ABSTRACT
The high level of civilization that we enjoy has resulted from many technological developments in agriculture that increased the amount of food produced and the efficiency of human labor in producing it. This chapter discusses a brief history of agricultural development worldwide and examines the close relationship of agricultural and industrial developments in modern societies. It explores some characteristics of a successful agriculture at national levels, and reasons for optimism about the world food problem. The surplus food released more men to create, invent, innovate, and to build great civilizations—something for which the nomads had never had time. Civilizations, with their specific cultures, developed on the flood plains on the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and the Yellow Rivers. The low-technology stage continues right on through the European Renaissance, during which time there were many contributions to agricultural innovations, each with its consequent improvements in food production and the efficiency by which man produced it.
