Agronomy

Agronomy is the totality of the exact, natural, economic and social sciences and techniques used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Veterinary sciences are sometimes excluded from this definition.

Agronomy should not be confused with agrology.

The term comes from the Greek words agro, countryside or field and nomos, law or rule.

The terms agriculture and agronomy are often used interchangeably, although they are two different concepts.

Generally speaking, agronomy is the science of understanding the mechanisms at work in agriculture and improving them. This explains why we sometimes speak of agronomic sciences. Since its appearance in French in the second half of the 18th century, the word agronomy has been used to describe the study of the laws that govern natural phenomena, as well as the definition of rules that farmers can apply to improve their production.

As for agriculture, it is the practice of agricultural activity. Ideally, agriculture feeds on agronomic reflections, and vice versa: the agronomist has much to learn from farmers!

In its restricted sense, agronomy embraces the knowledge of agricultural techniques in interaction with the environment (sowing dates, crop rotation values, choice of seeds, calculation of the mineralization of organic matter, breeding techniques, etc.). In a broader sense, agronomy also includes knowledge of the socio-economic organization of agriculture (social form, financing, market functioning, family structures).

Different definitions of agronomy coexist or have succeeded one another. In the 1950s, Stéphane Hénin defined agronomy as an «ecology of the cultivated field», whereas current French agronomy works generally use the definition proposed later by Michel Sebillotte: «the study, conducted simultaneously in time and space, of the relationships within the whole constituted by the plant population and the physical, chemical and biological environment, and on which man acts in order to obtain a production».