Agriculture and Agronomy

It also considers employment generation, economics, education, ecology, energy consumption,

use of equipment and earning for production, protection, processing, consumption, preservation
and war against waste, transport and trade.

Even though agricultural commodities are mostly seasonal, bulky and perishable in nature, they
help the nation to earn and conserve a greater amount of foreign exchange and to build up the
national economy. Satisfactory agricultural production brings peace, prosperity, harmony, health
and wealth to individuals of a nation by driving away distrust, discord and anarchy. It helps to
elevate the community consisting of different castes and com

munities to a better social, cultural, political and economic life. Agriculture consists of growing
plants and rearing animals in order to yield, produce and, thus it helps to maintain a biological
equilibrium in nature. It congregates the interaction of all environmental factors namely, water,
heat, light, air and soil distributed in the different spheres such as the lithosphere, pedosphere,
atmosphere, hydrosphere and photosphere. Agriculture helps to meet the basic needs of
humans and their civilization by providing food, clothing, shelter, medicine and recreation. Their
eyes and minds are soothed by dynamic changes from grey (bare soil) to green (growing crop)
to golden (mature crop) and gay harvests.

Scope of agriculture in Bangladesh

Agriculture is simply the exploitation of free natural resources for optimal production. There
remains plenty of scope for the agriculturists in this field. The total land area of Bangladesh is
about 14.8 million ha, of which about 66.6% is available for cultivation (BBS, 2003). Depending
on the flooding depth, the land is categorized as highland (20%), medium highland (35%),
medium lowland (20%), lowland (8%) and very lowland (1%). Based on physical environment
which are relevant to land use, the land is divided into 30 agroecological zones and 88 sub-
regions in which different types of crops are cultivated according to their suitability of
adaptation.

All land areas are not suitable for all types of crops. Seasonally flooded land is suitable for rice
cultivation but the use of HYVS is limited to areas with relatively shallow flood depth during the
kharif season. Deep flooding for long periods limits land use to a single low yielding, deep water
rice crop. Most upland crops are grown in well-drained land. Boro is planted in poorly drained
soils throughout the dry (rabi) season where irrigation can be provided and where no flooding
will occur before the harvest of the crop.

Agricultural land use in coastal areas is limited to wet season cropping because of high dry
season soil salinity and lack of suitable quality irrigation water. Cropping intensities, therefore,
are low in coastal areas. Intensive cropping with HYVS is commonly practiced under high to
medium highland with assured good quality irrigation water. Total cropped area with more than
170% cropping intensities is about 13.4 million ha. At present, areas under single, double, and
triple cropping are 2.8, 4.1 and 1.0 million ha, respectively, (BBS, 2003). Rice alone covers about
80% of the total cropped area, of which HYV's share is about 50%. If salinity tolerant varieties
with high yield potential and proper management practices including irrigation facilities for the
coastal belts can be developed then cropping of these areas will definitely be increased.

Agricultural land is fragmented into small pieces because of the large number of farm holdings.
Total number of farm holdings is about 19 million; the average size of a holding is about 0.5 ha.
Each holding consists of a few pieces of land which generally range from 0.1-0.2 ha.
Homestead cultivation such as vegetable cultivation and bee-keeping (apiculture) may help to
utilize the homestead areas properly with a minimum investment of inputs.

The best scope of agriculture lies in the cropping sector. Bangladesh is endowed with a climate
favourable for the cultivation of a wide variety of both tropical and temperate crops. Though
nearly 100 different kinds of crops are presently grown in Bangladesh, rice is the principal one
which grows in all the three crop growing seasons of the year and covers about 79 percent of
the total cropped area of about 13.4 million ha. High yielding varieties cover more than 50
percent of the total rice area. Other important crops are wheat, jute, potato, oilseeds, pulses,
tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, fruits, and vegetables. Crops in Bangladesh are grown both under
rainfed and irrigated conditions. However, rainfed agriculture is dominant, since nearly 70
percent of the net sown area is dependent upon rain as a source of water for crop production.
Traditional practices is the most needed thing now in this case.

Scope of agronomy
The central theme of agronomy is of soil-crop-environment relationships. Field crops without
soil cannot be considered and soil without crops is barren. The core scope of agronomy lies in
the field of crop plants with the theme of controlling the environment (microclimate). It includes
the study of the magnitude of variation in yield, cause and effect relationships, internal and
external factors and their interrelationships, techniques of increasing se-efficiency of inputs,
evolving technologies for better management practices of soil, water, nutrients, weeds and crop
plants are the major aspects of agronomy to boost up production and its usable products per
unit land, time and input. Scientific crop production includes crop improvement improved agro-
techniques, the ameliorating agro-climate of the locality and other aspects of the surrounding
area for the entire field duration of the crop concerned.