AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The cultivation of crops and the raising of animals to obtain agricultural

products; one of the most important branches of material production. Agriculture
also includes the various processes through which plant and animal products are
put during initial processing, unless the processes themselves form a separate
and independent branch of industry. In some countries, forestry is regarded as a
part of agriculture.
Agriculture produces foods for human consumption. It provides the raw
materials for many branches of industry, including the food-processing, mixedfeed, textile, pharmaceutical, and perfume industries. It also produces animal
tractive power, for example, through the raising of horses and deer. Agriculture
includes the various branches of crop cultivation, such as the cultivation of field
crops, the growing of fruits and vegetables, and viticulture. It also includes the
various branches of animal husbandry, such as the raising of cattle, hogs, sheep,
and poultry. In order to assure the rational use of both human and material
resources, the various branches of agriculture must be properly integrated with
one another.
Many countries of the world have agricultural economies. And yet, hunger
has remained with them for so many years. About 40 million people die every
year mostly children because of hunger and malnutrition. Food shortage is
very serious in the less developed countries. By the end of 2000 there would be
65 countries of the Third World which could not feed their own people.
The present population of the world is more than 4.5 billion. Unfortunately,
population growth will be fastest at those regions where land resources are least
inadequate. Nevertheless, food production experts claim that the resources of
the earth have the capacity to feed population several times bigger than our
present population. With more efficient food production and distribution there is a
hope to eliminate hunger and poverty among the less developed countries.

HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE

The word agriculture came from the Latin word ager, "a field" and
cultura, "cultivation". In the beginning, there was no food production. The ancient
people subsisted on food gathering, hunting, and fishing. They wandered from
place to place searching for food. Clearly, there were no permanent human
settlements that time. It was a nomadic society.
Agriculture was first discovered in Southeast Asia, Middle East, and Latin
America. People in the Middle East raised wheat and barley around 6000 B.C..
The region was greatly instrumental in spreading the knowledge of agriculture in
Asia and Europe. The discovery of agriculture ended their wanderings, and
began the development of civilization. Permanent and stable societies were
organized. Economic, political, cultural, social, ang religious institutions emerged.
However, still many agricultural villages have until the modern age remained
primitive. In fact not a few of them even deteriorated because of disease. Their
people died without the benefit of medical services. In addition, they were
exploited by more powerful and civilized races.
The methods of farm production have not changed much in the poor
countries. They are still using primitive techniques of production which are mostly
done by men and animals. They lack irrigation facilities so they depend only on
rain water which means they can only farm during rainy seasons. Their
production outputs are very low which are not even enough to feed their own
people. In the case of the United States, only 4 percent of its population are
engaged in agriculture. And yet, its agriculture can supply not only the needs of
American people but also poor people of other counties. In short, American
Agriculture is very efficient because it is using technology. However, technology
is not only the factor for such productivity. Other, factors include the attitudes and
values of the farmers land ownership government policies, and peace and order.

PROBLEMS OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Developing countries are faced with numerous problems which militate against
the development of agriculture. Some of the problems are:
1. Problem of Land Tenure: Land is one of the most
important factors in agricultural production. The land
tenure is the way land is owned in a society. The
prevailing land tenure systems in the country often
discourage agricultural land utilization. Land is owned
by inheritance hence land is fragmented over
generations. Increase in population has increased the
various alternatives to which land can be put. This
further puts pressure on all the available land.

2. Problems of Basic Amenities: Basic amenities like electricity cinema, standard

schools, good and functioning health centers, recreational parks for relaxation,
good roads, telephone, television viewing centers etc, are lacking in the rural
areas. This often leads to the following:
a) Rural-Urban drifts, that is, people leaving the village for jobs in the city.
b) Reduction in the working population in the village.
c) Low agricultural production.

