essay on agriculture....
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The practice of agriculture is also known as "farming", while scientists, inventors and others devoted to improving farming methods and implements are also said to be engaged in agriculture.
Subsistence farming, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family.
At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture.
Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization.
These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock.
Modern agriculture extends well beyond the traditional production of food for humans and animal feeds.
Other agricultural production goods include timber, fertilizers, animal hides, leather, industrial chemicals (starch, sugar, alcohols and resins), fibers (cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax), fuels (methane from biomass, ethanol, biodiesel), cut flowers, ornamental and nursery plants, tropical fish and birds for the pet trade, and both legal and illegal drugs (biopharmaceuticals, tobacco, marijuana, opium, cocaine).
The 20th Century saw massive changes in agricultural practice, particularly in agricultural chemistry.
Agricultural chemistry includes the application of chemical fertilizer, chemical insecticides, and chemical fungicides, soil makeup, analysis of agricultural products, and nutritional needs of farm animals.
Beginning in the Western world, the green revolution spread many of these changes to farms throughout the world, with varying success.
Other recent changes in agriculture include hydroponics, plant breeding, hybridization, gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved weed control.
Genetic engineering has yielded crops which have capabilities beyond those of naturally occuring plants, such as higher yields and disease resistance.
Modified seeds germinate faster, and thus can be grown in an extended growing area.
Genetic engineering of plants has proven controversial, particularly in the case of herbicide-resistant plants.
As of 2006, an estimated 36 percent of the world's workers are employed in agriculture (down from 42% in 1996), making it by far the most common occupation.
However, the relative significance of farming has dropped steadily since the beginning of industrialization, and in 2006 – for the first time in history – the services sector overtook agriculture as the economic sector employing the most people worldwide.
Also, agricultural production accounts for less than five percent of the gross world product (an aggregate of all gross domestic products).
✌ESSAY ON AGRICULTURAL✌
Meaning
Agriculture refers to the cultivation of fields and land in addition to the breeding of plants and animals to provide fiber, food, medicinal products, etc.
The objective is to enhance and sustain the quality of life. Agriculture can definitely get called as a significant development in the sedentary human civilization.
History of Agriculture
Agriculture was an idea that saw the light of the day in the middle stone age when the Early Man first started forming settlements and communities. The primitive stone implements were the tools for cultivating the land. Till a few decades back, modern versions of the similar instruments came to existence. That went on until the introduction of mechanized farming. Tilling of the land with the help of Oxen, irrigation by wells and using scythes to cut the crop.
The more the number of laborers on the farm, the better it was for the harvest. Dairies too were dependant on the number of hands that could milk the cows and tend to the other animals. Shifting agriculture allowed the crops to draw in the required minerals from the land.
Modern Agriculture
Modern agriculture is almost entirely mechanized. Right from the tractors used for tilling the land, sprinklers watering the farm and large combine harvester machines that cut thresh and bind the crop and high-quality storage facilities to increase the life of the yield.
The dairy industry is highly mechanized with robotic milking systems to have multiple cows milked at the same time and the milk collected and stored hygienically.
A lot of research has gone into agriculture to raise the quality of crops by genetically modifying them or by providing better conditions and nutrients.
Benefits of Agriculture
Agriculture and farming have a lot of benefits for the human civilization. Some of them are:
1. Agriculture provides food for human beings including meats, fruits, and vegetables.
2. It also provides food to the animal kind.
3. It is the only source of livelihood for farmers, transporters, agronomists, etc. whose entire life depends on agriculture.
4. Agriculture also provides raw materials including bamboo, cotton, sisal, etc.
5. Good agricultural practices also assist in reducing pollution and conserving the natural sanctity of the environment.
6. Most of all, agriculture contributes to achieving a greener environment by creating vegetation that is natural rather than rocks and bare soil.
7. You can also count on a significant amount of water conservation when indulging in good agricultural practices as drip irrigation assists in saving water to a great extent.
Conclusion
Even though it’s changing, agriculture is also now one of the most critical activities and industries because it provides food and means of subsistence to everyone across the world.
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