The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to agriculture:
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.
Fish farming or pisciculture involves commercial breeding of fish, most often for food, in fish tanks or artificial enclosures such as fish ponds. It is a particular type of aquaculture, which is the controlled cultivation and harvesting of aquatic animals such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and so on, in natural or pseudo-natural environments. A facility that releases juvenile fish into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species' natural numbers is generally referred to as a fish hatchery. Worldwide, the most important fish species produced in fish farming are carp, catfish, salmon and tilapia.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the sustainability of agriculture. When developing agriculture within sustainable food systems, it is important to develop flexible business processes and farming practices. Agriculture has an enormous environmental footprint, playing a significant role in causing climate change, water scarcity, water pollution, land degradation, deforestation and other processes; it is simultaneously causing environmental changes and being impacted by these changes. Sustainable agriculture consists of environment friendly methods of farming that allow the production of crops or livestock without causing damage to human or natural systems. It involves preventing adverse effects on soil, water, biodiversity, and surrounding or downstream resources, as well as to those working or living on the farm or in neighboring areas. Elements of sustainable agriculture can include permaculture, agroforestry, mixed farming, multiple cropping, and crop rotation.
Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture with hydroponics whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically grown plants.
John Todd is a Canadian biologist working in the general field of ecological design. He addresses problems of food production and wastewater processing by using ecosystems technologies that incorporate plants, animals and bacteria. Todd has developed "Arks" or "bioshelters", ecologically closed "life-support systems" with the goal of sustainable functioning. He combines alternative technologies for renewable energy, organic farming, aquaculture, hydroponics and architecture to create "living machines" or "eco-machines".
A fish pond or fishpond is a controlled pond, small artificial lake or retention basin that is stocked with fish and is used in aquaculture for fish farming, for recreational fishing, or for ornamental purposes.
A bioshelter is a solar greenhouse managed as an indoor ecosystem. The word bioshelter was coined by the New Alchemy Institute and solar designers Sean Wellesley-Miller and Day Chahroudi. The term was created to distinguish their work in greenhouse design and management from twentieth century petro-chemical fuelled monoculture greenhouses.
Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a type of aquaculture where the byproducts, including waste, from one aquatic species are used as inputs for another. Farmers combine fed aquaculture with inorganic extractive and organic extractive aquaculture to create balanced systems for environment remediation (biomitigation), economic stability and social acceptability.
Agriculture is the largest employment sector in Bangladesh, making up 14.2 percent of Bangladesh's GDP in 2017 and employing about 42.7 percent of the workforce. The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resources development, food security, and other economic and social forces. A plurality of Bangladeshis earn their living from agriculture. Due to a number of factors, Bangladesh's labour-intensive agriculture has achieved steady increases in food grain production despite the often unfavorable weather conditions. These include better flood control and irrigation, a generally more efficient use of fertilisers, as well as the establishment of better distribution and rural credit networks.
Agriculture employs the majority of Madagascar's population. Mainly involving smallholders, agriculture has seen different levels of state organisation, shifting from state control to a liberalized sector.
Agriculture in Kenya dominates Kenya's economy. 15–17 percent of Kenya's total land area has sufficient fertility and rainfall to be farmed, and 7–8 percent can be classified as first-class land. In 2006, almost 75 percent of working Kenyans made their living by farming, compared with 80 percent in 1980. About one-half of Kenya's total agricultural output is non-marketed subsistence production.
Microponics, in agricultural practice, is a symbiotic integration of fish, plants, and micro-livestock within a semi-controlled environment, designed to enhance soil fertility and crop productivity. Coined by Gary Donaldson, an Australian urban farmer, in 2008, the term was used to describe his innovative concept of integrated backyard food production. It is important to note that while "microponics" had been previously used to refer to an obscure grafting method in hydroponics, Donaldson's application of the term was derived from the amalgamation of micro-livestock (micro-farming) and the cultivation of fish and plants, a practice commonly known as aquaponics.
The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. The environmental impact of agriculture varies widely based on practices employed by farmers and by the scale of practice. Farming communities that try to reduce environmental impacts through modifying their practices will adopt sustainable agriculture practices. The negative impact of agriculture is an old issue that remains a concern even as experts design innovative means to reduce destruction and enhance eco-efficiency. Animal agriculture practices tend to be more environmentally destructive than agricultural practices focused on fruits, vegetables and other biomass. The emissions of ammonia from cattle waste continue to raise concerns over environmental pollution.
Building-integrated agriculture (BIA) is the practice of locating high-performance hydroponic greenhouse farming systems on and in mixed-use buildings to exploit synergies between the built environment and agriculture.
The fishing industry plays a significant part in the national economy of Pakistan. With a coastline of about 1,120 km, Pakistan has enough fishery resources that remain to be developed. Most of the population of the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan depends on fisheries for livelihood. It is also a major source of export earning.
National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was launched during February 2011 by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with the funding from the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. The mega project has three major objectives of strategic research, technology demonstrations and capacity building. Assessment of the impact of climate change simultaneous with formulation of adaptive strategies is the prime approach under strategic research across all sectors of agriculture, dairying and fisheries.
Biofloc technology (BFT) is a system of aquaculture that uses "microbial biotechnology to increase the efficacy and utilization of fish feeds, where toxic materials such as nitrogen components are treated and converted to a useful product, like a protein for using as supplementary feeds to the fish and crustaceans."
The Ark was a bioshelter constructed in Spry Point, Prince Edward Island, designed by architects David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund, who relocated from the USA to design the project under their firm's name Solsearch Architects. The other major contributor was a New England ecological research center, called The New Alchemy Institute, which conceptualized the PEI Ark. The goal of the New Alchemy institute was to study non-violent and non-lethal methods to secure the future of humanity as stated by one of the project's participants.
The Integrated Aqua-Vegeculture System (iAVs),also informally known as Sandponics, is a food production method that combines aquaculture and horticulture (olericulture). It was developed in the 1980s by Dr. Mark McMurtry and colleagues at North Carolina State University including Professor Doug Sanders, Paul V. Nelson and Dr. Merle Jensen. This system is one of the earliest instances of a closed-loop aquaponic system.
