Role of Energy in the Development of Agriculture Sector in South Asia

Abstract

Agriculture is the lifeline for South Asian countries, which provides more than 35 % of employment in South Asian countries. This sector also actively participates in the GDP of countries. After industrialization, the machinery and implements which run on energy were deployed in the agriculture sector. This decrease the manual labour and time consumed during agricultural activities and resulted in a rise in production and profitability. At present, agriculture is energy-intensive, and in South Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, energy consumption in the agriculture sector is more than 12%, excluding the energy consumed during fertilizer and pesticide production. In this piece of work, various agricultural activities involved during pre-harvesting and post-harvesting are discussed. The present role of conventional energies such as electricity and diesel and non-conventional energies, viz. solar energy, wind energy, biomass energy, and biofuel in agriculture activities, is discussed. The present need of agriculture is to deploy sustainable agricultural practices with non-conventional energy sources to make this sector more productive and profitable for farmers.