Agriculture, Agronomy and Agronomic Engeneering

Like a student of Agriculture, I heard thousands times questions like “What means agriculture?”, “What an agronomist does?”, "Which the difference between an Agronomist and an Agronomic Engineer?” These concepts are very confused to the people can understand. This occur because aren't well explained. I will explain below. 

The definition of Agriculture in Oxford Dictionary is “The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products”. So the Agriculture is the science or the field of expertise in which the professional called “Agronomist” or "Agronomic Engineer” works. Besides haven’t any difference between these two professionals. Actually the only difference is the title, because everyone undergraduate in Agronomic Engineer can be called “Engineer” too. The Agronomist can’t, but all the attributions and knowledge during the course are the same.

The agronomy is an amazing profession. We study all the environment conditions, like the soil, plant physiology, weather, agribusiness, genetics, always seeking the best techniques to maximize the quantity and the quality of the food production. 

Currently we can control, inside greenhouses, all the environmental conditions, even the quantity of nutrients that the plant will absorb or the luminosity. 

My field inside agronomy is Genetics. We study ways to improve the plant performance in different environmental situations to maximize the production, principally through increasing the resistance against pathogens and pests. Not necessarily using Genetically Modified Organisms. We can work only with the natural resistance of the plant lineage.

As I said in the last post, the little difference in our DNA allows extreme variations, like one live being with a genetic resistance against a terrible disease, while many die. Never a disease will kill all the living beings in the world, this is impossible. 

We can use the genetic variations to select new plant lineages and thus produce more food. 

Because this and more the Agronomy is more than a job, is a passion.