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Agriculture vs Farming vs Husbandry

Agriculture, Farming, and Husbandry all mean the science or the business of raising plants and animals useful to man.

Agriculture is by far the most comprehensive of these terms; in common with farming and husbandry it implies the cultivation of the soil, the production and harvesting of crops, the care and breeding of livestock; it includes in addition other pursuits that may or may not be connected with farming and husbandry such as horticulture, forestry, dairying, sugar making, and beekeeping.

  • The number of people employed in agriculture has fallen in the last decade.

It often stresses the technological as contrasted with the traditional aspects of such activities and may include in varying degrees the preparation of agricultural products for man’s use.

  • The Ukraine is strong both in industry and agriculture.

Farming, the term in common use, emphasizes land devoted to the production of crops or animals for the market; it may imply small or extensive holdings, but it usually suggests the inclusion of tilled land bearing crops, of pastureland for cattle, and of meadowland for hay.

  • Modern farming methods can have an adverse effect on the environment.
    Raising animals was only secondary to other forms of farming.

Husbandry usually suggests small holdings and production for the use of a household or community rather than for a distant market.

  • They depended on animal husbandry for their livelihood.
  • Animal husbandry on the grassland is developing rapidly.

It often suggests more varied employments than farming (as dairying or beekeeping) and often denotes management of a particular branch of farming.

  • animal/crop husbandry