Careers in Agricultural Research (Careers Ebooks) |  | Creator: Institute For Career Research
Publisher: Institute For Career Research
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 2010
ASIN: B003JBI216
Publication Date: April 25, 2010
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Product Description
Agriculture involves the systematic, deliberate cultivation of plants and raising of animals for human consumption and use. Farmers plant crops, nurture them with water and fertilizer, control weeds and insect pests, harvest the crops, and store them until they can be taken to market. Some farmers treat the product (for example, grain drying) before it is stored. Some prepare the product for market, as with apples which are packed in bushels.
Since the human race began, agriculture has employed more men and women than any other economic activity on the planet. Everywhere in the world people must eat. Raising and growing food are essential to all people in all places. This has been true throughout history.
We do not know with any certainty just when agriculture began. All we can say is that it has been practiced, in one form or another, for at least 13,000 years - and probably far longer than that. Agriculture seems to have evolved more or less simultaneously at several different points on the globe.
Human beings are distinguished from other animals by their ability to imagine better ways of doing things, to learn by trial and error, and to pass acquired knowledge down from generation to generation. Some of the first knowledge that human beings developed in this way related to the production of food. Thus, agricultural science and research, whether practiced by amateurs or professionals, is one of the oldest and most universal human activities.
By about 11,000 BC, human beings knew that seeds thrown in the ground grew into plants - and that these could be harvested and eaten. Others learned how to confine animals (wild pigs, for example), raise them, and eat them when they had grown. Someone else got the idea of keeping a few animals around all year long so they would breed and produce a steady supply of meat. Others raised birds for their meat and eggs.
Now instead of living from day to day - and moving constantly in search of food - people were able to settle down, build comfortable shelters, and have a regular food supply. Instead of hunter-gatherers, they became farmers. Agriculture had begun.
Once they were living in one place and able to eat on a regular basis, people had more time to make a better life for themselves. By trial and error, these first agricultural researchers learned how to grow different plants like wheat, rice, and corn. They discovered that the plants grew faster if they were watered regularly and that certain substances (which we call fertilizer today) made the plants grow better and yield more food. The first human settlements were in river valleys, where water was plentiful.
These early agricultural researchers also developed better tools. At first, they dug in the ground with sticks, but eventually they devised primitive hoes and sickles which made the work go faster.
Even though the work of the first agricultural researchers strikes us as primitive and haphazard, these forgotten men and women laid the foundations of modern agricultural science. We may be more sophisticated today, but the need for agricultural research is just as great as it always was. Agricultural research is a very important, worthwhile career, for it helps all people toward a better life.
All agricultural scientists work toward the same goals:
• Higher farm productivity
• Better product quality
• Weed control
• Soil and water conservation
• Food preservation
• Protection of the environment
This new Careers Ebook contains a wealth of unbiased information about Agricultural Research careers, based on the latest national surveys. Careers Ebooks cover attractive and unattractive sides, opportunities, education necessary, personal qualifications required, earnings, descriptions of different job specialties, first person accounts by those in the field, and how to get started; including practical advice on what to do now. There are links to schools and colleges, ane associations, periodicals.
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