Publisher's Synopsis
The demands for food supply, socio-economic factors, environmental and technological revolution as well as political factors; many of which are spatially specific, have been identified as tools that shaped the characteristic trends in agricultural systems evolution. It is important to know that the performance of agriculture measured (before now) in terms of food, fiber and bio-energy production is now, to a large extent, measured on a range of other social and environmental outcomes, positive and negative. However, the emerging consensus of agricultural mechanization at meeting the needs of a growing and potentially more prosperous global population mainly from the existing stock of agricultural resources has gone a long way in saving the world's ecosystems that could have been irreparably damaged. These needs therefore necessitated a study of the historic events that led to agricultural evolution, revolution, and developments that transcends the old and the new worlds to the 18th century agricultural and industrial revolutions; the 19th century innovations in tools mechanization and power developments, the 20th century complex machines and equipment design and manufacturing among others, which this book gave an explicit account of from the pre-agricultural times (over 3million years ago) through the agricultural times (10,000 years ago) into the agro-based times (19th and 20th centuries) and the emerging sustainable technologies in agricultural mechanization of the 21st century, thereby incorporating future developments.
