Table of Contents
Agriculture is the cultivation of land and breeding of animals, plants, and fungi to provide food, fiber, medicinal plants and other products to sustain and enhance life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. Let us examine the top 15 examination question and answer for secondary school student.
1.Question:
When and where did agriculture first develop?
Answer :
Agriculture did not start in just one place; it developed in at least eleven separate regions around the world. These are all considered independent centers of origin of agriculture. Around 8,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent (between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and Egypt along the Nile River, grains like wheat and barley were being grown, as well as different lentils (beans and peas). At around the same time, rice was being grown in China as part of their staple diet. In South America, they started growing potatoes, as well as beans and peas, coffee, and cotton. In Mesoamerica, they were growing corn, as well as other grains, squash, peas, and beans.
2.Question:
What is the difference between vegetative planting and seed agriculture?
Answer:
The difference between vegetative planting and seed agriculture is the difference between using existing plants (vegetative planting) and plant offspring (seed agriculture). In seed agriculture, farmers must purchase or harvest seeds from plants, then ensure these seeds are properly planted in the ground. By contrast, farmers can use existing plants by cutting specific parts, usually root stems, to grow entirely new plants. This is referred to as ‘cloning’, since no genetic material changes, while seeds have different genetic material from their parents.
3.Question:
What is the predominant type of Indian agriculture?
Answer :
The predominant type of Indian agriculture is subsistence agriculture. In this, farmers grow food to feed themselves and their dependents. They do not use their farming yield for trade and commerce. They use manure as fertilizer, and the irrigation system is also simple. Indian farmers have to be attentive to the patterns of rainfall that are influenced by the monsoons.
While subsistence farming is predominant across all of India, agriculture does has a history in the Indian economy and is a modern contributor to the GDP. India exports agricultural products like rice, nuts, spices, and sugar as well as animal products like animal hides.
4.Question:
What was the Granger Laws?
Answer :
The railroad had changed the culture of the Midwest. Farms could expand to grow food that would help in sustaining the livelihoods of individuals across state lines. With such an expansion, in the 1860s and 1870s, a group of farmers mostly from the Midwest, known as the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, met to discuss inefficiencies and costs of their systems. One major cost they faced involved shipping. The farmers relied on the railroad system to ship their crops. As railroads became increasingly efficient and popular, farmers worried about the rates they would be charged to ship their goods throughout the country.
The Grangers took their concerns to court in various cases involving different farmers and different railroad companies. While Illinois had already set some parameters relating to charges, these were vague, and railroad companies ignored the mandate. The Grangers’ argument was that the pricing was becoming monopolized, thus creating unfair rates. This was the backdrop for Munn v. Illinois, a case among several other similar cases from which the Granger Laws arose. These laws regulated appropriate railroad and grain elevator fare prices.
The Grangers highlighted the concern of consumerism and monopolies, helping shed light on the idea that consumers and suppliers should not be taken advantage of for fiscal gain.
5.Question:
How did the introduction of agriculture affect early peoples?
Answer:
When agriculture was introduced, people didn’t need to rely on finding things to eat because they could grow them, which meant that they didn’t have to move frequently. People were able to build more permanent houses and began to live in larger groups.
6.Question:
How did the cotton gin change the textile industry?
Answer:
The cotton gin changed the textile industry by making cotton far easier to sort, greatly increasing the output of available cotton and therefore causing the price to drop. The cotton gin works by separating the cotton fluff that will be made into the fabric from seeds and dirt. Previously, picking these seeds out of cotton took a great deal of time and energy, but the invention of the cotton gin in 1794 sped up the process, allowing farms to produce far more cotton and increasing the amount of cotton available for making clothing.
7.Question:
Settled agriculture was first seen in China around
Answer:
While the exact date of settled agriculture is unknown in China, experts believe that the first instances occurred in Northern China around 6250 B.C. There is suggested evidence of millet domestication in northern provinces around this time. However, millet needs very little human interaction and was not widely consumed, so this is disputed as the beginning of settled agriculture. Rice cultivation, however, a much more definitive beginning to settled agriculture began roughly 7,700 years ago
8.Question:
Charles ‘Turnip’ Townshend introduced the idea of
Answer :
‘Turnip’ Townshend is credited with the introduction of the idea of crop rotation in agriculture. Instead of planting the same crop every year in the same field, Townshend realized that by rotating or changing the crops each year, the soil was able to recover some of its nutrients.
