Origins of agriculture

Introduction
Research techniques
How agriculture and domestication began
- Earliest beginnings
- Early development
  - Southwest Asia
  - The Americas
  - East Asia
  - Europe
Early agricultural societies
- Sumer
- The Nile valley
- Mesoamerica
- South America
- North America
Agriculture in ancient Asia
- China
  - Early history
  - The classical-imperial era
  - Tools and techniques
  - Land use
- Korea
- Japan
- The Indian subcontinent
  - Early historic period
  - The Mughal century (c. 1600 ce)
- Southeast Asia
Improvements in agriculture in the West: 200 bce to 1600 ce
- The Roman epoch: 200 bce to 600 ce
  - The farm
  - Farm implements
  - Cropping systems
  - Harvesting and processing
  - Livestock
- The medieval period: 600 to 1600 ce
  - Agricultural advances
    - Open-field system
    - Plows and plowing
    - Hand tools
    - New lands and crops
  - Agricultural recession
    - The Netherlands
    - England
    - Spain
    - Italy
    - France
    - Germany
Scientific agriculture: the 20th century
- Developments in power: the internal-combustion engine
  - The tractor
  - Unit machinery
    - Grain combine
    - Mechanized equipment for corn
    - Mechanized equipment for cotton
    - Tomato-harvesting equipment
  - Automobiles, trucks, and airplanes
- New crops and techniques
  - New crops
    - The soybean
    - Sorghum
    - The sugar beet
  - New techniques
    - Terracing
    - Irrigation
    - Dry farming
    - Vertical Farming and the Future
- New strains: genetics
  - Early work in genetics
  - Maize, or corn
  - Wheat
  - Rice
  - The Green Revolution
  - Genetic engineering
- Animal breeding
  - Hogs
  - Sheep
  - Beef cattle
  - Artificial breeding
- Electricity in agriculture
  - Electrical cooperatives
  - Modern applications
- Pest and disease control in crops
  - Beginnings of pest control
  - Pesticides as a panacea: 1942–62
  - Integrated control
- Economics, politics, and agriculture

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Farm in Saskatchewan

A young adult wearing overalls and a baseball hat in nature. A paper cutout with images of berries, nuts, and

Painting of herdsmen and cattle

Close-up of ripening barley plants with long, slender seed heads and awns in a dense field.

Young girl in a blue shirt sits on grass next to a medium-sized dog with a leash, gently petting the dog's head in a wooded outdoor setting.

A hand scatters wheat grains onto dark soil, illustrating the sowing process in farming.

Map showing the ancient Fertile Crescent, highlighting the regions of Babylonia and Assyria around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The green-shaded area traces the arc of early civilization from the Persian Gulf through Mesopotamia and up to the eastern Mediterranean, including notable ancient cities such as Babylon, Ur, Nineveh, and Assur. An inset map outlines the modern countries that now occupy this region, including Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and surrounding nations.

Iran: Zagros Mountains

Peruvian terraced fields

Related Questions

Farm in Saskatchewan — Farm in Saskatchewan Harvesting wheat on a farm in the grain belt near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. A potash mine appears in the distant background.

Origins of agriculture

Also known as: farming

Written by

Kenneth MellanbyAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 6, 2026 •History

Origins of agriculture, the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms—wet-rice production in Asia, wheat farming in Europe, cattle ranching in the Americas, and the like—but a more holistic perspective holds that humans are environmental engineers who disrupt terrestrial habitats in specific ways. Anthropogenic disruptions such as clearing vegetation or tilling the...

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