An agrochemical or agrichemical, a contraction of agricultural chemical, is a chemical product used in agriculture. In most cases, agrichemical refers to pesticides including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and nematicides. It may also include synthetic fertilizers, hormones and other chemical growth agents, and concentrated stores of raw animal manure.
Any substance used to help manage an agricultural ecosystem, or the community of organisms in a farming area. Agrochemicals include: (i) fertilizers; (ii) liming and acidifying agents; (iii) soil conditioners; (iv) pesticides; and (v) chemicals used in animal husbandry, such as antibiotics and hormones.
The result of natural selection processes and the careful selection and inventive developments of farmers, herders and fishers over millennia. A vital sub-set of biodiversity.
Agrobiodiversity or agricultural biodiversity is the biological diversity that sustains key functions, structures and processes of agricultural ecosystems. It includes the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels.
A broad term that includes all components of biological diversity of relevance to food and agriculture, and all components of biological diversity that constitute the agricultural ecosystems, also named agro-ecosystems: the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agro-ecosystem, its structure and processes (CBD COP decision V/5, appendix).
A land-use system, implying the combination or deliberate association of a woody component (trees or shrubs) with cattle in the same site.
A land-use system in which growing of trees and agriculture crops occur together in same lands.
See Agro ecological zones.
The Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI) for Government Expenditures is defined as the Agriculture Share of Government Expenditures, divided by the Agriculture Share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), where Agriculture refers to the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector.
The process of increasing the use of capital, labor, and inputs (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides, machinery) relative to land area, to increase agriculture productivity.