Agriculture is a main discipline of plant science and a very broad term. It can be defined in hundreds of
ways, for example,
An art, a science & business as well
of raising crops and rearing of animals through exploiting the natural
resources (soil & climate) with the coordination of socio economic
infrastructure to meet the fundamental necessities of life, i.e. food, feed,
fibre and shelter.
Agriculture is the cultivation of soil, management of soil and all
farm operations carried out from sowing to harvesting of crops and rearing of
animals at the farm.
Agriculture can never be abandoned in any part of the world
because there is no survival of mankind without the food production through
agriculture. And not only food production but also there are so we are
depending on agriculture for medicine, exports, cotton, leather and wool
products, nutrition, meat, woods and straw for construction, timber and other
purposes and numerous application in many of the fields of our daily life. Agriculture
is also an important part of economy of Pakistan and accounts for 21% of GDP
our country and there is no way, we can deny the importance of agriculture in Pakistan.
Divisions of Agriculture
On the farm, the agriculturists divide the agriculture into two
major divisions;
1. Crop Husbandry – deals with the various aspects of crops from seed
sowing, on field and off-field operations, harvesting, threshing, storage and
marketing of the products. It can be further divided into the following main sub-divisions;
Horticulture, Crop Production and Forestry (these sub-divisions further have
many branches by themselves).
2. Animal Husbandry – related to the livestock (poultry and cattle),
their management and getting products from them. It can be divided into in the
following fields;
Dairy farming (cattle and buffalo), Livestock (cattle, horses, sheep,
goats etc.), Fish culture, Apiculture (honey- bees) and Sericulture
(silk-worms).
Similarly there are other branches like mushroom production and
urban agriculture.
Present and Future of Agriculture
In the present times, the agriculture is not just limited to the
classical agricultural ideas and techniques rather it is open to new innovation
and modern technologies, which has revolutionized the concept of agriculture
itself and has re-launched agriculture as an enterprise in the modern world
where agriculture is not just limited to the villages. It has expanded into the
densely populated metropolitans with the concepts like “kitchen gardening” “urban
agriculture” and “landscaping in architecture”.
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