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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
agriculture
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
commercial
▪ The most obvious one is commercial animal agriculture in its dominant form.
▪ Between 300,000 and 800,000 children like Damaris are working as hired laborers in commercial U.S. agriculture today.
intensive
▪ Also of concern is not only the cost but the amount of fossil energy subsidy required for intensive agriculture.
▪ About 90 percent of wildflower-rich meadows have disappeared since the Second World War due to intensive agriculture and drainage.
▪ We now realise the importance of hedgerows, of small fields, of clean rivers and of less intensive agriculture.
▪ The corncrake and marsh fritillary have been the victims of intensive agriculture as ploughing and pesticides destroy habitat and insects.
▪ The increasing adoption of less intensive agriculture should further encourage a hare recovery.
▪ Powys was an area of intensive agriculture, predominantly sheep breeding.
▪ Farming More intensive agriculture has led to increased concentrations of nitrate in groundwater in many areas.
▪ But on many streams which mink have colonised, particularly those close to intensive agriculture, fish are no longer abundant.
local
▪ This project was promoted by Lord Egremont who wished to improve the condition of local agriculture by upgrading transport facilities.
▪ Rawcliffe's good communications systems serve the local industries in agriculture and manufacturing.
modern
▪ It involves the whole political economy of modern agriculture - and that includes consumers and politicians as well as producers.
▪ Wild animals are not alone in suffering from some of the technological advances of modern agriculture.
▪ Most are ill-adapted to the demands of modern, mechanised agriculture and, unless converted to new uses, may well disappear.
sustainable
▪ The basic challenge for sustainable agriculture is to maximise the use of locally-available and renewable resources.
▪ One battleground in the debate is the issue of whether biotechnology threatens sustainable agriculture.
▪ While companies talk about sustainable agriculture, they create plant varieties that can withstand being sprayed by their most virulent herbicides.
▪ What is the expected response of farmers in industrialised countries to sustainable agriculture?
▪ It is essential that sustainable agriculture be developed in the areas already deforested and settled.
▪ Hence sustainable agriculture could replace unsustainable agriculture, reducing the impact of erosion and flooding on downstream agricultural areas.
▪ Extensification for meat production purposes is therefore an option that is consistent with sustainable agriculture.
▪ Quietly, slowly and significantly, sustainable agriculture is sweeping the farming systems of the world.
traditional
▪ If agreed by the Council of Ministers it will form the basis for support to the maintenance of traditional agriculture without intensification.
▪ The shift from the main traditional occupation, agriculture, to unskilled labour, was considerable.
▪ The problem is that traditional slash-and-burn agriculture is still the only option most farmers know.
▪ Since almost all are high mountain areas, agricultural development is anyway unlikely but traditional agriculture for conservation objectives is supported.
■ NOUN
minister
▪ But Peter Walker, the agriculture minister, opposes the idea of a new law.
▪ Exporters will face extra charges for transporting animals inspected by independently nominated veterinarians, said junior agriculture minister Elliot Morley.
▪ Renate Ku nast, the new food and agriculture minister, will also have responsibility for consumer affairs.
▪ Earlier, Green Party co-leader Renate Kuenast as appointed agriculture minister.
▪ Mr Davies, 46, was Labour's shadow agriculture minister.
▪ On April 28 the agriculture ministers will meet in Brussels.
ministry
▪ They include the departments of health, trade and industry and social security, the agriculture ministry, and local authorities.
▪ The report, co-drafted with the agriculture ministry, also outlined the amount lent by agricultural cooperatives to the jusen.
subsistence
▪ The graphite boom temporarily reduced the social and economic importance of subsistence agriculture in the Low Country.
▪ The manufacture of cloth was thus no more than a marginal addition to the subsistence agriculture of the interior.
