Agricultural sciences
Source: Britannica Photo Source: Unsplash, Thomas Hertogh
Key People: Kim Soon-Kwon Wilbur Olin Atwater Franklin Hiram King William James Farrer Agricultural sciences, sciences dealing with food and fibre production and processing. They include the technologies of soil cultivation, crop cultivation and harvesting, animal production, and the processing of plant and animal products for human consumption and use.
Food is the most basic human need. The domestication and cultivation of plants and animals beginning more than 11,500 years ago were aimed at ensuring that this need was met, and then as now these activities also fit with the relentless human drive to understand and control Earth’s biosphere. Over the last century and a half, many of the world’s political leaders have recognized what India’s Jawaharlal Nehru did, that “most things except agriculture can wait.” Scientific methods have been applied widely, and the results have revolutionized agricultural production. Under the conditions of prescientific agriculture, in a good harvest year, six people can produce barely enough food for themselves and four others. Advanced technologies have made it possible for one farmer in the United States, for example, to produce food for more than 100 people. The farmer has been enabled to increase yields per acre and per animal; reduce losses from diseases, pests, and spoilage; and augment net production by improved processing methods.
Until the 1930s, the benefits of agricultural research derived mostly from labour-saving inventions, like the cotton gin. Once the yield potentials of the major economic crops were increased through agricultural research, however, crop production per acre increased dramatically. Between 1940 and 1980 in the United States, for example, per-acre yields of corn tripled, those of wheat and soybeans doubled, and farm output per hour of farm work increased almost 10-fold as capital was substituted for labour. New techniques of food preservation made it possible to transport them over greater distances, in turn facilitating adjustments among locations of production and consumption, with further benefits to production efficiency. From a global perspective, the international flow of agricultural technology allows for the increase of agricultural productivity in developed and developing countries alike. From 1965 to 1985, for example, world trade in grains tripled, as did net exports from the United States. In 1995 the total value of U.S. agricultural exports exceeded $56 billion, and it increased to more than $138 billion by 2017, making U.S. agriculture heavily dependent upon international markets. Similarly, China is both a major importer and exporter of agricultural products and is an important driver of global crop production. History Early knowledge of agriculture was a collection of experiences verbally transmitted from farmer to farmer. Some of this ancient lore had been preserved in religious commandments, but the traditional sciences rarely dealt with a subject seemingly considered so commonplace. Although much was written about agriculture during the Middle Ages, the agricultural sciences did not then gain a place in the academic structure. Eventually, a movement began in central Europe to educate farmers in special academies, the earliest of which was established at Keszthely, Hungary, in 1796. Students were still taught only the experiences of farmers, however. Liebig’s contribution The scientific approach was inaugurated in 1840 by Justus von Liebig of Darmstadt, Germany. His classic work, Die organische Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agrikulturchemie und Physiologie (1840; Organic Chemistry in Its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology), launched the systematic development of the agricultural sciences. In Europe, a system of agricultural education soon developed that comprised secondary and postsecondary instruction. The old empirical-training centres were replaced by agricultural schools throughout Europe and North America. Under Liebig’s continuing influence, academic agriculture came to concentrate on the natural sciences. U.S. agricultural education and research Agricultural colleges came into being in the United States during the second half of the 19th century. In 1862 Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, under which Congress granted to each state 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) of land for each representative and senator “for the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be—without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics—to teach branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts.” Thus the stage was set for the remarkably successful land-grant system of agricultural education and research in the United States. That same year Iowa became the first state to accept the provisions of the act, and all the other states have followed. Now, land-grant colleges of agriculture offer programs of study leading to both baccalaureate and postgraduate degrees in the various agricultural sciences. These institutions have served as models for colleges established in many nations.
In 1887 Congress passed the Hatch Act, which provided for necessary basic and applied agricultural research to be conducted by the state colleges of agriculture in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Agricultural experiment stations were established in 16 states between 1875 and 1885, and they now exist in all 50 states. These stations, together with USDA research centres around the country, comprise a network of coordinated research installations in the agricultural sciences. Slightly more than half of the agricultural research in the United States, however, is conducted by the private sector.
Congress passed the Smith–Lever Act in 1914, providing for, among other things, the teaching of improved agricultural practices to farmers. Thus the agricultural extension service—now recognized as an outstanding example of adult vocational education—was established.
