Agriculture

Agriculture (encompassing farming, ranching, grazing, and the tending of orchards and vineyards) is the production of food, feed, fiber, fuel and other goods by the systematic raising of plants and breeding and feeding animals.

Agri is from the Latin ager ("a field"), and culture, from the Latin cultura ("cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil"). A literal reading of the English word yields "tillage of the soil of a field". In modern usage, the word agriculture covers all activities essential to food/feed/fiber production, including all techniques for raising and "processing" livestock. Agriculture is also short for the study of the practice of agriculture — more formally known as agricultural science.

The history of agriculture is a major element of human history, as agricultural progress has been a crucial factor in worldwide socio-economic change, including wealth-building and militaristic specializations rarely seen in hunter-gatherer cultures—when farmers became capable of producing food beyond the needs of their own families, others in the tribe/nation/empire were freed to devote themselves to ambitions and enterprises other than food acquisition.

An estimated 42 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, making it by far the most common occupation. However, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).