Agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to end poverty , boost prosperity, and feed an estimated 9.7 billion people by 2050. Growth in the agricultural sector is two to four times more effective in increasing incomes among the poor than in other sectors. 2016 analyzes found that 65% of Poor working adults earn their livelihood through agriculture, and agriculture is essential for economic growth. Agricultural development occurs in three basic stages, and human beings are its most important components .
traditional farming:
It is a technologically stagnant stage in which production is largely increased by the slowly increasing application of traditional forms of land, labor, and capital, and the increase in output occurs through essentially the same expansion of all inputs or through an increase in inputs of the already abundant low productivity resources. Income and productivity per unit of input are a common feature of this stage .
When we find agriculture in the traditional stage, the obvious goal is to push it into the second stage, that is because in the second stage mainly, agriculture begins to help the industrial development of the firm .
If we look at the history of economic development for Western European countries, we find that industrial development began even when agriculture was in the traditional stage, increasing agricultural production in the traditional stage by increasing the cultivated area .
The population increase was not enough to consume the additional production, the additional production helped the industrial sector that helped the agricultural sector by providing improved agricultural inputs, and the development of agriculture requires more investment and this means more savings in the agricultural sector, if the population continues to grow, the total may not increase Savings in the agricultural sector Even when there is some initial rise in production per acre, the increased output may be consumed by the growing population .
In fact even when there is an increase in per capita productivity in agriculture under an advanced economy, this may not imply any increase in per capita savings as income elasticity of demand in agricultural economies is very high and all additional output may be consumed domestically .
In fact, a poor economy needs special measures to control the population because in the early stages of development, the economy generally finds itself in a vicious circle of population growth .
Increasing population growth not only hampers the growth of savings in the agricultural sector but also leads to the subdivision and fragmentation of holdings which makes the use of some improved inputs, even if they can somehow be purchased from abroad, more difficult, this is particularly the case with Many of today’s underdeveloped economies are where it has become difficult to expand land borders .
Low Capital Technology
At this stage, a complex set of technological changes occurs that significantly increases the efficiency of agricultural operations and raises the rate of increase in agricultural production. The decisive characteristics of the second stage compared to the first stage are the continuous generation and application of technology facilitated by a complex institutional framework, and in this stage :
- Agriculture still represents a large proportion of the overall economy .
- The demand for agricultural products is rising rapidly due to both demographic and income effects .
- Industrial development capital is particularly scarce, but returns are high .
- Constraints on the pace of economic transformation and the pressure of population growth prevent the expansion of the average acreage per farm .
- The use of labour-saving agricultural machinery largely prevents the unfavorable relations of labor and capital cost, these conditions require a kind of agricultural development which was not possible at one time, but is now facilitated by modern science .
The state and its development at this stage
As soon as agriculture enters the economy in the second stage of its development, the objective policy of the state must be :
- Ensuring that all the different inputs responsible for driving agriculture in the second stage of development are gradually used by all farmers and will also continue to be made available to farmers at reasonable rates and this will require large-scale import of these inputs from abroad through the export of agricultural as well as industrial products after the development of the industrial sector Or the establishment of industries that produce these inputs in the same country
- Circulate this input through demonstration and publicity .
- Provide credit to those farmers, such as small farmers, who do not have sufficient financial resources to purchase these inputs .
Technological Dynamic Agriculture High Capital Technology
This is the stage in which agriculture acquires much of its relative importance in the generation of national income, agriculture from various developed countries is included in this stage, the role of government in the different stages is very important
It should be noted that since the stage of agricultural development cannot be precisely defined, the objectives of the agricultural policy at a particular time cannot be precisely determined .
Ingredients for successful agricultural development
Human : At the outset, attention should be paid to human cadres, human health, raising awareness and the importance of agriculture, and paying attention to agricultural engineers to understand the basis of agricultural development .
Land : Agricultural lands must be preserved and not allowed to bulldoze and build on agricultural lands, and try to provide water sources for desert lands and try to develop them to allow agricultural development and increase production .
Water : One of the basic components of agricultural development is the availability of water, the ease of obtaining it, preserving it, and benefiting from water recycling. The instructions for rationalizing water must be followed in daily life and during agriculture .
Modern technology : What is meant by modern technology here is modern irrigation methods and advanced equipment, in addition to genetic engineering that helps in increasing production and improving and developing agriculture .
Problems facing agricultural development
Instability of agriculture : In this problem, agricultural production continues, from a material point of view, to increase as it continues to grow .
However, the income as a result of this increased production does not increase proportionately due to the lower income elasticity of demand for agricultural commodities in advanced economies, and thus per capita income of farmers decreases as compared to the income of the population in the non-agricultural sectors .
The instability of agriculture becomes more prominent in the third stage because much of it occurs due to the evolving nature and development of the industrial sector .
Since the industrial sector, at this stage of economic development , is closely related to the agricultural sector by purchasing inputs from the agricultural sector and by selling its products to the agricultural sector, these booms and depressions are transmitted to the agricultural sector as well, thus the instability of agriculture becomes more evident in these stage .
