ABSTRACT
The underlying support of any civilization is a stable agricultural production system. No society can maintain itself for long in a civilized state without an ample and reliable food supply for its citizens, and such a supply can only come from the artificial propagation of various plants and animals. More than 90 percent of the world food supply comes from land-based systems that rely on soil as the fundamental support matrix. Propagation of plant species is even more fundamental than that of animals, because plants are always at the beginning of any food chain.
