Nature and Importance of Agriculture

• ager = field

• cultura = sultivation/growing

agriculture latin words

Agriculture

It is the systematic raising of useful plants and livestock under the management of men

Agriculture

It is the art and science of using land to produce food, fiber, and other goods.

Agriculture

is a purposeful work through which the elements of nature are

harnessed to produce plants and animals to meet human needs.

civilization

_____ cannot develop without agriculture.

• Theory of Evolution

  • Theory of Creation

history of agriculture is difficult to traced back

man's realization of the difference between him and other

forms of life

agriculture arose from

-Shift from Dependence on Nature to Control Over

-Domestication of Plants and Animals

-Formation of Settlements

The Development of Agriculture

Pastoral Stage

Hunting and fishing are the dominant means for gathering food.

Pastoral Stage

Using randomly acquired weapons. man lived on the gift of nature.

Pastoral Stage

Gathering wild plants for their medicinal, cosmetic, aphrodisiac properties as well as

for their food value.

Pastoral Stage

For communities near bodies of water, fishes are caught by hand.

Old stone age

Simple stone tools, hand axes, and chipped stones

Nomadic hunter-gatherers

Old stone age are ____ gatherers

Old stone age

Hunted animals, gathered wild plants

Old stone age

Caves, temporary huts

Old stone age

Discovered fire and used for warmth and cooking

Middle stone age

(a) use of bow and arrow;

(b) catching, drying and storage of fish; and

(c) stored seeds, nuts and fruits.

New stone age or neolithic-age

Discovery of the relation of seed to plant

New stone age or neolithic-age

Domestication of plants and animals

New stone age or neolithic-age

This was the intervention that made possible the pastoral and agricultural economies. It has proved to be the single most important intervention man has ever made in his environment.

New stone age or neolithic-age

➢Villages began to grow and man made transition from food collection to the

deliberate raising of crops

New stone age or neolithic-age

➢“seed agriculture” and “vegeculture”

They turned to plants.

Population pressures on the environments which were initially

favorable for man and for the game they hunted. When availability of game decreased, they need to find new food source

Middle East.

credit for the earliest domestication which seems to have occurred in the _____

Cushites

credit for the earliest domestication is generally given to a remarkable race of people called ______.

Cushites

Not only experimented With plants as a food source, but also attempted their culture.

semi-nomadic

Cushites are

Americas, South East Asia

Cushites were great seafarers as well as land travellers, it has been surmised

that they may have even journeyed as far as the ___ and to ____

• protein food source (Leguminoceae)

• cereals (Poaceae)

Cushites relied on 2 food source

Maize and peanuts

The Americas common diet

Sorghum and beans

Africa common diet

wheat barley and Beans

The Middle East common diet

Rice and soybeans

Asia common diet

Purseglove

____(1968) has shown that the principal production for many major

economic crops are distant from the regions in which they originated

Glycine soja

It is believed Soybean have been domesticated from its wild relative, _____, around 6,000 to 9,000 years ago in China.

Abyssinia (Northeast Africa)

Sorghum Originated from

Chad– Sudan savannah

The earliest evidence of sorghum domestication comes from the ______, where archaeological sites have yielded charred sorghum grains and cobs.

Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico.

The earliest evidence of domesticated corn comes from archaeological sites in the _____ of_____

Yangtze River basin

The domestication of rice in East Asia is thought to have occurred in the ____ in China around 13,500 to 8,200 years ago.

Oryza rufipogon.

