Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy, in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while satisfying the needs of consumers for products related to natural resources such as biotechnology, farms, food, forestry, fisheries, fuel, and fiber.
Agricultural wastewater treatment is a farm management agenda for controlling pollution from confined animal operations and from surface runoff that may be contaminated by chemicals in fertilizer, pesticides, animal slurry, crop residues or irrigation water. Agricultural wastewater treatment is required for continuous confined animal operations like milk and egg production. It may be performed in plants using mechanized treatment units similar to those used for industrial wastewater. Where land is available for ponds, settling basins and facultative lagoons may have lower operational costs for seasonal use conditions from breeding or harvest cycles. Animal slurries are usually treated by containment in anaerobic lagoons before disposal by spray or trickle application to grassland. Constructed wetlands are sometimes used to facilitate treatment of animal wastes.
Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically and horizontally stacked layers. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, underground tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts.
Agricultural research in Israel is based on close cooperation and interaction between scientists, consultants, farmers and agriculture-related industries. Israel's climate ranges from Mediterranean (Csa) to semi-arid and arid. Shortage of irrigation water and inadequate precipitation in some parts of the country are major constraints facing Israeli agriculture. Through extensive greenhouses production, vegetables, fruits and flowers are grown for export to the European markets during the winter off-season.
Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) -- which includes indoor agriculture (IA) and vertical farming—is a technology-based approach toward food production. The aim of CEA is to provide protection from the outdoor elements and maintain optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crop. Production takes place within an enclosed growing structure such as a greenhouse or plant factory.
An agricultural robot is a robot deployed for agricultural purposes. The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting stage. Emerging applications of robots or drones in agriculture include weed control, cloud seeding, planting seeds, harvesting, environmental monitoring and soil analysis. According to Verified Market Research, the agricultural robots market is expected to reach $11.58 billion by 2025.
Intensive crop farming is a modern industrialized form of crop farming. Intensive crop farming's methods include innovation in agricultural machinery, farming methods, genetic engineering technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, patent protection of genetic information, and global trade. These methods are widespread in developed nations.
Agricultural engineering, also known as agricultural and biosystems engineering, is the field of study and application of engineering science and designs principles for agriculture purposes, combining the various disciplines of mechanical, civil, electrical, food science, environmental, software, and chemical engineering to improve the efficiency of farms and agribusiness enterprises as well as to ensure sustainability of natural and renewable resources.
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the farm implements that they tow or operate. Machinery is used in both organic and nonorganic farming. Especially since the advent of mechanised agriculture, agricultural machinery is an indispensable part of how the world is fed.
The Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (CIAE) is a higher seat of learning, research and development in the field of agricultural engineering, situated in the lake city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is an autonomous body, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research subsidiary, under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer's Welfare, Government of India.
Digital agriculture, sometimes known as smart farming or e-agriculture, is tools that digitally collect, store, analyze, and share electronic data and/or information in agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has described the digitalization process of agriculture as the digital agricultural revolution. Other definitions, such as those from the United Nations Project Breakthrough, Cornell University, and Purdue University, also emphasize the role of digital technology in the optimization of food systems.
This glossary of agriculture is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in agriculture, its sub-disciplines, and related fields, including horticulture, animal husbandry, agribusiness, and agricultural policy. For other glossaries relevant to agricultural science, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of ecology, Glossary of environmental science, and Glossary of botanical terms.
Gamaya is a Swiss company which provides drones equipped with hyper-spectral cameras for use in agriculture.
iFarm is an international company that develops software and hardware for vertical farming and hydroponics. Its technologies are used for automatedd pesticide-free growing of salads, strawberries, and microgreens. It's headquartered in Helsinki, Finland with an office in the US.
Israel is a world leader in agricultural technology with its agtech / agrotech / agritech sector. The advent of Israeli agricultural technology sector in Israel is directly related to the unique environmental and geopolitical conditions of Israel. The sector arose first in the 1950s, with Israel seeking "to make the desert bloom". 60% of the country is covered by desert which led Israelis to develop desert agriculture. Israel faced acute shortages of water, leading to the development of technologies to increase the efficient use of available resources and the invention of high tech agricultural technology.