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A is for Agriculture — an A to Z Series about Agriculture

A to Z of Agriculture A month or so ago, I saw something about the A to Z Challenge and decide to learn more. It is a challenge where you sign up to write 26 posts in the month of April. You get Sunday’s off but otherwise everyday is a letter of the alphabet starting today Monday, April 1 with the letter A.

I decided to focus my A to Z on agriculture by making up my ABCs of agriculture. To start with that topic I decided I should consider what agriculture encompasses. I work in agriculture and when I tell people that, I often get either a look of great interest or blank stares. I know how I think of agriculture but I am not always so sure of others! So as I sat down to write this, I googled “what is agriculture?” have to admit I am surprised there are multiple sites with that as a primary URL.

Agriculture brings together so many parts of the effort through which we grow our crops, raise livestock & aquaculture, producing the basic building blocks of so much of our planet’s needs. There are crops and jobs and efforts in place I couldn’t begin to tell you about because agriculture is such a richly diverse effort. Food is the biggest output for agriculture but fiber for clothes, feed for livestock and renewable fuels are also part of the result.

I have started thinking about the various words that will be a part of my A to Z effort but already I am finding other words to use! For instance, for A I could have just as easily used almonds which my friend Jake grows in California, a continent that desperately needs to improve its food production capability – Africa or the little known #agnerd crowd that is actively talking about agriculture through social media.

What do you think should be included in my ABCs of agriculture?

Tomorrow will be the letter B. you have to wonder whether I will go for a word that makes people salivate at the very mention of it, or the pollinators we all need or some of the people who have been so important to the West or any of a number of words that come to mind!

I will use this post as a central point for the letters and the series logo will link back here as the hub for all of the letters.
A is for Agriculture
B is for Borlaug
C is for Cotton
D is for Debt (Farm Debt)
E is for Elevator
F is for Farmer
G is for GMO
H is for Hay
I is for Irrigation
J is for Juggling
K is for Kale
L is for Loam
M is for Moo
N is for Nutrients
O is for Olives
P is for Prairie
Q is for Quality
R is for Reading
S is for Seed
T is for Tillage
U is for Urban Agriculture
V is for Viticulture
W is for Wheat
X is for Xylem
Y is for Yams / Sweet Potatoes?
Z is for Zoonoses

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Comments

  1. Linda Adams says

    Pesticides was the first thing that popped into my head, since they get a bad right (and sometimes rightfully so). My great-great uncle Edgar Ellerslie Luther was one part of the invention team that came up with the process for spraying pesticides, which a major company got him to sign away while he had appendicitis and was in the hospital. The other inventor, I believe, was Voight, or something like that.

  2. Mike Settle says

    I remember the definition of agriculture that we used in Introduction to Agriculture class. The manipulation of plants and animals for the production of food, fiber, fuel, medicine, and recreation. The plant and animal part was updated to living things at some point.

  3. Angel Steffan says

    C is for Cultivation. Not only the land before be plant, but we need to cultivate young minds interest in Agriculture.

  5. mona's caffe' (@mm98273) says

    Oh good one Janice. I’ll look forward to your postings. There are sooo many possibilities. Reminds me of the ‘I spy’ game. Tho, first thing came to my mind for to-morrow’s ‘B’ was biotech and for ‘bill’ as in farm ‘bill’. Thanks for getting my gears turning 😀

    Cheers,
    Mona
    oh, perhaps a bit about ‘localization’ when the letter ‘L’ comes around.

    • Janice Person says

      Love that you are looking so far out! I had to settle on a B word and get that post written tonight. I tried to decide some early but I keep having them come to mind! I hope you like tomorrow’s letter of the day too!

  9. www.theurgetopreserve.com says

    Thanks for coming by my A to Z Challenge article. I’ll keep checking in on you. Love the ag topic – we were a 4-H and FFA family. My daughter graduated in ag marketing and now works for a winery in Napa/Sonoma so ag is dear to my heart – and stomach! =)

    • Janice Person says

      Oooh…. I went on a winery tour in the Willamette Valley one summer and had visions of changing careers! I love the part of agriculture I am in, but that seemed tastier and more fun to give winery tours & do their marketing.

  10. Thomas L. Marten says

    C – Carver, George Washington
    D – Diesel
    E – Evolution
    F – Floriculture
    G – Gossypium (Cotton)
    H – Homesteading Act
    I – Irrigation
    J – Johnson Grass/Weeds
    K – Kale
    L – Lamb
    M – Maize
    N – Nutrition
    O – Oryza (Rice)
    P – Peanuts
    Q – Quality
    R – Ranching
    S – Soybeans
    T – Dr. Temple Grandin
    U – USDA or Urban Agriculture
    V – Viticulture
    W – Walnuts
    X – Xylem
    Y – Yoke
    Z – Zucchini

  11. Kim Parsell says

    Per your Twitter request, here’s my Agriculture A-Z list 🙂

    A- agriculture, apple, alfalfa, auger, amaranth
    B- bean, bale, barn, bushhog, broccoli, bull, bovine, buckwheat, barley
    C- corn, cotton, cow, cattle, combine, cultivate, cucumber, cantaloupe, cherry, chicken, crop, calf, coop, co-op, cauliflower, canola
    D- dairy, diesel, ditch, disc, donkey
    E- ewe, egg, ethanol, elevator (grain)
    F- farm, fig, fence, fertilizer, feed, flax, fungicide
    G- grain, grapes, greenhouse, gate, geese, graze, grow
    H- hay, horse, hog, hen, herbicide, homestead, harness, harvest
    I- irrigation, inoculate
    J- jake (male turkey or brake)
    K- kale, kohlrabi
    L- lime, lamb, lettuce, llama, lentil
    M- manure, milk, machinery, market (farmer’s), mule, millet, malt, melon, mill
    N- no-till, nut
    O- orchard, oat
    P- pig, plum, peach, plow, pesticide, pond, pen, poultry, pea, pepper, peanut, potato
    Q- quinoa, quince
    R- ranch, rain, row (fence/crop), ram, rooster, rice, rye, radish
    S- soybean, seed, straw, silo, steer, sunflower, sorghum, spelt, sheep, spinach, sunflower, safflower, strawberry, silage
    T- trough, tomato, till, turkey, thresher
    U- UEP (United Egg Producers), USDEC (US Dairy Export Council)
    V- vaccination
    W- watermelon, water, wool, weeds, wheat, wagon, windmill, wire (fence/baling)
    X- xanthan gum
    Y- yoke, yolk (egg), yam
    Z- zucchini, zero-tolerance

  12. Sydney Katt says

    I would actually love to learn more about what people who know something about agriculture think about GMOs and the subsidies that are given to the less nutritious foods (like corn) over healthier veggies, making it harder for people to afford nutrition rather than empty calories. I’m not well-versed enough in the terminology, so I’ll leave that one to people in the know. 🙂

  14. Deanie Humphrys-Dunne says

    You did a great job with these blogs, Janice. It was so creative to think of all those names and be able to write about them so well. Thank you for sharing all the helpful information.

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