• Agriculture is the art and science of crop and livestock production. The word ‘Agriculture’ consists of two Latin words: Agri (field), and cultura (cultivation or tillage), which means tillage of soil. It plays a key role in the overall economic and social well being of a country. In modern usage, agriculture includes all activities and the entire range of practices and techniques associated with the production of useful products from plants and animals, including soil cultivation, crop and livestock management, and the activities associated with preliminary processing and marketing.

• Though Punjab is a one of the smallest state with a total land area of only 0.33% of the world and 1.6% of the country yet it contributes to 1% of rice, 2% of the wheat and 2%of the cotton in the total world production vis-à-vis 42% rice, 55%wheat, and 24% cotton production in the country and representing 1.6 per cent of its geographical area and 2.6 percent of it's cropped area.

• The plains of Punjab were formed by the deposition of alluvium. It has deep and fertile soils. From geological and physiographic points Punjab is divisible into two regions: the hill region and the plain region.

• The hill region is very small and includes Shivalik Hills on the eastern side, moves through Hoshiarpur district toward west. More than 90 per cent of Punjab's area is a flat plain and is a segment of Indo-Gangetic plain.

• A very high proportion of the land is under cultivation because the Punjab plain is free from physical handicaps and deficiency of rainfall has been made up by irrigation facilities. It is only the districts of Ropar and Hoshiarpur that the cultivated area is less than 60 per cent of the total. It is in these districts that considerable land is covered by Shivalik Hills and the beds of seasonal streams that cannot be brought under cultivation.

• The impact of the Green Revolution (1966) is perhaps most affected the state of Punjab.This has made the country self sufficient in the food needs, overcoming the dangerous situation of early sixties, when we had to import food grains.

• Wheat, Maize, Rice and Cotton are the important crops of the state. Wheat dominates the production amoung overall crop pattern. Rice is an important crop in Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Kapurthala districts. Cotton leads the production of cash crops of the state. Groundnut, Sugarcane and Potatoes being other crops. Punjab tops the production of Wheat in the country. It produces over 2 million tonnes of wheat every year.

• Punjab has built up a system of services to support agricultural development. Briefly, these are the departments of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, the Punjab Agriculture University which provides a base for education, research and extension; and the Cooperative Department which provides credit to the farmers.

• Punjab Agriculture University situated in Ludhiana, has brought about a revolution in farming techniques and has contributed to increased agriculture production and improvement of the cultivators' economic status. This institution has developed high yielding varieties of wheat, rice, bajra and other crops which has spearheaded Punjab to make the state and the country self sufficient for many key crops.

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