Agriculture: a pathway to poverty reduction

^{Barley. [Source: Pixabay] - under CC0 Creative Commons License}

AGRICULTURE: A PATHWAY TO POVERTY REDUCTION

According to the League of Women Voters, it is
said that “if you eat, you are involve in
agriculture”, Wendell Berry says how we eat determines to a considerable extent how the world is used, Sir. Albert Howard, says the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal and man is one great subject. This occured to me that Sir. Albert Howard was trying to say the pathway to wealth lies in the soil, plant and animal with man being the major factor that needs to get into work( agriculture) in bringing out the solutions to these problems.

While looking at agriculture as a roadmap to creating wealth, we would be looking at the definition of agriculture, the importance, types of agriculture as well as the various branches of agriculture for agripreneurs.

WHAT IS AGRICULTURE

Agriculural production is generally thought of as merely going to farm with your necessary implements and cultivating crops. However, the concept of agriculture is more than that. 

Agriculture and its product are vital part of our daily life. Everything, directly or indirectly, depends on agriculture in the world, because a day will not pass by where living things (human being and animals) would not consume food produce through agriculture. Agriculture is a field that connects all other sectors in one way or the other either through the production of raw materials needed or the finished produced in term of the consumable.

Agriculture is the process of producing feed, food, fibre and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock).
It can also be said in a simpler form to be the cultivation of crops and raising of animals either for family consumption or for sale.

IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is very important in today’s world. Agriculture through what it offers creates a pathway to prosperity and peace. These are:
In the olden days, our forefathers believed so much in agriculture to the extent whereby they have more wives in other to reproduce so that the children are later taken and introduced to farm which serves as a means of livelihood.

Agriculture creates job for the world teeming youth and as a result of the chains of jobs it provides, it has brought people continual income, which helps to boost the finances of those involved in agriculture.

It also leads to economic growth due to the generation of more foreign exchange. It is also important to note that when there is an increase in agriculture productivity, it raises food supply, reduces food prices and provides greater employment opportunities in both rural and urban areas.

Agriculture makes its contribution to economic development by providing raw materials to non-agricultural sector of the economy.

Increased agricultural output and productivity tend to contribute substantially to an overall economic development of the country.

TYPES OF AGRICULTURE

Imagine a family farm on a small plot of land and a huge commercial farm that spans acres of land. What do you think makes these two types of farm different? The fact remains that both farms are designed to produce food, but it differs in the method of production, the amount of food produce and who consumes the food produced.
Agriculture as a business can be said to be in two types of production which is the Small or subsistence scale and the Large or industrialized scale production.

INDUSTRIALIZED AGRICULTURE

In this type of agriculture, large quantities of crops and livestock are produced through industrialized technique for the purpose of sale. Using this method, large quantities of food are produced due to the farming methods used. On like the olden days whereby animal and man power are used to work the field but in this system, large machines are utilized which are more powerful and faster. One of the farming techniques used is industrialized agriculture is the method of growing monocultures, i.e. a single crop is planted on a large scale has become the dominant agricultural method.

SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE

 This type of farming is regularly practiced today in most of the homes. In this type of farming, crops produced and animals raised are mainly for the consumption. The goal of subsistence farming is to produce food to ensure the survival of the family and if there is excess it can therefore be sold to individuals or other families. In this type of farming, it is labour intensive and only hand tools such as hoe, cutlass etc are used and also simple machines can be used to work the land. This type involve little amount of cash to start up.

Crops and Livestock systems
In agriculture, it’s either you go into cropping or livestock raising or both. Let’s take a look at the crop cultivation system before we look into the livestock production system.

Cropping systems vary among farms depending on the resources and constraints, government policy, social and political pressures and the philosophy and culture of the farmer.

Shifting cultivation is the process in which a farmland is left untouched for a long period time after crops planted on it have been harvested and thereby returning to plant again.

Multi cropping is the one in which crops are grown sequentially in one year.

Inter cropping involves the planting of more than a varieties of crops on the same piece of land at the same time.

Cropping involve both annual and the perennial system.

Livestock production systems looking at animal husbandry as the breeding and raising of animals for meat, milk, egg or wool and for work and transport. In some places in the world, like the northern part of Nigeria, some of the working and transport animals include oxen, camel, donkeys, horse etc.

BRANCHES OF AGRICULTURE

Looking at the branches of agriculture, we can simply classify them under the three (3) groups which are:

1.Aeroponic
2.Geoponic
3.Hydroponics

Looking at the above branches, we would be mentioning some of them and we would be discussing some of the branches in other to have little knowledge about what they entails and what we can key into to make a living.
Some of the branches are horticulture, agricultural engineering, agricultural economics, floriculture, olericulture, pisciculture, poultry, pomology and so on.

Aeroponic simply means the way of growing or culturing plants in an air without the use of soil or an aggregate medium. Aeroponic is planted or grow in a closed or semi-closed environment. In other to achieve a better result when using this system it must be kept free from pest and diseases.

Hydroponics uses a liquid nutrient solution as a growing medium and essential minerals to sustaining growth of plant. In this case plants may be grown with only their root exposed to minerals solution or maybe supported by an inert medium which maybe gravel. Nutrients used in hydroponics may be gotten from fish waste, manure and the likes.

^{Hydroponics. [Source: Pixabay] - under CC0 Creative Commons License}

Geoponic is the way in which plants are grown in a normal soil unlike the Aeroponic which deals with plants grown suspended in air and hydroponic where plants are grown in water

Arable farming involves growing crops alone such as wheat and the likes.

Horticulture involves the practice of garden cultivation and management. The garden cultivation involves growing of flowers, fruits and vegetable. Horticulture can also be said to be the science of plant production for both beauty and utility.

Forestry in the sense of forest as a large area dominated by trees. It can also be said to be the science using, conserving forest and associated resources to meet desired goals, need and want for the benefit of mankind.

Pomology can be said to be a branch under botany that deals with the study and cultivation of fruits alone.

Olericulture is the science of growing vegetable plants for food.

Floriculture is a branch under horticulture which is solemly based on the cultivations of flower.

Sericulture is the rearing of silkworm for the production of silk. The most widely used of species in producing silk is the bombyx mori insect.

Pisciculture involve the breeding, rearing, and transplantation of fish by artificial means.
It can also be said to be raising of fish in a tank or enclosures either for commercial purpose or for consumption.

^{Rainbow Trout Fish. [Source: Pixabay] - under CC0 Creative Commons License}

Apiculture is the process of raising, caring and management of bees.

^{Bee Honeycomb. [Source: Pixabay] - under CC0 Creative Commons License}

Source;
http://study.com/olericulture
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/geoponic
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/aeroponics