▪ Much of the worldwide loss was the result of impoverished farmers being compelled to clear the land for subsistence agriculture.
▪ By contrast, there was a general shift from subsistence agriculture to the production of cash crops and the provision of services.
▪ From this time on the position of subsistence agriculture declined in other regions, though the pace of this change was uneven.
▪ Fishing is also of major importance, while around 70 percent of the population depend on subsistence agriculture.
▪ The world which had been dominated by subsistence agriculture crumbled.
▪ The siting of a settlement is very closely connected with the decision to use the land around for subsistence agriculture.
■ VERB
based
▪ The main industrial activity was also based on agriculture.
▪ The productivity of an economy based on agriculture and household industry had inherent limits.
develop
▪ But with foreign assistance to developing world agriculture in decline, that will be harder.
employ
▪ One other key variable that has traditionally been used to delineate rural areas is the percentages employed in agriculture and forestry.
▪ Industrialization is measured by the percentage of males employed in agriculture and the per capita consumption of energy.
▪ More than 700,000 people were employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing in 1961.
▪ At the beginning of the 1980s, about a third of the total labour force was employed in agriculture.
engage
▪ They were engaged in agriculture and industry but they renounced trade.
increase
▪ High-level ministers have talked openly about increasing aid to agriculture and shifting economic policy from one of stabilization to one of growth.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
intensive farming/agriculture
▪ About 90 percent of wildflower-rich meadows have disappeared since the Second World War due to intensive agriculture and drainage.
▪ Also of concern is not only the cost but the amount of fossil energy subsidy required for intensive agriculture.
▪ Our increase in intensive farming has brought with it an increase in outbreaks of food poisoning.
▪ The corncrake and marsh fritillary have been the victims of intensive agriculture as ploughing and pesticides destroy habitat and insects.
▪ The increasing adoption of less intensive agriculture should further encourage a hare recovery.
▪ They said they didn't have strong views on intensive farming.
▪ They were replaced by cities dependent on intensive farming to feed them and on great armies to defend them.
▪ We now realise the importance of hedgerows, of small fields, of clean rivers and of less intensive agriculture.
subsistence farming/agriculture etc
▪ In the early l960s Bengali agriculture consisted mainly of subsistence farming.
▪ It report points out that, in many developing countries, women are primarily responsible for subsistence farming.
▪ It was there in 1903 that quarrymen went on strike for three and a half years, surviving on subsistence farming.
▪ Preferential interest rates also favor commercial over subsistence farming in many countries.
▪ She will most probably be involved in agriculture, in subsistence farming of crops like rice.
▪ The graphite boom temporarily reduced the social and economic importance of subsistence agriculture in the Low Country.
▪ This vast, dispersed rural workforce would need, and would receive, only the education needed for manual subsistence farming.
▪ Wine formed the most important cash crop, while cereal production generally took the form of subsistence farming.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But this pattern has begun to change, especially in the ever-sensitive area of agriculture.
▪ Experts have recommended that fishermen are paid not to fish, mirroring recent developments in agriculture.
▪ Local wildlife and agriculture are likely to be badly affected, environmentalists claim.
▪ Prior to the invention of agriculture, game was both the primary diet and the focus of battles in the fields.
▪ The drainage of peatbogs for forestry and agriculture is making a significant net contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, the report concludes.
▪ The initiative will allow the entrepreneurs to test new approaches to agriculture or develop new agricultural products and activities.
▪ The spread of industrial agriculture in the South places thousands of native breeds at risk.
▪ Young people do not want to live in them, when as often as not work means agriculture or nothing.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Agriculture

