Career in Agricultural Research

By Institute For Career Research

Make discoveries in plant and animal science to benefit people everywhere. Employ the principles of biology, chemistry, meteorology, botany and other sciences. Work toward higher farm productivity, better product quality, weed control, soil and water conservation, food preservation, protection of the environment. Specialties include food technology, molecular biology, microbiology, and genetics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Institute For Career Research
• Release date: Dec 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781458196767

Book preview

Introduction

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) be-fore it is stored. Some prepare the product for market, as with apples which are packed in bushels.

Animal products such as meat and milk are harvested in a sanitary way and protected against spoilage by refrigeration before they leave the farm. Farmers are often involved in grading their products (example: eggs).

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.

Our earliest ancestors appeared on earth about 2.5 million years ago. At first, they hunted game and gathered plant foods growing naturally. Theirs was a very hard, very insecure life. They never knew whether they would find game when they went out looking - or whether they would succeed in killing it. When there was no game, everyone went hungry.

During winter and in times of drought, people often could not find the food they needed - and they did without. We can be sure that many of our ancestors starved to death.

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