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The practice of crop growing of plant life and livestock is called agriculture. Agriculture is the key development in the uprise of inactive human evolution. Whereby the people who lived in the cities used the farming of domesticated species and created their food surpluses. The history of the agricultural journey began thousands of years ago. Food, fuels, fibres, and raw materials are the majorly grouped agricultural products.
Agriculture is a very important sector of the Indian economy which contributes approximately about 17% of the total GDP and over 60% of the population gets employment through it. The agriculture of the Indian economy is growing impressively over the last few decades. Ever since independence, the food grains production has increased from 1950-51 to 51 million tonnes to 2011-12 with 250 million tonnes which has been the highest since then.
Characteristics of Agriculture
There are major characteristics of the Indian agriculture:
(i) Source of livelihood: Agriculture contributes to about 25% of our total national income. The main occupation of the Indian economy is agriculture.61% people of the total population get employment from it.
(ii) Dependence on monsoon: Monsoon is the main thing on which the agriculture of India depends upon. If there is a good amount of rain i.e. the monsoon is good then the crop production would also be more in quantity and if the monsoon does not sum up well then the crops fail to grow. Sometimes too much rain resulting in floods causes a great amount of destruction to our crops. Due to the inadequate irrigation facilities, agriculture depends upon the monsoon.
(iii) Labour-intensive cultivation: The population is increasing with every passing day which in turn puts increasing pressure on land. The landholdings are getting shattered and subdivided which becomes uneconomical. These farms do not allow the pieces of equipment and machinery to be used on them.
(iv) Underemployment: The uncertain amount of rainfall and inadequate irrigation facilities leads to decreasing agricultural production. The farmers get to work only a few months in the whole of the year. Their work capacity is not properly utilised. This in turn causes distinguished unemployment as well as underemployment.
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Problem of Agriculture
The problems of Indian agriculture are:
(i)Manures, Fertilisers, and Biocides: Over thousands of years without being much concerned about replenishing, Indian soils have been growing crops. This has resulted in exhaustion and depletion of the soils which has led to low productivity. The average yields lie the lowest in the world of almost all the crops. Usage of more manures and fertilisers can be used to solve such serious problems.
(ii)Irrigation: India is the second-largest country for irrigation after China. Still only one-third area is cropped which is under irrigation. India where rain is very uncertain, undependable, and erratic as it is a tropical monsoon country makes irrigation the most important input of agriculture. India needs to bring more than 50% of the crop area under the process of short irrigation to achieve sustainable progress in Indian agriculture.
(iii) Soil erosion: wind and water cause a lot of soil erosion which leads the last track of fertile land to suffer. These eroded areas must be treated properly and be restored to their original fertility.
(iv)Lack of mechanism: Agricultural operation in most parts of the country is carried out in larger parts by human hands using conventional and simple tools such as sickle and wooden plough, despite having a large scale mechanism in agriculture because having mechanisms in large scale for agriculture in some parts of the country.
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Conclusion
The vital importance for any region in the agricultural sector is the demographic pressure is projected to be relatively low in the future because this requires the presence of a particular and favourable type of climatic condition and other factors positive including the seat supplies sector which needs to be very white and should be possible to overcome all the problems related to the insecurity of food in the religion as a whole. The agriculture sector is undergoing a transition process in the economy of the market with changes that are substantial in the social, legal, protective, structural, and supply setups with other sectors belonging to the economy.