The demand for instruction in agriculture at the secondary level gained momentum around the beginning of the 20th century. Some private agricultural schools had already been founded in the eastern United States, and by 1916 agriculture was being taught in more than 3,000 high schools. Federally aided programs of vocational agriculture education began with the passage of the Smith–Hughes Vocational Education Act in 1917. Since passage of the Vocational Education Act of 1963, further expansion of agricultural education has occurred in vocational schools and in courses offered at junior and senior colleges. In the early 21st century the USDA had a number of grants to promote agricultural education at all grade levels, and many major universities, both private and public, continued to offer programs in agricultural sciences. Elsewhere, especially in developing countries that rely heavily on agriculture, agricultural education was expanded through the efforts of both governmental entities and nonprofit organizations. Gerhardt PreuschenGeorge F. EkstromJohn R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Major divisions The agricultural sciences can be divided into six groups. In all fields, the general pattern of progress toward the solution of specific problems or the realization of opportunities is: (1) research to more accurately define the functional requirements to be served; (2) design and development of products, processes, and other means of better serving these requirements; and (3) extension of this information to introduce improved technologies to the agricultural industries. This has proved to be a tremendously successful approach and is being used the world over. Soil and water sciences Soil and water sciences deal with the geological generation of soil, soil and water physics and chemistry, and all other factors relevant to soil fertility. Soil science began with the formulation of the theory of humus in 1809. A generation later, Liebig introduced experimental science, including a theory of the supply of soil with mineral nutrients. In the 20th century a general theory of soil fertility developed, embracing soil cultivation, the enrichment of soil with humus and nutrients, and the preparation of soil in accordance with crop demands. Water regulation, principally drainage and irrigation, is also included.
Soil and water research have made possible the use of all classes of land in more effective ways, while the control of soil erosion and deterioration has made other advances even more striking. Because the amount of water available for plant growth is one of the major limiting factors in crop production, improved tillage and terracing practices have been devised to conserve soil moisture, and soil-management and land-use practices have been developed to increase the infiltration of snow, rain, and irrigation water, thereby reducing losses caused by runoff.
Public and private research into chemical fertilizers and soil management have made it possible for farmers to aid nature in making specific soils more productive. Much has been learned about using crop rotation, legumes, and green manure for replenishing soil humus and nitrogen; determining and supplying the major and minor nutrient needs of crops; and managing soil under irrigation, including salt control. Techniques based on these findings have been put to use on farms to improve soil fertility and increase crop yields. Between 1940 and 1965, for example, farmers in the United States more than tripled their use of chemical fertilizers, resulting in increases of 50 to 150 percent in crop yields. Soil and water research can also help limit the amount of runoff of artificial fertilizers into nearby bodies of water by timing their application with climatic conditions and using precise amounts in controlled applications. Agrochemical runoff remains a major source of water pollution, and further research is needed to improve practices and reduce the impact of industrial agriculture on the environment.
Scientists have used many sophisticated techniques to unlock a vast storehouse of knowledge about plants. In one case, chemicals tagged with radioactive isotopes were employed to follow the processes by which plants take up soil nutrients to synthesize their fruits, grains, vegetables, nuts, flowers, and fibres. Plant sciences The plant sciences include applied plant physiology, nutrition, ecology, breeding and genetics, pathology, and weed science, as well as crop management. They deal primarily with two major types of crops: (1) those that represent direct human food, such as cereals, vegetables, fruits, and nuts; and (2) those that serve as feed and forage for food, companion, laboratory, and recreational animals. Special branches of these sciences have developed to deal with each of the numerous classes of plant crops—e.g., vegetables, small fruits, citrus fruits and other tree fruits, and flowers and other ornamental plants. Other specialties concern the production of raw materials for industry—cotton, hemp, sisal, and silk—although some of these are losing economic importance in the face of competition from synthetic fibres. Branches of the plant sciences that deal with such tropical crops as coffee, tea, cocoa, bananas, coconuts, sugarcane, oil palm, and pineapples, to the contrary, promise to retain their importance.
Although scientifically based plant production came of age at the end of the 19th century, it started much earlier. Instructions on sowing dates are reported in Egypt by 2000 BCE. Throughout the centuries, numerous treatises have included recommendations on how to achieve higher and more efficient yields.
The stimulus for the development of the plant sciences did not come from botany but from agricultural chemistry, the application of which led to the development of plant physiology. Field experiments were started in Rothamsted, England, in 1834, and elsewhere in Europe soon after. Improved methods of experiment design and statistical analysis made possible the comparative study of plants and their cultivation systems.
