Talk:Agriculture

Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

Established styles for page ranges, initials

The styles used here (and in anything I've taken to GA, btw) are pages 123–129, i.e. spelt out in full (indeed, I had been led to believe by the gnomish contributions from many editors that this was the only acceptable format, but never mind); and initials Doe, J. R., i.e. fully spaced. If any instances in the article differ from that, it's an accident. Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:16, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Please take a second look at my edits -- they were intended to remove the "accidents". The result was a consistent presentation of page ranges and initials. No more mixing of 123-4 with 123-24 with 123-124. No more A. B. Charles with A.B. Charles. Also, non-spaced initials are more sensible. How often do you see U. S. (or U. S. A.) compared to U.S. or U.S.A.? Please revert. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 03:47, 16 November 2018 (UTC) Also, there were other helpful edits which were "lost" by your revert. One example: WP:NOTUSA. 03:55, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks for discussing. I agree we need consistency, but the article's style is with full page ranges and fully spaced initials for humans: there's nothing "more sensible" about compressing separate human intials into a lump. USA wouldn't need initials, obviously, but there are no instances in the article. I'll attempt a cleanup but a full revert would be entirely wrong. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I've been through all the refs, and fixed a variety of types of error. There were in fact rather few compressed initials, as I'd suspected, and very few compressed page ranges. I hope I've fixed them all, and that you're happy with the more consistent citation style. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Agriculture for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Agriculture is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Agriculture until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:26, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Meatpacking as agriculture

Chiswick Chap, you removed my content, claiming that meatpacking is not part of agriculture. This seems silly to me. Of course slaughtering is part of animal agriculture. Slaughter is defined as, killing of animals especially for food. The slaughter process is involved in both the final steps of animal husbandry and care, and the first steps of food processing. If the harvesting of crops is still part of agriculture, then it only makes sense for the harvesting of animals to be part of agriculture as well. Please return my content. RockingGeo (talk) 07:12, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

RockingGeo, many thanks for replying. However, agriculture as widely understood and defined in textbooks and dictionaries (and even encyclopedias) extends only as far as the farm gate; government and academia share that understanding. The food processing chain including animal transport, slaughter, processing, packaging and marketing is not considered agriculture, however much you might wish that it was, and it is not acceptable to attempt to force your point of view on to other articles by inserting materials into articles against consensus, however passionately you believe the message ought to be told.

Among the dictionaries, the Oxford definition is "The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products." Collins has "Agriculture is farming and the methods that are used to raise and look after crops and animals." Dictionary.com has "the science, art, or occupation concerned with cultivating land, raising crops, and feeding, breeding, and raising livestock; farming."

In government, agriculture is concerned with livestock, crops, and the environment on the farm.

In academia, it is taken for granted that the scope of agriculture is " livestock and crop enterprises and agribusinesses."

The section on safety is already quite long enough, and it covers safety on the farm. Welfare of food processing workers and those in food transport and supermarkets is a serious political and social concern (and deserves coverage in the encyclopedia) but it is not agriculture. Even if (for the sake of argument) we were to suppose that food processing was a component of agriculture, then meat packing would be only one small component of that subsection, and welfare of workers in meat packing would be an even smaller element of that sub-subsection, so the coverage is clearly WP:UNDUE by a large margin. But connecting welfare of people not working on a farm with a section on farm safety is already a great stretch: basically, this is simply a misplaced piece of material which does not belong in the Agriculture article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:51, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Agriculture encompasses raising livestock for slaughter, but not the slaughter itself. I support the removal of the discussed content. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 10:20, 27 May 2019 (UTC).

To be honest, I had never really thought this was controversial, so I’ve researched it for a few days in order to prevent myself from just relying on pre-conceived ideas. Here’s what I found:

As you say, [1] in academia, it is taken for granted that the scope of agriculture is " livestock and crop enterprises and agribusinesses," though this can include meatpacking in their business, especially for large intensive farms. Slaughterhouses and slaughter methods are part of the curriculum for a BSc Agriculture.

