Agriculture is the production, processing, marketing, and use of foods, fibers and by-products from plant crops and animals.

Agriculture has played a key role in the development of human civilization. Development of agricultural techniques has steadily increased agricultural productivity, and the widespread diffusion of these techniques during a time period is often called an agricultural revolution.

The word agriculture is the English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, "a field" and cultūra, "cultivation" in the strict sense of "tillage of the soil".

In 2007, one third of the world's workers were employed in agriculture