3. Problems of Finance or Poor Financing:

Most agricultural activities in the developing
countries are subsistent in nature, hence the
farmers: (i) are very poor (ii) cannot secure
the necessary collateral for loans (iii) cannot
have access to enough credit facilities. (iv)
Cannot pay the high interest rates on loans
either from financial institutions or money
lenders. (v) Cannot procure the most
sophisticated machines. (vi) Cannot employ agricultural specialists whose
salaries and wages are far above what the farmers can afford.
4. Poor Transportation: This includes (i) Bad
roads (ii) Inadequate vehicles (iii) Vehicles lack
spare parts (iv) High cost of bringing the farm
products from rural areas to urban centers (v)
Lack of transportation which increases the
activities of middlemen in the movement of
agricultural products from the farm to the urban
centers where they are consumed (vi) Lack of
transport facilities which increases perishability of
farm crops.

5. Poor Communication: This includes lack of good radio, television, telephone,

telex, fax machines for quick messages and assessment of latest discoveries in
the agricultural sector. This makes the professional agriculturists to be unaware
of recent developments in his filed.
6. Problems of Good Storage and
Processing Facilities: Storage facilities like
silo, rhombus, cribs, barns, rafters are
inadequate, thus leading to: (a) Perish
ability of crops like tomato, pepper, etc. (b)
Pests and diseases which attack farm
products (c) Farmers fumigating their
products. (d) Glut during harvests and
famine outside harvest periods. (e) The
quality of farm products being reduced. (f) Farm products wasting. Processing
facilities like thresher, miller, grater, canning machine and sealing machines are:
(i) Very expensive to procure (ii) Highly technical for local farmers to operate (iii)
Very difficult and expensive to maintain.
7. Lack of Good Agricultural education: Most of the farmers in the developing
countries are not educated enough in the technicalities relating to agricultural
product, hence, they are: (i) Dogmatic and adamant to changes (ii) Very
superstitious in their beliefs (iii) Very suspicious of any new innovation (iv)
Unscientific in mind and thinking (v) Not willing to accept technological changes
(vi) Very uncooperative, hostile and unaccommodating (vii) Unwilling to even
learn how to use and apply fertilizers, insecticides and new farm tools. All these
bring about low agricultural productivity.
8. Poor Extension Activities: Extensive helps in disseminating recent information
to a large number of people within a very short time. This is not the case in
developing countries because:: (i) Extension workers are too ill-equipped for the
work. (ii) The period of training is too long. (iii) Language barriers. (iv) Lack of
recent research work. (v) The uncooperative attitude of farmers. (vi) Lack of
vehicles. (vii) Poor remuneration.
9. Poor Tools and Farm Machines: Farmers still rely on the use of tools like hoe,
cutlass, rake, etc for their activities, instead of using the mechanized implements
like ridges, ploughs, cultivators, etc.
Poor tools can lead to:
(i) Drudgery of the farmer (ii) Time wasting (iii) Short life span of the farmers (iv)
Low yield (v) Low farmers income.
While machines are:

(i) Very expensive to procure and maintain (ii) Highly technical to use (iii) Cannot
be used in small farm holdings (iv) Cannot be used in some soils. (v) Cannot be
used for some crops like yam.

10. Unstable Policies and Programmes of Government: Even government comes

with different programmes which often tell on the farmers.
11. Poor Marketing System: The sole aim of commercial agriculture is profit
making, but this cannot be achieved due to the following: (i) Activities of
middlemen who try to remove all the gains, create artificial scarcity, etc. (ii) Poor
pricing policies. (iii) Non-functional food commodity boards for food crops. (iv)
There is also fluctuation in prices (v) Poor marketing channels for farm produce
(vi) Lack of good roads. (vii) Poor storage facilities.
12. Pest and Diseases: They can: (i)
Increase the cost of production (ii) Reduce
the quality of farm produce (iii) Reduce the
quality of farm produce (iv) Reduce farmers
income (v) discourage farmers from further
production.

13. Unpredictable Climate: This includes:

(i) Drought or long period without rain
which leads to poor harvest. (ii) Flooding
or excessive rainfall which reduces yield.
(iii) Excessive sunshine, which leads to
increase in temperature. (iv) Inadequate
sunshine
which
reduces
the
photosynthetic ability of plants. (v)
Unfavourable climate which also reduces
farm activities.

