Definition of agriculture

SourceAgriculture helps to meet the basic needs of human and their civilization by providing food, clothing, shelters, medicine and recreation. Hence, agriculture is the most important enterprise in the world. It is a productive unit where the free gifts of nature namely land, light, air, temperature and rain water etc., are integrated into single primary unit indispensable for human beings. Secondary productive units namely animals including livestock, birds and insects, feed on these primary units and provide concentrated products such as meat, milk, wool, eggs, honey, silk and lac. Agriculture provides food, feed, fibre, fuel, furniture, raw materials and materials for and from factories; provides a free fare and fresh environment, abundant food for driving out famine; favours friendship by eliminating fights. Satisfactory agricultural production brings peace, prosperity, harmony, health and wealth to individuals of a nation by driving away distrust, discord and anarchy. It helps to elevate the community consisting of different castes and clauses, thus it leads to a better social, cultural, political and economical life. Agricultural development is multidirectional having galloping speed and rapid spread with respect to time and space. After green revolution, farmers started using improved cultural practices and agricultural inputs in intensive cropping systems with labourer intensive programmes to enhance the production potential per unit land, time and input. It provided suitable environment to all these improved genotypes to foster and manifest their yield potential in newer areas and seasons. Agriculture consists of growing plants and rearing animals in order to yield, produce and thus it helps to maintain a biological equilibrium in nature. 1.0 AN INTRODUCTION TO AGRICULTURE A. Terminology Agriculture is derived from Latin words Ager and Cultura. Ager means land or field and Cultura means cultivation. Therefore the term agriculture means cultivation of land. i.e., the science and art of producing crops and livestock for economic purposes. It is also referred as the science of producing crops and livestock from the natural resources of the earth. The primary aim of agriculture is to cause the land to produce more abundantly, and at the same time, to protect it from deterioration and misuse. It is synonymous with farming–the production of food, fodder and other industrial materials. B. Definitions Agriculture is defined in the Agriculture Act 1947, as including ‘horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming and livestock breeding and keeping, the use of land as grazing land, meadowland, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use ancillary to the farming of land for Agricultural purposes". It is also defined as ‘purposeful work through which elements in nature are harnessed to produce plants and animals to meet the human needs. It is a biological production process, which depends on the growth and development of selected plants and animals within the local environment. C. Agriculture as art, science and business of crop production Agriculture is defined as the art, the science and the business of producing crops and the livestock for economic purposes. As an art, it embraces knowledge of the way to perform the operations of the farm in a skillful manner. The skill is categorized as; Physical skill: It involves the ability and capacity to carry out the operation in an efficient way for e.g., handling of farm implements, animals etc., sowing of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides application etc. Mental skill: The farmer is able to take a decision based on experience, such as (i) time and method of ploughing, (ii) selection of crop and cropping system to suit soil and climate, (iii) adopting improved farm practices etc. As a science : It utilizes all modern technologies developed on scientific principles such as crop improvement/breeding, crop production, crop protection, economics etc., to maximize the yield and profit. For example, new crops and varieties developed by hybridization, transgenic crop varieties resistant to pests and diseases, hybrids in each crop, high fertilizer responsive varieties, water management, herbicides to control weeds, use of bio-control agents to combat pest and diseases etc. As the business : As long as agriculture is the way of life of the rural population, production is ultimately bound to consumption. But agriculture as a business aims at maximum net return through the management of land, labour, water and capital, employing the knowledge of various sciences for production of food, feed, fibre and fuel. In recent years, agriculture is commercialized to run as a business through mechanization. 1.1 SCOPE OF AGRICULTURE IN INDIA In India, population pressure is increasing while area under cultivation is static (as shown in the land utilization statistics given below) or even shrinking, which demand intensification of cropping and allied activities in two dimensions i.e., time and space dimension. India is endowed with tropical climate with abundant solar energy throughout the year, which favours growing crops round the year. There is a vast scope to increase irrigation potential by river projects and minor irrigation projects. In additional to the above, India is blessed with more labourer availability. Since agriculture is the primary sector, other sectors are dependent on agriculture.

Team E Agrovision