Cultivation of plants by varieties had already led in the late 18th century to the systematic selection of cereal varieties according to predicted yield. The rediscovery at the start of the 20th century of Gregor Mendel’s laws of heredity and later of ways to cause mutations led to modern plant breeding, with momentous results that included the tailoring of crop varieties for regions of climatic extremes. Agronomist Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for 1970 for the development of short-stemmed wheat, a key element in the so-called Green Revolution in developing countries. Major advances in the study of plant diseases were recorded in the 19th century, and the science of plant nutrition matured in the second quarter of the 1900s. Serious calamities resulting from the introduction of plant diseases into regions where the indigenous plants had no immunity against them, and the invasion of grapes by insects and of potatoes by late blight, stimulated research efforts. During the 20th century all diseases became objects of systematic plant pathology research. Plant pathologists search for chemicals effective against microbial diseases, weeds, and various pests and seek to adjust the biotic balance to reduce losses. That chemical residues have created some health and environmental problems has led to further scientific activity. Biological control measures may ultimately be less harmful to the environment and more specific and effective in pest and weed management.
Other research has been undertaken because consumers want better and more diverse fruits and vegetables, including organic foods. New varieties have been developed, methods have been found to ensure that fresh and processed foods arrive at retail stores in prime condition, and grocers have learned to care for these foods so that consumers receive them in the most attractive and nutritious state. The preservation and development of historical, or heirloom, crop varieties is a growing field, as these genetic lines may have favourable traits, such as resistance to disease or drought, that can be useful for industrialized varieties or as potential alternative crops. Gerhardt PreuschenByron Thomas ShawJohn R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Animal sciences In modern civilizations, people rely on meat, milk, and eggs as major sources of numerous nutrients. To satisfy this demand, sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, swine, ducks, geese, and turkeyschickens, are produced on farms all over the world. To understand how agricultural animals convert feedstuffs into the food and other commodities consumers demand, animal scientists have undertaken broad investigations using highly sophisticated techniques. The animal sciences comprise applied animal physiology, nutrition, breeding and genetics, ecology and ethology, and livestock and poultry management. In addition, diseases of food animals are the focus of many veterinary scientists. Animal nutrition research was well-established in several centres around the world by the turn of the 20th century, and it began to flourish during the second quarter of the 1900s. Many discoveries have been made about animal metabolism and consequent nutrient requirements; the usefulness of hundreds of feedstuffs as sources of essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, as well as lipids and carbohydrates; the proper balance of available nutrients in the diet; nutrient supplements and feed-processing technologies; and metabolite-partitioning and growth-promoting compounds. These fundamental findings have been applied widely since 1950, bringing about improved animal feeding. Studies of life processes in farm animals have helped in developing the optimal nutriment for each animal, and human nutrition has benefitted enormously from the knowledge that has come from these investigations.
The notion that “like begets like” was already current in biblical times. Long before the science of animal genetics developed, all species of agricultural animals were subjected to selective breeding to some extent. Modifying livestock and poultry to meet consumer demands requires the application of scientific principles to the selection of superior breeding animals and planned matings. For example, consumers have come to prefer more lean tissue and less fat in meat, and so the meat-type hog was developed in two decades of intensive selection and crossbreeding starting in the 1950s. Swine now yield more lean pork, grow faster, and require less feed to reach market weight than before. By the 1980s, a laying hen of any popular genetic strain, if managed properly, could be expected to produce more than 250 eggs annually, while special meat-producing strains of chickens gain body weight at a rate of 1 : 2 in ratio with feed intake. John R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Some of the most significant research in animal breeding has been done with dairy cattle and has established the proved sire system, in which bulls are ranked according to the performance of their offspring. The use of sires proved in this way together with artificial insemination has enabled dairy farmers to improve their herds by greatly expanding the influence of genetically superior bulls. Along with increased emphasis on performance testing, efforts have been made to predict at a young age whether an individual animal will be an efficient meat, milk, or egg producer. Such success has made for earlier culling and for herds and flocks of higher genetic merit. Gerhardt PreuschenByron Thomas ShawJohn R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Animals represent renewable agricultural resources because they reproduce, and animal scientists have studied animal reproduction assiduously since the 1930s. These investigations began in the United Kingdom but were soon joined by scientists in the United States, where the work blossomed. Basic discoveries have been put to use quickly in the animal industries. Elucidation of reproductive structures and mechanisms made it possible to refine reproductive management in the 1940s, and artificial insemination made possible the widespread use of proved sires in the 1950s. Additional basic knowledge and later technological developments made practical the control of the estrous cycle and of parturition by exogenous hormones and the serial harvesting and transplantation of embryos from donor females of high merit. The result of these changes has been an increase in the reproductive rate and efficiency of all species of farm animals.
