agricultural sciences
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. See also agricultural technology . 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 condition...