Agriculture \Ag"ri*cul`ture\ (?; 135), n. [L. agricultura; ager field + cultura cultivation: cf. F. agriculture. See Acre and Culture.] The art or science of cultivating the ground, including the harvesting of crops, and the rearing and management of live stock; tillage; husbandry; farming.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
agriculture

mid-15c., from Late Latin agricultura "cultivation of the land," compound of agri cultura "cultivation of land," from agri, genitive of ager "a field" (see acre) + cultura "cultivation" (see culture (n.)). In Old English, the idea could be expressed by eorðtilþ.

Wiktionary
agriculture

n. The art or science of cultivate the ground, including the harvesting of crops, and the rearing and management of livestock; tillage; husbandry; farming.

WordNet
agriculture
  1. n. a large-scale farming enterprise [syn: agribusiness, factory farm]

  2. the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock [syn: farming, husbandry]

  3. the federal department that administers programs that provide services to farmers (including research and soil conservation and efforts to stabilize the farming economy); created in 1862 [syn: Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Department, USDA]

  4. the class of people engaged in growing food

Wikipedia
Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the development of civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology.

Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have in many cases sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production. Genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts. Significant degradation of land and water resources, including the depletion of aquifers, has been observed in recent decades, and the effects of global warming on agriculture and of agriculture on global warming are still not fully understood.

The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meats and spices. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. Over one third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector, although the percentages of agricultural workers in developed countries has decreased significantly over the past several centuries.

Agriculture (Chinese mythology)

Agriculture is an important theme in Chinese mythology. There are many myths about the invention of agriculture that have been told or written about in China (Yang 2005:70). Chinese mythology refers to those myths found in the historical geographic area of China. This includes myths in Chinese and other languages, as transmitted by Han Chinese as well as other ethnic groups (of which fifty-six are officially recognized by current administration of China). (Yang 2005:4) Many of the myths about agriculture involve its invention by such deities or culture heroes such as Shennong, Houji, Hou Tu, and Shujun: of these Shennong is the most famous, according to Lihui Yang (2005:70). There are also many other myths. Myths related to agriculture include how humans learned the use of fire, cooking, animal husbandry and the use of draft animals, inventions of various agricultural tools and implements, the domestication of various species of plants such as ginger and radishes, the evaluation and uses of various types of soil, irrigation by digging wells, and the invention of farmers markets. Other myths include events which made agriculture possible by destroying an excessive number of suns in the sky or ending the Great Flood.

Usage examples of "agriculture".

But the third great transformation, and the most important, after agriculture, Goudsblom said, was industrialisation, the union of fire with water, to produce in the first instance steam, harnessing a new form of energy which enabled machines of unprecedented size and power to perform certain routine skills much better and much faster than was possible by hand.

Old World, then, the location and timing of agriculture is understood, as are the plants and animals on which it was based.

Pleistocene Age, when the world warmed up and people became much more mobile, and that the cultivation of wild species, before agriculture proper, encouraged the birth of more children.

Until that point, agriculture had flourished between the Tigris and the Euphrates for thousands of years.

But Europe by the thirteenth century, say, boasted great cities, thriving agriculture and trade, sophisticated government and legal systems.

Trade was hampered by widespread piracy, agriculture was so inefficient that the population was never fed adequately, the name exchequer emerged to describe the royal treasury because the officials were so deficient in arithmetic they were forced to use a chequered cloth as a kind of abacus when making calculations.

North and Thomas note that a new system of agriculture was introduced in these years in Europe, namely the change from the two-field system to the three-field system.

The rival view was that true riches lay in trade, agriculture and industry, where wealth was truly earned and productively used.

Britain involved in agriculture, there were well over a million in trade and manufacturing and this number was increasing dramatically.

Politics, law, agriculture, commerce, mathematical and physical sciences, and the arts, were all included.

Let the boy who wants to be a farmer carry with him the memory of successful Negro farmers and of a Negro who knew enough about scientific agriculture to teach him to compete with the best white farmers in the country.

But in the South, where Negro labor is plenty and agriculture is the chief occupation, the Negro will always have a practical monopoly, and his opportunities in all the trades in the North, as well as in the South, will increase in proportion as he becomes an educated, thrifty, law-abiding land-owner.

He does four-fifths of the agricultural labor of the South and thereby adds four-fifths to the wealth of the South derived from agriculture, the leading Southern industry.

Professional, Agriculture, trade and transportation, manufactures and personal service.

We must not forget that agriculture is what we might call the staple industry of the South.