Why is agriculture important in the world of today?
Since the dawn of history, agriculture has been one of the important means of producing food for human consumption. Today more and more lands are being developed for the production of a large variety of crops. In Asia, vast areas of land are being used to produce rice, wheat, rubber and a variety of other crops. More than half of the lands occupied and developed by human beings in the world are devoted to agriculture.
That agriculture is one of the most essential means of producing food is realised easily when we think of the types of things that we eat. The rice or wheat that we eat comes from the land. Even potatoes and other roots or vegetables and even leaves such as tea, as well as the fruits that men eat are the products of the soil that covers the earth. In fact, everything that we eat, except meat, fish and other kinds of flesh come from the land, and what grows on the land is part of agriculture. Even the sugar, oil, coffee and other beverages that we use are products of plants that grow on land. In the same way, many of the medicines that we use are made of plants that grow in various parts of the world. The tobacco that we use for relaxation also comes from a plant.
Thus, it can be easily observed that without agriculture we would be almost without food. It is true, however, that in the remote past men did live mainly on flesh that he obtained by hunting. But such a kind of life was unhappy and inconvenient, for animals were not found everywhere easily. Therefore, men turned to agriculture for his livelihood. Today, agriculture continues to provide almost all the food that men require to survive on the earth.
