NCERT Book Class 8 Social Science (Geography) Chapter 3 Agriculture

Agriculture

Gurpreet, Madho and Tina were walking through
the village where they saw a farmer tilling land. The
farmer told them that he was growing wheat and had
just added manure to the soil to make it more fertile.
He told the children that the wheat would fetch a
good price in the mandi from where it would be taken
to factories to make bread and biscuits from flour.
This transformation from a plant to a finished
product involves three types of economic activities.
These are primary, secondary and tertiary activities.
Primary activities include all those connected
with extraction and production of natural resources.
Agriculture, fishing and gathering are good examples.
Secondary activities are concerned with the processing
of these resources. Manufacturing of steel, baking of
Word Origin bread and weaving of cloth are examples of this activity.
The word Tertiary activities provide support to the primary and
agriculture is secondary sectors through services. Transport, trade,
derived from Latin banking, insurance and advertising are examples of
words ager or agri tertiary activities.
meaning soil and
Agriculture is a primary activity. It includes growing
culture meaning,
crops, fruits, vegetables, flowers and rearing of livestock.
cultivation.
In the world, 50 per cent of persons are engaged in
agricultural activity. Two-thirds of India’s population is
still dependent on agriculture.
Favourable topography of soil and climate are vital
for agricultural activity. The land on which the crops
are grown is known as arable land (Fig. 3.1). In the map
you can see that agricultural activity is concentrated in
those regions of the world where suitable factors for the
growing of crops exist.

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