Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first seeds were gathered by hunter-gatherers at least 105,000 years ago in the Paleolithic Levant. This early collection of wild grains near the Sea of Galilee occurred long before the concept of agriculture existed. The transition from gathering to planting began around 11,500 years ago, marking the dawn of the Neolithic period.
The Sumerians began living in villages in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys around 8,000 BC. They relied on a sophisticated canal system for irrigation to grow wheat, barley, lentils, and figs. Ancient Egyptian agriculture depended on the seasonal flooding of the Nile River starting in the predynastic period after 10,000 BC.
Wheat production rose between 70% and 390% during the Green Revolution between the 1960s and the 1980s depending on the geographic area. Rice production increased by 60% to 150% during the same period. This transformation was driven by the Haber-Bosch method which allowed the synthesis of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale.
Small farms produce about one-third of the world's food. Five of every six farms in the world consist of fewer than two hectares and take up only around 12% of all agricultural land. In 2018, an estimated 2.5 billion subsistence farmers worked in Monsoon Asia and South-East Asia cultivating about 60% of the earth's arable land.
The annual work-related death toll among agricultural employees is at least 170,000. This figure is twice the average rate of other jobs and incidences of death, injury, and illness often go unreported. The International Labor Organization considers agriculture one of the most hazardous of all economic sectors.
Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of withdrawals of freshwater resources globally. The industry faces growing freshwater demand and precipitation anomalies while contributing to climate change and depletion of aquifers. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy report stated that agricultural operations produced some 13 percent of anthropogenic global greenhouse gas emissions.