Agriculture

Agriculture is the practice of cultivating natural resources to sustain human life and provide economic gain. It combines the creativity, imagination, and skill involved in planting crops and raising animals with modern production methods and new technologies.

Agricultural systems in various parts of the world have evolved due to technological advances and increasing human knowledge. It develops from primitive agriculture, traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. At that time, hunting and gathering activities are familiar techniques for humans. Conventional agriculture started since humans began to settle and cultivate in one location.

For thousands of years, agriculture has played an important role in everyday life. Before agriculture, hunting and gathering enabled humans to survive. It wasn’t until the transition to the planned sowing and harvesting of crops that humans began to thrive. Humans developed tools and practices to improve agricultural output with more efficient means of sustaining themselves. From there, innovations that created industries led to the modern era.

This agricultural system is a straightforward farm model that is extensive and does not maximize inputs such as technology, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. As the pressures of globalization and modernization intensify over time, traditional farming practices and knowledge are becoming obsolete. As the environment destabilizes each year, conventional farming or livestock farming becomes less reliable over time. I

It is common knowledge that traditional farming or farming methods are dependent on many external conditions to ensure profitability. Therefore, farmers began to implement precision agriculture to make farming more effective. Before adopting precision farming, farmers must know the principles of precision agriculture.

Agriculture impacts global trade because it’s tied to other sectors of the economy, supporting job creation and encouraging economic development. Countries with strong agricultural sectors experience employment growth in other sectors, according to USAID. Countries with agricultural productivity growth and robust agriculture infrastructure also have higher per capita incomes, since producers in these countries innovate through technology and farm management practices to boost agricultural productivity and profitability.

Traditional agriculture will usually depend more on nature, so their agriculture can be arid during the dry season, unlike modern agriculture, which has carried out irrigation engineering such as dams, irrigation, etc. Indeed, it affects the types of crops in the field.

Traditional agriculture uses a monoculture cropping system. Single planting or monoculture is cultivating on agricultural land by planting one plant in one area. Monoculture is a straightforward farming system. It mainly includes soil preparation, irrigation, and chemicals when needed, all of which focus on the preferences of a particular plant. Pests and diseases treat without considering the effects of the treatment on other plants that are not present.

On the contrary, precision agriculture uses diversified cropping systems. It is an effort to diversify the type of business or crops to avoid dependence on one agricultural product. In addition to fulfilling crop production, diversification can also help maintain agricultural land to remain productive. Two ways can do for agricultural diversification. First, increase the types of farming activities, and second, grow the types of plants on land.

To conclude, you can still adopt conventional farming in small business sizes or only for your business. This method can be more affordable than modern farming. Yet, contemporary farming is more effective for big companies since it has supported tools to make work easier and faster.

Agriculture offers an opportunity to improve the lives of millions of food-insecure people and help countries develop economies that create jobs and raise incomes. Today’s agriculture also impacts future generations. To ensure the long-term success of the global agricultural sector, building a more sustainable economic system aligned with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals is a crucial imperative to help create a more equitable society.