ABSTRACT
This chapter covers an interesting economic concept from Adam Smith, applied to agriculture. In his study of agricultural systems in The Wealth of Nations, he opines that in the five-fold classification of economic activities, land proprietors and cultivators carry out important agricultural activities of land development and cultivation with the help of workers and tools; therefore, their respective return in terms of net profit is inviolable. He, in addition, calls these two stakeholders in farming the productive classes because agricultural products are original contributions unlike non-agricultural sector products. Artificer who provide tools, manufacturer who produce various non-agricultural things and merchants engaged in trade industry are unproductive in the sense that they can grow only in a system of self-promotion at the cost of others. Added to this is still another aspect that makes agriculture a unique economic activity: farming connects human life to the cosmic energy source of the sun.