14. Agricultural Inputs: They include: (i)

Agricultural chemicals like insecticides
dieldrin dust, aldrin dust, fernasan D),
nematicide like rogor). (ii) Inputs like
improved seeds and seedlings, improved
animal materials like the parent stock in
birds are lacking. (iii) Agricultural inputs
are very expensive. (iv) The application
of these chemicals can lead to pollination
of the environment. (v) Some inputs are
very substandard and do not meet the desired result. (vi) Inputs like fertilizers are
very expensive and also inadequate. (vii) Most of the inputs are imported and are
very expensive to procure.
15. Sociological and Psychological Attitude Towards Farming: (i) Young people
feel that farming is for the dropouts or never-do-well in the society and a
profession for poor people. (ii) Farmers are believed to be low class and the
public seldom reckons with them as they do to accountants, medical doctors,
lawyers and engineers. (iii) Young people also prefer white collar jobs where they
can dress impressively.
16. Smuggling: (i) This means illegal exportation of food. (ii) It increases the cost
of farm products. (iii) Places money in the hands of few individuals. (iv) It can
cause hunger in the villages, as everybody will now want to engage in smuggling.
17. Environmental Degradation: This includes: (i)
Pollination of the environment through the
activities of the industries. (ii) Soil erosion
destroying the structure of land. (iii) setting up of
forest fire, which increases environmental
temperature. (iv) Deforestation reduces rainfall,
forest trees and land protection. (v) Improper
waste disposal can lead to spread of diseases in
the environment.

AGRICULTURE AS FOUNDATION OF ECONOMICS

Food crops and raw materials come from agriculture. People need food
while factories need raw materials. Furthermore, most people live and work in
agriculture. Such human resources provide most important factor of economic
development. If agricultural sectors are well-developed, then it can support the
other major economic sectors like manufacturing, trade, and service sectors.
The highly-developed countries developed first their agricultural base
before pursuing their industrialization program. In our case, agriculture has

become the stepping stone for our economic recovery. The first economic priority
of the national government is the development of an efficient agriculture.

SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF AGRICULTURE

Modern agriculture supplies raw materials to the industrial sector and
foods to the urban population.
With an efficient agriculture, people in the agricultural sectors get more
incomes. This increases their demand for goods and services which
stimulates more production in the industrial sectors. This result to more
employment and income.
Through the application of modern machines and high technology,
agriculture can release a portion of its labor force for employment in the
industrial sectors, and in commercial firms.
Foreign exchange can be increased by exporting more agricultural
products.
A prosperous agricultural economy generates more jobs and incomes in
rural areas. This reduces the problems in the cities because people in the
rural areas will not go anymore to the cities to look for jobs.
A sustained agricultural development provides a more equitable and
balanced economic development once a country has attained full
industrialization.

CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE

It started in 1784 with the organization of Economic Society of the Friends

of the Country by Spanish Governor General Hose Basco Y Vargas. The
production of tobacco, cotton, sugar, indigo, and cinnamon was monopolized by
the Spanish government. Saud cash or commercial crops were raised primarily

for export purposes. Such government monopolies became the source of

economic exploitations of the Filipino farmers. The government forced them to
abandon their crops like rice and corn to work like slaves in th government
tobacco plantations.
Capitalism in agricultural development has even expanded during the
American regime. About 90 percent of the total exports were commercial crops
such as sugar, coconut, abaca, and tobacco. Unfortunately, the agricultural
capitalists were not Filipinos; they were aliens, mostly Americans. They
controlled production. Processing and marketing of major crops. The prices of
our exports to the United States were very low while the prices of our imported
finished good were very high. It was an economic exploitation. Today, capitalism
in the Philippine agriculture has become more extensive.

