History of agriculture

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Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.^[1]

Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 104,000 years ago.^[2] However, domestication did not occur until much later. The earliest evidence of small-scale cultivation of edible grasses is from around 21,000 BC with the Ohalo II people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.^[3] By around 9500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops – emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax – were cultivated in the Levant.^[4] Rye may have been cultivated earlier, but this claim remains controversial.^[5] Regardless, rye's spread from Southwest Asia to the Atlantic was independent of the Neolithic founder crop package.^[6] Rice was domesticated in China by 6200 BC^[7] with earliest known cultivation from 5700 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Rice was also independently domesticated in West Africa and cultivated by 1000 BC.^[8][9] Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 11,000 years ago, followed by sheep. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and India around 8500 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3000 BC.

In subsaharan Africa, sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 3000 BC, along with pearl millet by 2000 BC.^[10][11] Yams were domesticated in several distinct locations, including West Africa (unknown date), and cowpeas by 2500 BC.^[12][13] Rice (African rice) was also independently domesticated in West Africa and cultivated by 1000 BC.^[8][9] Teff and likely finger millet were domesticated in Ethiopia by 3000 BC, along with noog, ensete, and coffee.^[14][15] Other plant foods domesticated in Africa include watermelon, okra, tamarind and black eyed peas, along with tree crops such as the kola nut and oil palm.^[16] Plantains were cultivated in Africa by 3000 BC and bananas by 1500 BC.^[17][18] The helmeted guineafowl was domesticated in West Africa.^[19] Sanga cattle was likely also domesticated in North-East Africa, around 7000 BC, and later crossbred with other species.^[20][21]

In South America, agriculture began as early as 9000 BC, starting with the cultivation of several species of plants that later became only minor crops. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 8000 BC and 5000 BC, along with beans, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Cassava was domesticated in the Amazon Basin no later than 7000 BC. Maize (Zea mays) found its way to South America from Mesoamerica, where wild teosinte was domesticated about 7000 BC and selectively bred to become domestic maize. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 4200 BC; another species of cotton was domesticated in Mesoamerica and became by far the most important species of cotton in the textile industry in modern times.^[22] Evidence of agriculture in the Eastern United States dates to about 3000 BCE. Several plants were cultivated, later to be replaced by the Three Sisters cultivation of maize, squash, and beans.

Sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 7000 BC. Bananas were cultivated and hybridized in the same period in Papua New Guinea. In Australia, agriculture was invented at a currently unspecified period, with the oldest eel traps of Budj Bim dating to 6,600 BC^[23] and the deployment of several crops ranging from yams^[24] to bananas.^[25]

The Bronze Age, from c. 3300 BC, witnessed the intensification of agriculture in civilizations such as Mesopotamian Sumer, ancient Egypt, ancient Sudan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Indian subcontinent, ancient China, and ancient Greece. From 100 BC to 1600 AD, world population continued to grow along with land use, as evidenced by the rapid increase in methane emissions from cattle and the cultivation of rice.^[26] During the Iron Age and era of classical antiquity, the expansion of ancient Rome, both the Republic and then the Empire, throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Western Europe built upon existing systems of agriculture while also establishing the manorial system that became a bedrock of medieval agriculture. In the Middle Ages, both in Europe and in the Islamic world, agriculture was transformed with improved techniques and the diffusion of crop plants, including the introduction of sugar, rice, cotton and fruit trees such as the orange to Europe by way of Al-Andalus. After the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Columbian exchange brought New World crops such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc to Europe, and Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips, and livestock including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats to the Americas.

Irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers were introduced soon after the Neolithic Revolution and developed much further in the past 200 years, starting with the British Agricultural Revolution. Since 1900, agriculture in the developed nations, and to a lesser extent in the developing world, has seen large rises in productivity as human labour has been replaced by mechanization, and assisted by synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and selective breeding. The Haber-Bosch process allowed the synthesis of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale, greatly increasing crop yields. Modern agriculture has raised social, political, and environmental issues including overpopulation, water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs and farm subsidies. In response, organic farming developed in the twentieth century as an alternative to the use of synthetic pesticides.