Question

Agriculture involves the science, art and business of cultivating soil, growing plants and raising animals for producing food, feeds, fibre and a whole range of other services along with forestry and fisheries, it provides the primary source of food and nutritional security for the welfare of the people

Answer 1

An Introduction to Agriculture and Agronomy Agriculture 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.