CORPORATE FARMING
Corporate farming is a term used to describe companies that own or
influence farms and agricultural practices on a large scale. This includes not only
corporate ownership of farms and selling of agricultural products, but also the
roles of these companies in influencing agricultural education, research, and
public policy through funding initiatives and lobbying efforts.
Our country has been a traditional rice importer. In view of the global food
crises, our government undertook several programs to increase our rice
production. One of these was corporate farming. The government has
encouraged corporations with at least 500 employees to engage in rice
production and other crops. The big corporations like San Miguel Corporation
and Meralco have been very successful in their corporate farming. They have
extended money, management, materials, and technology to the poor farmers
who have been reduced to mere farm workers. Profits go to the giant
corporations.
Another criticism against corporate farming is that it is the opposite of land
reform. Under the agrarian reform program of the government, a tenant could
only acquire a maximum of irrigated 3 hectares and unirrigated 5 hectares of rice
and corn land (P.D. No. 27). But not all landless farmers have been given lands
by the government. In fact, there are thousands of landless rural workers. They
work only during planting, and harvesting seasons on daily-wage basis or
equivalent in palay. And yet, the Marcos government granted corporations
including multinational corporations vast tracts of land for a period of 50 years.

AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATION

Agribusiness is a business that earns most or all of its revenues from

agriculture. An agribusiness tends to be a large-scale business operation and
may dabble in farming, processing and manufacturing and/or the packaging and
distribution of products. It includes agrichemicals, breeding, crop production
(farming and contract farming), distribution, farm machinery, processing, and
seed supply, as well as marketing and retail sales. All agents of the food and fiber
value chain and those institutions that influence it are part of the agribusiness
system.
Most of the big corporations engaged in an agribusiness are the giant
multinational corporations. They have their subsidiaries or affiliates in all
countries with a market economy. In the beginning, they sold production inputs
like fertilizers, chemicals, and farm tools. At present, they are actively engaged in
a total-market approach. They established all kinds of economic linkages
forward, backward and sideward from the seeds to the food. This means that
the multinational corporations are engaged in all phases of production,
processing and marketing.

http://joeleebass.hubpages.com/hub/17-problems-of-agricultural-development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_farming

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Agriculture
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/agribusiness.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agribusiness
Fajardo, Feliciano R., ECONOMICS, Third Edition, Rex Book Store, Inc., 1995,
pp.266-276

INDUSTRIALIZATION

The process in which a society or country (or world) transforms itself from a
primarily agricultural society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and
services. Individual manual labor is often replaced by mechanized mass
production and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines. Characteristics of
industrialization include the use of technological innovation to solve problems as
opposed to superstition or dependency upon conditions outside human control
such as the weather, as well as more efficient division of labor and economic
growth.

SIGNIFICANCE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

It eases the daily responsibilities and tasks of people.

Opens the doors to lots of employment opportunities.
Utilization of natural resources with aid of technology.
Encourage investors.
Increases economic growth.
REASONS FOR INDUSTRIALIZATION

1. To increase the national income of the country. Productivity is much higher

in manufacturing industry. This means more income for the factors of
production. In addition, prices of industrial products are more stable and
higher in both local and foreign markets.
2. To improve the stability of export earnings and national income. Most less
developed countries export only a few primary crops like sugar, timber, or
copra. These are sold in very highly competitive world markets. Their
prices are manipulated by the industrial countries for their own economic

benefits, aside from the forces of demand and supply. Moreover, the
supply of agricultural products is not stable. Natural calamities can easily
reduce the supply of agricultural products, and so with export earnings.
This is not the case for industrial products.
3. To provide more employment. Industrialization creates more jobs and
therefore absorbs those who are jobless or underemployed in the rural
areas. Industrialization means more factories. Farmers during the slack
seasons can do some part-time jobs in processing plants in their own
communities.
4. To extend markets for local raw materials. Local manufacturing industries
need raw materials. Agricultural products and by-products will be fully
used by factories. Such products will be processed for both personal and
industrial consumption.
ADVANTAGES OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
(i) Centre of economic life shifted from the villages to cities and towns where the
factories were situated.
(ii) Urban (cities) and rural (villages) life became dependent upon one another.
Isolated life of self-sufficient villages came to an end.
(iii) Men became free to develop their capabilities in areas other than farming.
(iv) It brought countries and people together. There was an international awareness among people because developments in one country influenced the others.
(v) The aristocracy and nobility with their feudal ideas were replaced by the newly
rich middle class capitalists (bourgeoisie) who also became politically powerful.
(vi) Better transport, communications and mechanized goods made life comfortable for man.

