agriculture

Agriculture is the science and art of cultivating [耕作] plants and livestock [牲畜]. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary [tending always to live in the same place] human civilization, whereby [by means of which] farming of domesticated [驯养的] species created food surpluses [剩余] that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent [新兴的] farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence [just having enough money/food to stay alive] agriculture into the twenty-first.

Monoculture is the agricultural practice of growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species, variety, or breed in a field or farming system at a time. Polyculture, where more than one crop species is grown in the same space at the same time, is the alternative to monoculture.

The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation [改编] of Latin agricultūra, from ager, "field", and cultūra, "cultivation" or "growing". While agriculture usually refers to human activities, certain species of ant, termite [白蚁] and beetle have been cultivating crops for up to 60 million years.

Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 and 6,200 BC with the earliest known cultivation from 5,700 BC, followed by mung [绿豆], soy [大豆] and azuki beans [红豆].

颜色: 红豆为鲜红/枣红色, 赤小豆为暗红/暗紫色，比红豆颜色深。形状: 红豆较为饱满椭圆，赤小豆细长稍扁。红豆生南国的红豆，最有可能是海红豆或红豆树。

Harvesting wheat with a combine harvester accompanied by a tractor and trailer: