Engineering Agriculture for National Development and Poverty Alleviation

摘要

Engineering Agriculture is a “sine-qua-none” to large scale, industrial based agriculturalrnproduction necessary for sustainable development. This will be through a wisely planned systematicrnexploitation of natural resources, direct investment and other types of institutional developmentsrnthat are consistent and contributory to meeting the present and future aspirations of man. There canrnbe no large-scale agricultural production without appreciable mechanization of the process ofrnproduction.rnEarlier civilizations used human power, which was soon replaced by steel ploughs, internalrncombustion engines and other machines including airplanes and satellites.rnHudson (1978) stated that the development of agriculture in the USA played a great role inrngenerating the initial material, finance and skill for early manufacturing industries, which formedrnthe basis of massive employment and economic growth of the country.rnThis paper examines the benefits of applying engineering to agricultural production as well asrnthe influences of these benefits on the socio-economic and technical development of a nation. Itrnconcludes by making suggestions towards achieving large-scale agricultural production in therndeveloping economies, enhancement of the process of national development, poverty alleviation andrnthe sustainable protection of the environment.