The wild ancestor of rice in East Asia is a grass called

Fertile Crescent

Southwestern Asia archeological evidences, showed, that agricultural

villages existed about 8,000 to 9.000 B.C. in an area known as the

Africa

South of the coastal strip of ____ received the earliest crops by diffusion

along the Nile River

Southern Asia

➢ First crops spread overland from Iraq and Iran in SA about 3,000 BC

➢ In Southern India and Ceylon, irrigation reservoirs were constructed as early

as1500-1300 BC

Central Asia

➢ Wheat and Barley farming pattern was established and spread overland through Iran

➢ Other crops include grapes, peaches, apricots, and melons

Egypt

➢ Basic agricultural ideas spread from SW Asia into ____ before 4,500 BC

➢ Flood from the Nile river made farming along its banks productive

➢ Land preparation, irrigation and pruning was introduced

Europe, Specularia

➢ Crop Rotation, manure fertilization, weed control, grafting and budding, us of

greenhouse( _____)

➢ Romans credited for postharvest storage

Eastern Asia

Diffusion of SW Asian wheat complex by mainland diffusion. Root crops like yams taro, bananas, bamboo, sorghum, soybeans, and rice are native

to the tropical Fareast Region.

South East Asia

➢ Agriculture consisted of growing various root crops Indigenous plants in each area

may have diffused from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ceylon and the

Philippines,

➢ Many crops may have been interchanged with other crops such as spices and dye

plants.

Oceana

agriculture in New Guinea and Pacific Islands remained somewhat primitive until

modern times. Crops are taro. yams. coconut, bananas sugarcane, mangoes,

Breadfruit, bottle gourds and melons.

The Americas

North and South America agriculture stems from the domestication of

indigenous American plants.

South Mexico

first centre of New World Agriculture

South America

focal area for some major domestication. The tropical forest lowlands developed agriculture based on root crops like sweet potato, cassava, peanut, also raised gourds, pineapple, tobacco, dyestuff, beans and cotton.

• oil crops

• vegtable crops

• Cultivated Tropical Fruits

• Cutflowers

Origin and Domestication of some Important Crops in the Philippines

• peanut

• coconut

oil crops

Peanut

- native to South America. It was introduced into Africa where

along with bananas, it forms a large part of the diet of the people.

Coconut

- It seem likely that it was carried by man as a source of food and drink

during sea voyages, and that some fruits also floated in ocean currents

and germinated after they were washed ashore in new locations.

Beans

probably native to tropical America. Phaseolus vulgaris is the most widely grown of the 4 cultivated species of Phaseolus. It is the world’s most important grain legume for human consumption.

Phaseolus vulgaris

is the most widely grown of the 4 cultivated species of Phaseolus. I

Eggplant

it is probably native to South and Eastern Asia, but was also grown in China for many centuries. It is thought to have been domesticated in India where wild plants now grow, but it has spread throughout he warm tropics.

Muskmelon (reticulata group)

believed to have originated in Asia particularly in Iran and India.

Okra

- also called gumbo, gombo, gobo or lady’s finger, it is either Asian or African in origin.

Tomatoes

- native to tropical Central and South America where it was cultivated in pre

Columbian times.

cherry tomato, Peru-Ecuador

tomato wild progenitor is thought to have been the _____ which now grows in the wild in ___

Asparagus

thought to be native to southern Russia, has been found growing wild in

Europe, England, Poland, and around the Mediterranean Sea.

Onion

- an ancient crop thought to have been domesticated in Central Asia, though its

wild ancestor is unknown,

• beans

• Eggplant

• Muskmelon

• okra

• Tomatoes

• Asparagus

• Onion

vegetable crops

Bananas

– appear to have originated in Southeast Asia, spreading to India, Africa

and finally to tropical America.

Citrus

history of the cultivated species suggests that they may have been domesticated in

the drier tropics of Southeast Asia. Though the crop is of tropical origin, it is now

cultivated more extensively in the sub-tropics with Mediterranean climate.

Mango

– originated in the India–Bangladesh–Burma region, and had spread into

cultivation and common use in the Indian sub-continent by 2,000 B.C.

Pineapple

– native to tropical regions of South America, and was grown in

the New World for food, for its medicinal properties and for the production of

wine long before the discovery of the New World.

Papaya

– probably originated in Central America, perhaps as a natural hybrid

between other species.

• Bananas

• Citrus

• Mango

• Pineapple

• Papaya

Cultivated Tropical Fruits

Chrysanthemum

– native to China and was brought to Europe sometime in 1789 by Captain M. Blanchard of Marseilles.

