Agriculture is the activity which uses land and other resources for the production of food in the form of plants, food grains and rearing animals. Agriculture involves cultivation of land for food. It also consists of breeding animals for dairy products or poultry or direct consumption.
Everyone knows that India is an agricultural country and has excellent fertilized land and it is a great resource to grow various kinds of grains, vegetables, and fruits. Farmers perform laborious duties to make sure that they grow a right amount of grains to sell and earn money for their living.
There are various kinds of crops which get exported to multiple other countries in this world from whom the Indian Government takes a lot of money in return to feed their people. More than 50% of India depends upon various grains, vegetables, and other plants as their meals.
Here are some points which reflect the actual importance of agriculture in India:
Importance of agriculture in India
- Since the population of India is mostly dependent on agriculture, the performance of this sector has a considerable effect on the economy. Agriculture contributes around 17-18% in the GDP. Agricultural production has a significant impact on the economy.
- Agriculture supports more than 50 percent of the Indian population directly. Hence the employment scenario is controlled by the agricultural production in India to that extent. In addition to working in the farms, sectors like animal husbandry and agricultural machinery which are connected to the performance of the agricultural sector since they provide support to this sector offer employment therein.
- India has had a past of famines and droughts that led to mass starving. Agriculture has been a focus sector since independence to avoid tragedy. India has come a very long way since then and has a high stock of food to suffice the entire population in time of need.
- It is also a source of self-employment. There are a lot of people in India who feed their families by selling various kinds of crops to other people.
- Agriculture has offered India food independence. Due to the immense hard work of farmers, we Indians don’t have to rely on other countries to consume various kinds of vegetables and grains.
- When it comes to fitness, people who are in the agricultural field are always fitter than people in any other field because they perform much harder duties than anyone else in this world.
- Since agriculture has been given an important status in the economy, the Green Revolution has been a success, and the story has been replicated for other grains. India is now a net exporter of agricultural products and fetches the much needed foreign exchange.
- Indian culture is ingrained in agriculture, where the traditional music, folklore and folk dances all revolve around This was even the case in films until a couple of decades ago and recent ones like Lagaan.
- Indian literature highly revolved around agriculture with authors like Munshi Premchand basing their books like Godan and others on a rural and particularly agricultural background.
- Agriculturists provide various kinds of raw materials to various industries and sectors due to which other sectors of India is doing quite well as well.
- Many of the Indian festivals are primarily established around the agricultural activities particularly Makar Sankranti, Lodhi, Baisakhi, Vishu, Onam are among them.
- The much talked of the rural-urban divide is partly because of the agriculture and dependent If agriculture develops, sufficiently this divide will narrow down.
Conclusion
That agriculture is vital for India can hardly be stressed enough. Entire villages depend upon the farm work and farming seasons. Migration is also dependant on the farming seasons as even the hired labor for harvesting. Indian population still connects with the vagaries of the weather affecting the crop. The food, music and almost all folk culture are so deeply rooted in the various aspects of agriculture that to separate the two becomes inconceivable.