The USDA regulates slaughter, while the food and drug administration regulates butchery, storage, etc.

In Kansas, slaughter is regulated under the department of agriculture, whereas food processing is regulated by the department of commerce and does not include slaughter methods, though it does include butchery regulation.

Canada's 2016 Census of Agriculture also involves slaughter statistics, and slaughter is also regulated by Agriculture Canada.

In Australia, slaughter is further regulated the department of agriculture.

In the UK, Slaughters are included in agricultural statistics, not food processing statistics.

The same thing can be said for smaller countries like Guyana.

I can't find one country where the actual slaughter of the animals is regulated under a non-agricultural department or ministry (especially one that controls food processing).

A general theme seems to be that the slaughter and care of animals prior to slaughter is part of agriculture/husbandry, while the actual postmortem dismemberment of the animals is legally considered food processing. However, it appears that slaughterhouses are in this weird twilight realm that switches from agriculture to food processing, and neither group wants to claim it. (Though this seems like a disservice to the workers, and may be partially why these issues are brushed under the rug.)

That said, because only the slaughter (and prior care) portion of the work appears to be part of agriculture I think the most reasonable course of action would be to add one short sentence about the psychological safety of the workers who slaughter animals with a link to expanded material about it on a different page. That would stay on topic, it would take care of the WP:UNDUE issue, and it would leave the physical safety of butchering to the more relevant food processing article. Would you agree to that? RockingGeo (talk) 22:22, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Well you have certainly tried very hard, and the results are interestingly equivocal, with butchering definitely out. I suggest you do as you say - a short sentence, mind! - in the interest of harmony, and without accepting that slaughter is actually agriculture. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:11, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Oppose inclusion, I remain unconvinced, let us look at some dictionary definitions of agriculture:

• the Oxford dictionary “the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products”
• the Collins dictionary “farming and the methods that are used to raise and look after crops and animals”
• the Chambers dictionary “the cultivation of the land in order to grow crops or raise animal livestock as a source of food or other useful products, eg wool or cotton”

None of them include the slaughter of livestock.

I cannot speak with knowledge of all of the jurisdictions you have listed, but the Australian department of agriculture is also responsible for setting environmental water flows down our major rivers, that they oversee abattoirs is unconvincing, usually such things are determined by political expediency. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 09:05, 31 May 2019 (UTC).

Well, pace the compromise talk above, nobody thinks slaughter is farming; the most that can be claimed is that it sometimes comes administratively under the ag. bucket, and sometimes under the food bucket, which certainly isn't a terribly strong claim for inclusion in the top-level article on agriculture. It would be far better to place it elsewhere; say, in the article on Slaughterhouse, where nobody would dispute its relevance. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 May 2020

Agriculture is one of biggest sector of India and more than half of India's people are involved in it 2402:3A80:1F49:6661:B76:3A3F:4C02:29 (talk) 13:56, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Would need a source, but I don't think specific countries need to be mentioned in this general article. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:07, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

. . . and would point you to the article Agriculture in India as a more appropriate location for such information. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 June 2020

Ash grayninja (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

the availability of capital and the demand for fish production have encouraged agricultural development. The main farming areas are Diqdaqah in Ras al-Khaimah. Falaj al Mualla in Umm al Qawain, Wadi adh Dhayd in Sharjah, Al Awir in Dubai and the coastal area of Al Fujairah. Total cultivable land is around 160,000 hectares.

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. -- S.Hinakawa (talk) 17:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Early farming

Here is an article (re-published from another credible source) about nascent farming that happened much earlier. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm

I believe there might be more sources to be found, so it looks like we need to incorporate this info somehow on the relevant pages. I leave it to more experienced editors, also specializing in agriculture. 2601:1C0:CB01:2660:357A:21B9:B06A:653A (talk) 03:16, 14 November 2020 (UTC)