Captain M. Blanchard of Marseilles.

Chrysanthemum brought to Europe sometime in 1789 by

Carnation

– indigenous to the Mediterranean area. Cultivated by man for over 2,000 years. Man’s improvement of the native Dianthus began in the 16th century. The perpetual

flowering race which gave rise to the American types was developed in France in 1840.

Rose

– native to the northern temperate zone.

Damascene

The earliest record of a rose is thought to be of a ____ rose,

Rosa gallica, Rosa phoenicea

Damascene rose, a natural hybrid between ____ and _____ found in frescoes at Knossos, a ruined city on the island of Crete and at one time capital of the

Minoan civilization, about 3,000–1100 B.C.

Gladiolus

– the species were recognized over 2,000 years growing in the fields of

Asia Minor and were called “corn lilies”. Modern hybrids, designated as G.

grandiflorus, are a complex of at least 11 species.

Easter lily

is a native of Japan and its center of origin is

apparently Japan’s three small southernmost islands.

Lilium philippinense.

The local counterpart of Easter lily which is endemic to the Philippines is

Lilium longiflorum

Easter lily scientific name

Pre-colonial period.

Indo-Malayan migrants brought with them wet-rice agriculture and carabao was also used as source of animal power for cultivation. This type of agriculture predominated near bodies of water like rivers and lakes.

Slash-and-burn kaingin culture or non-plow farming

in Pre-colonial period, ____predominated in other areas.

This indicated shifting agriculture rather than sedentary type of rice culture and

the tribe were mainly nomadic.

rice, gabi, yams, bananas, corn, millet, coconuts, citrus, ginger, clove, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pre-colonial period main crops

1. Absence of full-blown ruling class who could exploit producers for surplus.

2. Limited foreign trade.

3. Food scarcity in some settlements.

During Pre-colonial period absence of food surpluses were attributed to:

Pre-colonial period.

Most barangays were self-sufficient. Land was abundant and population was

estimated to be about 500,000 by the mid-16th century. Private land ownership did

not exist.

Colonial period.

This period introduced a non-producing class for which Filipinos

produced surpluses, leading to an increase in agricultural production.

mulberry, cocoa, wheat, cucumber, cantaloupe, watermelon, coffee, new varieties of cereals, peas and other vegetables.

Colonial period Plant introductions include:

Colonial period

The development of haciendas allowed for the introduction of technological innovations in production and processing, e.g. steam or hydraulic-powered sugar mills.

March 6, 1909

when was the College of Agriculture was founded in Los Baños as a unit of the University of the Philippines.

Post-war period.

- Introduction of technological improvements

- Campaign for use of modern farm inputs and farm mechanization in the 1950s

Post-war period.

Building up of market for tractors and power tillers in the 1960s

- Establishment of the International Rice Research Institute

- Introduction of the high yielding rice varieties

Post-war period.

Introduction of the high yielding rice varieties

- Further development and expansion of international agricultural trading

especially for coconut and its by-products, tobacco, sugar, pineapple, etc.

• physical

a. climate - typhoons, drought

b. Soil- loss of top soil due to erosion particularly in slopy areas

• Biological

a. Insect pests

b. Weeds

c. Disease pathogens

d. Physiological disorders

e. Genetic make-up

• Socio-economic

• a. Family profile- low farm income

• b. Community profile

• c. Government support

Problems of Philippine Agriculture

• Low productivity:

• High post-harvest losses:

• Climate change:

agricultural sector still faces a number of challenges, including:

including the small size of farms, the use of outdated farming practices, and the lack of access to credit and agricultural inputs.

Low productivity: This is due to a number of factors,

poor storage facilities, inadequate transportation, and lack of processing facilities.

High post-harvest losses: This is due to a number of factors, including

• Investing in agricultural research and development:

• Promoting sustainable agricultural practices:

• Enhancing access to credit and agricultural inputs:

Philippine government is taking steps to improve the agricultural sector. These include: