Agriculture, Environment and Society

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Agriculture, Environment and Society

• Introduction

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A Chinese Proverb

• The well being of a people is like a tree.
• Agriculture is its root,
• Manufacture and commerce are its branches and its
  leaves.
• If the root is injured, the leaves fall, the
  branches break away,
• And the tree dies.

3
Agriculture and Society

• 1. Hunters-gatherers turned to agriculture only
  as a last resort when population pressure decreed
  it.
• 2. Humans were hunter-gatherers for over 99 of
  their existence.
• 3. Man began practicing elementary agriculture
  around 10,000 years ago.
• 4. Civilization was spawned by agriculture.
• 5. Agriculture leads to increasing populations.
• 6. Increasing population lead to increased
  agriculture.

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Agriculture and the Environment

• 1. Agriculture has led to environmental
  degradation.
• 2. While hunting-gathering entails minimal
  environmental disruptionagriculture impacts the
  environment greatly.
• 3. American agriculture requires 2.6 of the
  nations energy budgetconsumer of 8 of the
  nations oil.
• 4. A minimum 4 annual world increase in food
  production is necessary to feed the present world
  population.

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Assignment for Lecture 2

• Look in the newspaper, the internet, a magazine
  or some other source of information and bring an
  article for discussion that involves Agriculture
  and its impact on Society and/or the Environment.
  Alternativean article on some specific ag
  issue.
• 2nd questionsearch the internet to find how much
  farmland is in California and how much of
  Californias water is used by agriculture
• Read How it all began

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Define Agriculture

• The science, art, and the business of cultivating
  the soil, producing crops for food and fiber, and
  raising livestock farming.

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Agribusiness

• Farming engaged in as a large-scale business
  operation embracing the production, processing,
  and distribution of agricultural products and the
  manufacture of farm machinery, equipment and
  supplies.

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Environment

• I. The circumstances or conditions that surround
  one surroundings.
• II. The totality of circumstances surrounding an
  organism or a group of organisms.
• A. The combination of external physical
  conditions that affect and influence the growth,
  development, and survival of organisms.
• B. The complex of social and cultural conditions
  affecting the nature of an individual or a
  community.

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Ecology

• I. Study of the interrelationships that occur
  between organisms and the environment.
• II. The science dealing with relationships of
  plants and animals to their environment and to
  the site factors that operates in controlling
  their distribution and growth.

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Concept of Human Ecology

• The inevitable crowding of organisms upon limited
  resources produces a complex interaction of
  organism with organism and of organism with
  environment in the course of which individuals
  adjust to one another in ways conducive to a more
  effective utilization of the habitat. (Hawley,
  1966)
• Break this down and analyze each part of this
  statement

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• End of Lecture numberhooray!
• NextThe history of Agriculture