DISADVANTAGES OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
(i) Cities became crowded, smoky, with problems of slums, housing, sanitation,
accidents and epidemics.
(ii) Women and child labor was badly exploited.
(iii) Workers suffered from long working hours, low wages, and unemployment,
unsafe conditions of work, with no rights to vote strike or form trade unions.

(iv) Society became divided into rich and poor, the 'Haves' and the 'Have- Nots'.
(v) It led to wars of imperialism and colonization.

AGRICULTURE SUPPORTS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

It is much easier to prepare the path towards industrialization if there is a
strong agriculture base. For it is agriculture which supplies raw materials and
labor to industries. In addition, it is also agriculture which buys the products of
industries like fertilizers, chemicals, tools and machines. Needless to say, that if
the people in the agricultural communities are prosperous, they can buy more
goods and services being produced by the industries. We cannot depend solely
on the world markets for our industrial products considering the comparative
advantage of the older industrial countries like the United States, Great Britain,
France, Germany, and Japan.
One basic principle in production economics is to use the most abundant
resources which is available. The more abundant resources have cheaper prices
than scarce resources. In less developed countries, agricultural resources are
the most abundant. These should be developed for the economic benefit of the
people themselves. Among other things, the advantages of converting
agricultural resources into consumption goods and services are lower production
cost and shorter gestation period. Once the agricultural sector is developed, the
process of industrialization moves progressively. Modern agriculture naturally
induces industrial development.

INDUSTRIALIZATION ALSO HELPS AGRICULTURE

Industrialization has many favorable effects on the further improvement of

agriculture, together with those who depend on it for their livelihood. Ideally, it is

better to develop agriculture and industry at the same time. Such balanced
approach produces more economic benefits. However, in the case of the poor
countries, it is not economically possible. The simultaneous balanced
development of the agricultural and industrial sectors requires huge funds which
the poor countries do not have. Furthermore, the values and institutions
pervading in said places are usually not yet suitable to industrial development.
Evidently, it takes a much longer time to have meaningful changes in values and
institutions such as the efficiency of government operations, the competence and
integrity of management, and so forth.

SOME EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL GROWTH IN AGRICULTURE

1. Increases demand for agricultural products. Such favorable market
condition improves the standard of living in the rural areas.
2. Stimulates the production of cash crops (those that are used for industrial
purposes) in a more efficient method.
3. Develops the processing of agricultural industries.
4. Integrates rural and urban economies.
5. Supplies a wide range of consumption goods to the agricultural workers.
6. Creates more efficient factor markets (for land, labor, capital, and
entrepreneur) within the agricultural sector.
7. Provides more productive employment opportunities in non-agricultural
activities. This also benefits those who remain in agriculture because of
higher wages caused by scarcity of agricultural labor.
8. Leads to capital-intensive production in agriculture and with proper
technology, agricultural production can be transformed into a more
efficient enterprise.
9. Reduces the prices of agricultural lands because of the reduction for the
demand for such lands brought about by urban migration.
10. Encourages the consolidation of small farm units in order to obtain
economies of scale like lower unit cost of production and more efficient
farm management. Under such industrial growth, mechanized farming is
made possible.

References:
Informations:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrialization.asp#ixzz3a5iVyTuO
https://www.scribd.com/doc/259041230/Industrialization-Revised
http://www.preservearticles.com/201107159157/what-were-the-advantages-anddisadvantages-of-industrialization.html
Fajardo, Feliciano R., ECONOMICS, Third Edition, Rex Book Store, Inc., 1995,
pp.306-310

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