Food & agriculture

An editorial selection for comparing processes, events, and lives. The interval and counts describe selected records, not the historical boundaries or importance of the subject.

Canonical records: 46
Events: 22
People: 3
Processes and periods: 21

Compare in the atlas Selection criteria and limits

Topics represented

Agricultura (24) · Food & agriculture (24) · Technology (24) · Roman Empire (11) · British Empire (8) · Companies, trade & extraction (5) · Famine, health & environment (4) · Science (3) · Slavery & coerced labor (3) · Genética (3) · War & conquest (3) · Migration & diaspora (3)

View distribution by region and period

Canonical records by regional label and start date. These are numerical analysis bins, not universal historical periods. A multi-region record appears in multiple rows; do not add rows as a unique-record total.
Region	Before 3000 BCE	3000–1 BCE	1–1499	1500–1799	1800–1899	1900–1999	Since 2000
Africa	0	2	1	1	1	0	0
Americas	0	0	0	1	2	1	0
Asia	0	1	1	1	2	3	0
Europe	0	9	1	0	2	0	0
Oceania	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Global / no specific region	3	0	0	1	3	10	9

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1966
IR8 and the Asian Green Revolution
The release of the IR8 rice variety inaugurated the Asian Green Revolution: high-yield seed combined with fertilizer, irrigation, and farm management.
1973
Genetic engineering
Boyer and Cohen demonstrated DNA insertion between bacteria, opening targeted organism modification. These techniques later reached agricultural breeding.
1994
First genetically engineered plant food
The Flavr Savr tomato was the first genetically engineered plant product to reach the market after regulatory review. It began the commercial era of GMO foods.
1995
WTO Agreement on Agriculture
The Agreement on Agriculture entered into force with the WTO in 1995. It established multilateral disciplines on market access, domestic support, and export competition, with member-specific commitments. It is a framework for farm trade and policy, not a rule that by itself determines prices, production, or food security in any country.
c. 1996–c. 2019
Uneven adoption of digital agriculture in the United States
USDA ARMS survey data document the spread of automated guidance, yield maps, soil maps, and variable-rate applications in US field crops between 1996 and 2019. Adoption depended on crop and technology: guidance exceeded half the acreage of several crops, while other tools remained much less common. It is national evidence of adoption, not a global rate or automatic proof of productivity.
1996
Multidimensional definition of food security
The 1996 World Food Summit consolidated a definition that includes physical and economic access, sufficiency, safety, nutrition, and continuity over time. The milestone shifted attention beyond supply and harvests toward food-system functioning and household and individual access; it is not itself a hunger measurement or a guarantee of reduction.
c. 1998
GPS-enabled precision agriculture
Precision agriculture combines GPS guidance, yield maps, and variable-rate inputs. It turns within-field variability into management decisions.
2001–2004
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources
The FAO Conference adopted the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2001; it entered into force in 2004. The treaty created a framework to conserve and sustainably use plant resources and to facilitate access and benefit-sharing. It governs cooperation around genetic material; it does not automatically assign varieties, patents, or breeding outcomes to every participant.
2008
Opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Norway opened the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2008 as a backup for duplicates held by gene banks. Depositors retain ownership of their samples, and the vault does not replace active collections, regeneration, or breeding programmes: it adds a layer of security for crop diversity.
2011
AMIS and cereal-market transparency
After the price rises and volatility of 2007–2010, G20 agriculture ministers launched the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) in 2011. AMIS brings together information on wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans and supports policy coordination in periods of uncertainty. It improves available information, but does not by itself remove supply constraints, logistics, trade decisions, or price variation.
2015
SDG 2 and food-system objectives
The 2030 Agenda adopted in 2015 placed SDG 2—ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture—among global objectives. It functions as a goal and monitoring framework for production, access, nutrition, and investment; it is not a determination that the targets have been achieved or a single agricultural programme.
2015
First withdrawal of seeds from Svalbard
In 2015, ICARDA requested the first withdrawal of seeds from the vault to regenerate and rebuild active collections in Lebanon and Morocco. The episode demonstrated the intended use of a backup: recovering material for gene-bank and breeding work, not distributing an emergency food reserve or by itself resolving agricultural risks.
2019–2021
Separate measurement of food loss and food waste
In 2019, FAO consolidated the Food Loss Index for stages from post-harvest up to but excluding retail; in 2021 UNEP published a method for measuring waste in retail, food service, and households. The separation avoids turning one global percentage into a diagnosis: causes, observation units, and responses differ along the chain.
2021–2022
Fertilizer-price and supply-chain shock
During 2021–2022, higher energy and gas prices, supply-chain disruptions, and trade restrictions raised fertiliser prices and reduced affordability for many farmers. The episode made visible that farm output depends on nutrient, energy, logistics, and finance markets. It does not establish a uniform decline in use or yields, because responses varied by country, crop, and season.
2022–2023
Global cereal and input-market strain
In 2022, high input, transport, and energy costs, changes in trade policy, and logistics problems strained food balances and import bills; in 2023, production, trade, and stock outlooks continued to vary by commodity. This entry describes market mechanisms and cost transmission. It does not assign those movements to one cause or turn international volatility into an identical food outcome for every household.
2022
WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies
The WTO’s Twelfth Ministerial Conference adopted the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies in June 2022, with disciplines on specified harmful subsidies and an explicit link to the sustainability of fish stocks. This entry records adoption of the agreement; implementation depends on acceptances, national rules, and further negotiations, so it does not amount to an immediate recovery of fisheries.