Though agriculture often plays a contributory role in the ‘Gross Domestic Product’ – GDP – of most countries, it nevertheless requires a substantial boost from both the local and the international community.

Agriculture is traditionally based on bulk manufacturing. Harvesting is done once a season, most of the times, and stocked and used later. In fact, some thinkers opine that people have begun to adopt ‘batch processing’ and ‘stocking’ in manufacturing, as a result of the practices from agricultural thinking. Before industrialization, people with the biggest stocks of food and other supplies were considered more stable, and they were able to face challenges of nature without having to starve.
So important is the role of agriculture that new concepts keep ‘cropping up’ to give the traditional activity a modern turn. One such new concept the world is raving about these days is – the importance of ‘organic farming’. There is evidence that, apart from their numerous other benefits, organic farms are more sustainable and environmentally sound, giving agriculture a new dimension.

Agriculture has been the primary occupation of human beings, and that too a very important one. It provides a variety of products – crops – that are essential for humankind. Agriculture not only supports humans for their subsistence, but helps a large number of industries too.

Agriculture forms the raw material for numerous farm products based industries. The basic products, resulting from agricultural activities, are processed in big factories, before the final product is marketed. As such, agriculture generates employment, both for people working in the farming sector as well as those in the industrial, agriculture-based sector.

These days, agriculture has become an important commercial activity. A variety of crops are grown, which can be classified as –
• Food crops
• Commercial crops
• Fiber crops
• Beverage crops.
Agriculture has benefited a great deal from the various advancements in the field of science and technology – with modern machines making the ‘field’ jobs much easier than ever before. All over the world, agriculture is managed efficiently with the help of modern farm equipment. In the US, farmers rely much more on technology than on manual labor.