Index >> Soil Microbiology >> Beginnings of Agriculture

The Beginnings of Agriculture

`The earliest hominids r man-like beings first appeared approximately one million years ago and the modern species of amn, Homo sapiens evolved from his ancestors about half a million hears ago. For a long time, man lived hunting, fishing and gathering food from nature (random harvest) until he learned the art of growing plants for food not so long ago (by about 8000 B.C.), which marked the beginnings of agriculture. When man wanted to produce his food intensively instead of merely collecting it from places where it occurred naturally, he began to clear jungles, sow seeds and raise a good harvest. Sooner or later, it was realized that the same soil cannot endlessly sustain plant growth and good productivity.