Animal ecology and ethology are relatively young branches of the animal sciences. Around the middle of the 20th century, environmental physiologists in the United States and the United Kingdom began to study agricultural animals’ relations with their environment, including temperature, air, light, and diet. Interactions among environmental temperature, diet, and the animals’ genetic makeup have been characterized, and great strides have been made in improving thermal-environmental management on farms. Lighting management is now essential to profitable poultry production, and the light environment is being controlled in livestock houses as well. Since the 1970s emphasis has shifted to include the behavioral adaptability of animals to their surroundings and the effects of environmental stress on the immune status of livestock and poultry. Farmers have widely adopted intensive systems of animal production, and these systems continue to present opportunities and problems to animal scientists concerned with discovering and accommodating the environmental and ethological needs of food animals.
Animal health is essential to the efficient production of wholesome animal products. An example of the economic effect of animal-disease research conducted by veterinary scientists is the control of Marek’s disease, a highly contagious disease affecting the nerves and visceral organs of chickens, which resulted in a loss of more than $200,000,000 annually to the U.S. poultry industry alone. The disease was studied for more than 30 years before it was learned that it is caused by a herpes virus. Within three years of this discovery, a vaccine was developed that reduced the frequency of Marek’s disease and the resultant meat condemnations in vaccinated chickens by 90 percent and increased egg production by 4 percent. Veterinary scientists also investigate the chronic infectious diseases associated with high morbidity rates and various metabolic disorders. Food sciences and other post-harvest technologies A group of sciences and technologies underlie the processing, storage, distribution, and marketing of agricultural commodities and by-products. Modern post-harvest technology helps provide inexpensive and various food supplies for consumers, meets the demands of a variety of industrial users, and even creates replacements for fossil fuels.
Research having particular significance to post-harvest technology includes genetic engineering techniques that increase the efficiency of various chemical and biological processes and fermentations for converting biomass to feedstock and for use in producing chemicals (including alcohols) that can replace petroleum-based products. Among the expected outcomes are the manufacture of new products from reconstituted ones and the recovery of by-products that would otherwise be considered waste.
Agricultural engineering
Agricultural engineering includes appropriate areas of mechanical, electrical, environmental, and civil engineering, construction technology, hydraulics, and soil mechanics. rice paddies.
The use of mechanized power and machinery on the farm has increased greatly throughout the world, fourfold in the United States since 1930. Research in energy use, fluid power, machinery development, laser and microprocessor control for maintaining grain quality, and farm structures is expected to result in further gains in the efficiency with which food and fibre are produced and processed.
Agricultural production presents many engineering problems and opportunities. Agricultural operations—soil conservation and preparation; crop cultivation and harvesting; animal production; and commodities transportation, processing, packaging, and storage—are precision operations involving large tonnages, heavy power, and critical factors of time and place. Facilities designed to aid farm operations help farm workers to minimize the time and energy requirements of routine jobs. John R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Four primary branches have developed within agricultural engineering, based on the problems encountered. Farm power and machinery engineering is concerned with advances in farm mechanization—tractors, field machinery, and other mechanical equipment. Farm structures engineering studies the problems of providing shelter for animals and human beings, crop storage, and other special-purpose facilities. Soil and water control engineering deals with soil drainage, irrigation, conservation, hydrology, and flood control. Electric power and processing engineering is concerned with the distribution of electric power on the farm and its application to a variety of uses, such as lighting to control plant growth and certain animal production operations. Ralph Anthony PalmerJohn R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Agricultural economics The field of agricultural economics includes agricultural finance, policy, marketing, farm and agribusiness management, rural sociology, and agricultural law. The idea that the individual farm enterprise forms a unit—affected by location, production techniques, and market factors—originated during the 19th century. It was later supplemented by the theory of optimum utilization of production factors by the selection of production lines. Further refinement came about through applications of modern accounting methods. Research into farm and agribusiness management led to mathematical planning systems and statistical computation of farm-enterprise data, and interest has been drawn to decision-making behaviour studies of farm managers.
