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Agriculture is the production, processing, marketing, and use of foods, fibers and byproducts from plant crops and animals. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants (i.e. crops) creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science. Agriculture is also observed in certain species of ant and termite. Agriculture encompasses a wide variety of specialties and techniques, including ways to expand the lands suitable for plant raising, by digging water-channels and other forms of irrigation. Cultivation of crops on arable land and the pastoral herding of livestock on rangeland remain at the foundation of agriculture. In the past century there has been increasing concern to identify and quantify various forms of agriculture. In the developed world the range usually extends between sustainable agriculture (e.g. permaculture or organic agriculture) and intensive farming (e.g. industrial agriculture). Modern agronomy, plant breeding, pesticides and fertilizers, and technological improvements have sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damage and negative human health effects. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry such as intensive pig farming (and similar practices applied to the chicken) have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal cruelty and the health effects of the antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals commonly used in industrial meat production. The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. In the 21st century, plants have been used to grow biofuels, biopharmaceuticals, bioplastics, and pharmaceuticals. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, and meat. Fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo. Other useful materials are produced by plants, such as resins. Biofuels include methane from biomass, ethanol, and biodiesel. Cut flowers, nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade are some of the ornamental products. In 2007, one third of the world’s workers were employed in agriculture. The services sector has overtaken agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide. Despite the size of its workforce, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products). This list of Google products include all major desktop, mobile and online products released or acquired by Google Inc. They are either a gold release, in beta development, or part official of the Google Labs initiative. This list also includes previous products, that have either been merged, discarded or renamed. Features within products, such as web search features, are not listed. 
Google appliance as shown at RSA Conference 2008
Most animals on this list of extinct animals in the Netherlands survive in other places in the world. However, some of them are now globally extinct, like the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), the European Wild Horse (Equus ferus) and the Aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius). One skeleton of the Great Auk was excavated in a Roman settlement near Velsen. Bones were also found near Rotterdam. In the Netherlands there are no bone finds of the aurochs after the Roman period (400 AD). Maculinea alcon arenaria, an endemic Dutch subspecies of the Alcon Blue butterfly became extinct at the end of the 1970s. Fossilized remains of the Gray Whale (Eschrichtuis robustus), have been found dated to 340 BC, demonstrating that this species once roamed the North Sea, although it is no longer found there. A lower jaw of a lynx (Lynx lynx lynx) was found at the remains of a Roman settlement near Valkenburg in the Netherlands. During excavations of sites dated to the Roman period (around 400AD) on the Rhine delta there were findings of important breeding sites of the Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus). According to the hunting rights of the bishops of Utrecht we know that brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) were still found in the Netherlands as late as the 11th century. According to a hunting licence from Drenthe, elk (Alces alces alces) were also known to be in this country until 1025. The North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis), which once appeared from the Bay of Biscay to Norway, have disappeared from the waters around the Netherlands. It is suspected that the last whales were caught at the end of the Middle Ages. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia : Wholesale of agricultural products and live animals |