For example, instead of planting corn each year in the same field, the farmer would plant corn one year, then soybeans the following year, and then plant corn again. By plowing the soybeans back into the soil instead of harvesting them, nutrients needed by plants, such as nitrogen, are built back up in the soil.
Townshend came up with the plan to rotate four crops: turnips, barley, clover, and wheat to help maintain the productivity of the soil and provide crops for livestock to eat.
9.Question:
The soil is a valuable resource because of it?
Answer :
The soil is a valuable resource because it is necessary for agriculture. Without soil, humans could not grow enough food to eat. While it is true that hydroponics is a method of agriculture that does not require soil, it still has not reached the point where it can replace soil-based crop production.
10.Question:
What is the importance of fish farming to mankind?
Answer :
Fish farming is extremely important to mankind. Fish are an excellent source of protein, and usually less expensive and difficult to raise than larger livestock like cattle and pigs. However, traditional fishing of wild stocks has led to overfishing, sometimes with disastrous results. The Canadian cod fishing industry nearly exhausted cod supplies in the northwestern Atlantic. As fish farming increases, wild stocks of fish can be rebound.
However, fish farming is not without its drawbacks. Like all farming, fish farming allows diseases and waste to spread that would not occur in the wild. Some scientists question the nutritional value of farmed fish, which are fed man-made food rather than the natural food they would catch in the wild.
11.Question:
What are examples of irrigation systems?
Answer :
There are many types of irrigation. There is surface irrigation that requires the use of simple gravity. The source of the water is placed higher up in elevation, and it flows down the hillside, reaching the crops. This style can be tough to accomplish unless you are in a hilly landscape. We also have a style of irrigation that uses tubes through the ground, and a pump that pushes water through them, which is called localized irrigation. This style focuses more on feeding the roots themselves, through drip irrigation. One of the most obvious forms is that of the sprinkler irrigation, which uses pressurized tubes to push water upward, and onto the crops. Of course, the cheapest but most labor-intensive form of irrigation is that of bucket irrigation, where the water is carried in simple buckets to each crop.
12.Question:
What is a negative side effect of mechanized farming?
Answer:
Some negative side effects of mechanized farming include a smaller workforce and more pollution.
While changing the agricultural landscape, mechanized farming, which relies on machinery to increase productivity and output, has economic, safety, and environmental disadvantages.
The costs of agricultural machines have increased. Such machines have become more advanced and, thus, costlier. Compound this with rising fuel prices and the need for farmers to hire skilled workers equipped with the knowledge to work the machines. On the other side of the spectrum, increased mechanization of farming means that machines, not laborers, are doing the brunt of the work. Thus, a smaller workforce is needed.
While every job has its dangers, when machines become involved, the danger multiplies. And then there’s the environmental impact. More fossil fuel usage equates to more pollution.
While there are disadvantages, mechanized farming has helped to feed the Earth’s billions of people, so the overall whole of the good might just outweigh the bad.
13.Question:
Why was the development of farming called a revolution?
Answer:
The development of farming was not actually a ‘revolution,’ which is a forceful overthrow of a governing body, but it was ‘revolutionary,’ which means a complete and dramatic change.
When farming began in the Fertile Crescent in the present-day Middle East, it meant that people didn’t have to wander from place to place, looking for food. They could stay in one place and develop villages and towns. This changed their lives dramatically.
14.Question:
Are many spiders major predators of insect pests?
Answer :
Spiders are major predators of a number of insect pests, including ants, termites, cockroaches, flies, and ticks (although ticks are technically arachnids, just like spiders themselves).
Spiders hunt and kill insect pests in a number of ways. Some, like the wolf spider, chase down their prey. Others are ambush predators who pop out of burrows to snatch insects that come too close. Many spiders use a web to catch anything that happens to get stuck. However, some insect pests are not afraid of spiders. Several species of wasps, for example, will lay their eggs on spiders, and when the eggs hatch the spider is consumed by the wasp larvae.
15.Question:
What is meant by the term processed foods?
Answer :
Processed foods are foods with cooked ingredients that have undergone a transformation. Transformations may be physical or chemical means. These kinds of foods are produced in order to serve customers goods that can easily be prepared by them. What makes a processed food are the additives in it like fat, sugar, and salt that can extend their shelf life and make their flavor rich and more appealing to customers. Examples of this food are potato chips, uncooked chicken (packaged), frozen spinach and preserved applesauce (jarred).
