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a. Describe the key stages of evolution of agriculture in a brief paragraph
Answers
Explanation:
Stage # 1. Traditional Agriculture:
“It is a technologically stagnant stage in which production is increased largely through slowly increased application of traditional forms of land, labour and capital.” The increase in output takes place through an essentially symmetrical expansion of all inputs or through increased input of the already abundant low productivity resources. Declining income and productivity per unit of an input is a common feature of this phase.
Policy in a Traditional Agriculture:
When we find agriculture in the traditional stage, the obvious objective is to push it into the 2nd stage. This is because it is mainly in the 2nd stage that agriculture starts helping the industrial development of the company.
No doubt, if we look at the history of economic development of west European countries, we find that industrial development started even when agriculture was in the traditional phase. Agricultural production increase in the traditional phase through increase in the area under cultivation.
The increase in population was not sufficient to consume away the extra production. The extra production helped the industrial sector which helped the agricultural sector in term through providing improved agriculture inputs.
The development of agriculture necessitates more investment. More investment means more saving in the agricultural sector. If the population continues to grow, the total savings in the agricultural sector may not increase even when there is some initial rise in production per acre. The extra output may be consumed by the growing population.