Agricultural policy is concerned with the relations between agriculture, economics, and society. Land ownership and the structure of farm enterprises were traditionally regarded as primarily social problems. The growth of agricultural production in the 20th century, accompanied by a decline in size of the rural population, however, gave impetus to research in agricultural policy. In the capitalist countries, this policy has concentrated on the influence of prices and market mechanisms; in the centrally planned countries, emphasis has been placed on artificially created market structures.
Research in agricultural marketing was originally limited to the problem of supply and demand, but the crises of the Great Depression in the 1930s brought new analytical studies. In Europe the growth of the cooperative movement—begun in Germany in the 19th century as a response to capital shortage and farm indebtedness—brought satisfactory solutions to problems of distribution of products from farmer to processor. Consequently, little interest in market research developed in Europe until the mid-20th century. Today, agricultural marketing studies focus on statistical computations of past market trends to supply data for forecasting.
Agricultural law concentrates on legal issues of both theoretical and practical significance to agriculture such as land tenure, land tenancy, farm labour, farm management, and taxation. From its beginnings at the University of Illinois in the 1940s, modern agricultural law has evolved to become a distinct field of law practice and scholarship.
Rural sociology, a young discipline, involves a variety of research methods, including behaviour study developed from studies in decision making in farm management. Gerhardt PreuschenByron Thomas ShawJohn R. CampbellStanley Evan Curtis
Other agricultural sciences Agricultural work science arose in response to the rural social problems experienced in Germany during the Great Depression. The improvement of work procedures, appropriate use of labour, analysis of human capacity for work, and adjustment of mechanized production methods and labour requirements represent the main objects of this branch of ergonomics research. Studies of the influence of mechanization on the worker and of worker training came later.
Agricultural meteorology deals with the effects of weather events, and especially the effects of their variations in time and space, on plant and animal agriculture. Atmospheric factors such as cloud type and solar radiation, temperature, vapour pressure, and precipitation are of vital interest to agriculturalists. Agricultural meteorologists use weather and climatic data in enterprise risk analysis as well as in short- and long-range forecasting of crop yields and animal performance. Emerging agricultural sciences The agricultural sciences are poised to enter a new era, armed with ever more sophisticated research technologies, such as monoclonal antibodies and gene splicing, in their continuing drive to better harness nature for the ultimate benefit of human beings everywhere. Although broad and deep scientific investigations have been made in the biological, physical, and social realms related to agriculture, the need persists for additional research to close remaining gaps in knowledge, especially in molecular biology and the environmental, social, and economic effects of its fruits.
From results of experiments already conducted, it is clear that molecular biology will influence plant genetics and crop production. Plant geneticists are working to improve specific economically important plant varieties by increasing their photosynthetic efficiency, improving their nutritional quality, and transferring to them such favourable properties as the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, as do legumes, and to better resist diseases and tolerate herbicides and natural environmental stress. In particular, genetic engineering has proved useful as a novel tool in agricultural science. Genetically modified (GM) foods were first approved for human consumption in the United States in 1994, and by 2014–15 about 90 percent of the corn, cotton, and soybeans planted in the United States was GM. The genetic engineering of crops can dramatically increase per-area crop yields and, in some cases, reduce the use of chemical insecticides. For example, the application of wide-spectrum insecticides has declined in many areas growing plants, such as potatoes, cotton, and corn, that were endowed with a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which produces a natural insecticide called Bt toxin. However, some insect pests have gained resistance to the toxin, and synthetic pesticides are needed to supplement the Bt crops in some places. Herbicide-resistant crops (HRC) have been available since the mid-1980s; these crops enable fairly effective chemical control of weeds, since generally only the HRC plants can survive in fields treated with the corresponding herbicide, though some weed species have also gained resistance. Some food crops have been engineered to increase their nutritional quality, such as “golden” rice, which was genetically modified to produce almost 20 times the beta-carotene of previous varieties. Animal scientists are using new research methods in biotechnology, including the micromanipulation of embryos to produce multiple clones. Monoclonal antibodies are used in studies of specific factors in immune mechanisms, and recombinant DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) technology is used in the genetic engineering of microbes so that they can synthesize specific antigenic proteins useful in vaccine production. The ultimate goal of this research is to improve dramatically the health and productivity of agricultural animals.
Preuschen, G. , Shaw, . Byron Thomas , Palmer, . Ralph Anthony , Campbell, . John R. , Curtis, . Stanley Evan and Ekstrom, . George F.. "Agricultural sciences." Encyclopedia Britannica, August 22, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/science/agricultural-sciences.
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