What are the Difference between Agriculture and Industry

1. Agriculture meets the basic needs of mankind and occupies a significant place for producing food and supplying industrial raw materials. Modernization of agriculture also depends on industrial development. Necessary chemical products for increasing productivity of land are supplied by industry. Therefore, neither of the sectors can be ignored.

2. Capital, technical know-how, raw materials etc. are essentially required for industrial development. But development of agriculture encompasses various problems, of which tenancy act, smallholdings, inadequate irrigation, employment of surplus labor etc. are noteworthy. No such problem exists in industrial establishment.

3. Agricultural products are perishable and as such cannot be preserved for long time. This is responsible for marketing agriculture commodities at a comparatively lower price. The industrial products, on the contrary, can be easily stored and thus can be profitably sold.

4. The law of diminishing return is applicable to agricultural production, but the same is not applicable to industries.

5. Good harvest in our country is many times uncertain to a large extent because of vagaries of nature like flood, drought and other calamities. Investment in agriculture thus cannot ensure profit every year. But these types of calamities have very little impact on industry and these results in more industrial investment in the advanced countries.

6. The supply of agricultural raw material alone cannot dictate or control the international market. The supply or raw materials and industrial products can earn forcing exchange. The price of industrial goods does not rapidly fluctuate like that of raw materials.

7. A good number of total manpower of Bangladesh is directly employed in agriculture sector. The rate of agricultural productivity is not encouraging and for this reason this huge physical labor force cannot be considered economic. It is, therefore, necessary to establish industrial enterprises for absorption of this surplus manpower.

8. To maintain balance in the international trade, production of industrial goods is more profitable than agricultural produces. Because of its perishable nature, the prices of agricultural products can never be stable. More concentration should, therefore, be given on industrial development to avoid adverse balance of payment. 

It follows from the above discussion that no single factor can be prescribed for the economic development of Bangladesh. Production of both agricultural and industrial commodities should be increased for export after meeting the primary domestic requirements. More attention should also be given for exporting industrial products than raw materials.