Agriculture

This is Chapter 4 of Contemporary India – II: 12 pages (30–41). Its parts: types of farming (primitive subsistence with a box on the names of slash-and-burn farming and a story about Rinjha in Assam, intensive subsistence, commercial and plantation); cropping pattern (rabi, kharif and zaid); major crops — rice and wheat (each with a full-page distribution map), millets, maize, pulses, sugarcane, oilseeds, tea, coffee, horticulture, rubber and the fibre crops; and technological and institutional reforms, with a box on Bhoodan–Gramdan. It has 17 photographs, two activities, many questions in the text, an exercise of 3 MCQs, 3 short and 2 long questions, two projects and a word puzzle. Numbers are recomputed where the book gives them; our additions are marked †.

• Builds on jess101 (soils: alluvial for rice and wheat, black for cotton, laterite for tea, coffee and cashew; net sown area) and jess103 (irrigation, tube-wells and falling groundwater); and on kegy104 (the monsoon and western disturbances that set the seasons).
• Goes further in legy203 (Land Resources and Agriculture, Class 12: cropping intensity, crop shares, the Green Revolution, problems of Indian agriculture) and legy104 (primary activities and farming types worldwide).
• Economics: jess202 (agriculture as the primary sector and disguised unemployment), jess203 (farm credit), keec102/keec105 (land reform, Green Revolution, rural credit, MSP). Society: lesy204 (land reform and Bhoodan in rural change).
• UPSC, honestly: Prelims has asked kharif/rabi groupings (1979, 1987, 2004, 2013), crop–climate matches (1979, 1997, 2020 — cotton's 210 frost-free days), rubber's states (1991), tea and coffee regions (1983), sugarcane's duration (1984), nitrogen-fixing crops (1979), jhum (1979), cotton's origin (2003) and Bhoodan (1980, 2007 — Pochampalli). Mains GS1/GS3 asks about the Green Revolution and the east (2014), tea beyond Darjeeling (2014), pulses (2017), farm revolutions (2017), millets (2018, 2024), land reforms (2016) and Bhoodan–Gramdan (2013). We link 23; current-scheme items (MSP mechanics, PMFBY, APMC) are left to the economics chapters.

• Farming types: primitive subsistence (slash and burn: jhum, podu, bewar, kuruwa…) → intensive subsistence → commercial → plantation (one crop, large estate).
• Rabi: sown Oct–Dec, harvested Apr–Jun (wheat, barley, peas, gram, mustard); western cyclones help. Kharif: monsoon, harvested Sep–Oct (paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur, moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut, soyabean). Zaid: summer (melons, cucumber, vegetables, fodder).
• Rice: > 25°C, > 100 cm. Wheat: 50–75 cm, cool season, bright sun at ripening. Maize, sugarcane: 21–27°C. Rubber: > 200 cm, > 25°C. Cotton: 210 frost-free days.
• Paddy three times a year in Assam, WB, Odisha: Aus, Aman, Boro. Ragi rich in iron and calcium. Pulses fix nitrogen.
• Coffee: Arabica, from Yemen, first on the Baba Budan Hills. Jute = golden fibre. Silk from sericulture (mulberry).
• Reforms: land reform (First Plan), Green Revolution and Operation Flood (1960s–70s), credit, insurance, KCC, MSP; Bhoodan began at Pochampally.

Agriculture is an age-old activity in India, and its methods have changed with the physical environment, technology and socio-cultural practices; it varies from subsistence to commercial. NCERT describes four systems.

Primitive subsistence farming survives in a few pockets. It uses small patches, primitive tools — hoe, dao, digging sticks — and family or community labour, and depends on the monsoon, the soil's natural fertility and other environmental conditions. It is ‘slash and burn’ agriculture: farmers clear a patch, grow cereals and food crops for the family, and when fertility falls they shift and clear a fresh patch, letting nature restore the old one; productivity is low because no fertilisers or modern inputs are used. It is called jhumming in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, pamlou in Manipur and dipa in Bastar (Chhattisgarh), and is also practised in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Intensive subsistence farming is practised where population pressure on land is high. It is labour-intensive, with high doses of biochemical inputs and irrigation. The right of inheritance has divided land among generations into uneconomic holdings, yet farmers squeeze maximum output from them for want of other livelihoods — so the pressure on farmland is enormous. Commercial farming uses higher doses of modern inputs — HYV seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides — for higher productivity, and its degree varies by region: rice is commercial in Haryana and Punjab but a subsistence crop in Odisha. Plantation is commercial farming of a single crop on a large area, at the interface of agriculture and industry: large tracts, capital-intensive inputs, migrant labour, and all produce used as industrial raw material. India's plantation crops include tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane and banana — tea in Assam and North Bengal, coffee in Karnataka — and a good transport and communication network linking estates, processing industries and markets is vital.

India's physical diversity and plurality of cultures show up in its cropping patterns. It has three seasons. Rabi crops are sown in winter, October to December, and harvested in summer, April to June: wheat, barley, peas, gram and mustard. They grow widely, but the north and north-west — Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh — matter most for wheat and other rabi crops, helped by winter rain from western temperate cyclones and by the Green Revolution in Punjab, Haryana, western UP and parts of Rajasthan.

Kharif crops are sown with the onset of the monsoon and harvested in September–October: paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut and soyabean. Important rice regions: Assam, West Bengal, coastal Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra (especially the Konkan coast), with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; paddy has recently become important in Punjab and Haryana too. In Assam, West Bengal and Odisha three paddy crops are grown a year — Aus, Aman and Boro. Between rabi and kharif is the short summer zaid season: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops. Sugarcane takes almost a year to grow.

Rice is the staple of most Indians; India is the second largest producer after China. A kharif crop, it needs high temperature (above 25°C), high humidity and annual rainfall above 100 cm, or irrigation where rain is less. It grows in the plains of the north and north-east, coastal areas and deltas; dense canal irrigation and tube-wells have brought it to lower-rainfall Punjab, Haryana, western UP and parts of Rajasthan.

Wheat is the second most important cereal and the main food crop of the north and north-west. A rabi crop, it needs a cool growing season and bright sunshine at ripening, with 50–75 cm of rain evenly spread over the growing season. Its two zones: the Ganga–Satluj plains in the north-west and the black soil region of the Deccan. Major states: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

Millets — jowar, bajra and ragi — are called coarse grains but have very high nutritional value; ragi is very rich in iron, calcium, other micronutrients and roughage. Jowar is called the third most important food crop by area and production — a rain-fed crop of moist areas that hardly needs irrigation (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh). Bajra grows on sandy and shallow black soils (Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana). Ragi is a crop of dry regions on red, black, sandy, loamy and shallow black soils (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh). Maize, for food and fodder, is a kharif crop of 21–27°C on old alluvial soil, grown in rabi too in Bihar; HYV seeds, fertilisers and irrigation have raised its output (Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana).

Pulses: India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world; they are the main protein in vegetarian diets. Major pulses: tur (arhar), urad, moong, masur, peas and gram. They need little moisture and survive dry conditions, and as leguminous crops they restore soil fertility by fixing nitrogen from the air, so they are grown in rotation with other crops (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka).

Sugarcane is tropical and subtropical, liking hot, humid weather of 21–27°C and 75–100 cm of rain (irrigation where less). It grows on many soils and needs manual labour from sowing to harvest. India is the second largest producer after Brazil; it gives sugar, gur (jaggery), khandsari and molasses (UP, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana). Oilseeds cover about 12% of total cropped area; in 2020 India was the second largest producer of groundnut after China. The main oilseeds are groundnut, mustard, coconut, sesamum (til), soyabean, castor, cotton seed, linseed and sunflower — mostly edible, some used in soap, cosmetics and ointments. Groundnut is kharif and is said to make up about half of major oilseeds; Gujarat led, followed by Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, in 2019–20. Linseed and mustard are rabi; sesamum is kharif in the north and rabi in the south; castor is both.

Tea is plantation agriculture and a beverage crop introduced by the British; most gardens are now Indian-owned. It needs tropical or subtropical climates, deep, fertile, well-drained soil rich in humus, a warm, moist, frost-free climate all year, and frequent, evenly spread showers for continuous growth of tender leaves. It is labour-intensive, needing abundant, cheap, skilled labour, and is processed within the garden to keep it fresh. Major areas: Assam, the hills of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri (West Bengal), Tamil Nadu and Kerala; also Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura. In 2020 India was the second largest tea producer after China. Coffee: India grows the high-quality Arabica, first brought from Yemen and first planted on the Baba Budan Hills; cultivation is confined to the south — Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Horticulture: in 2020 India was the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables after China, growing tropical and temperate fruits alike, and is an important producer of pea, cauliflower, onion, cabbage, tomato, brinjal and potato.

Rubber is an equatorial crop also grown, under special conditions, in tropical and subtropical areas. It needs a moist, humid climate with more than 200 cm of rain and temperature above 25°C. An important industrial raw material, it grows mainly in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Garo hills of Meghalaya.

Fibre crops: cotton, jute, hemp and natural silk. The first three grow in soil; silk comes from cocoons of silkworms fed on green leaves, especially mulberry — rearing them is sericulture. Cotton: India is believed to be its original home; it is the main raw material of the cotton textile industry, and India is the second largest producer after China. It grows well in the drier parts of the black cotton soil of the Deccan, needing high temperature, light rain or irrigation, 210 frost-free days and bright sunshine; a kharif crop, it takes 6–8 months to mature (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh). Jute, the golden fibre, grows on well-drained fertile soils of flood plains renewed every year, needs high temperature while growing (West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Meghalaya), and makes gunny bags, mats, ropes, yarn, carpets and artefacts.

Centuries of farming without matching techno-institutional change slowed agricultural development; despite irrigation, most farmers still depend on the monsoon and natural fertility. After Independence, collectivisation, consolidation of holdings, co-operation and abolition of zamindari were given priority; land reform was the main focus of the First Five Year Plan, and inheritance had already fragmented holdings. But land-reform laws were implemented poorly or half-heartedly. In the 1960s and 1970s the government introduced the Green Revolution, based on package technology, and the White Revolution (Operation Flood), but these concentrated development in a few areas. So in the 1980s and 1990s a comprehensive land development programme combined institutional and technical reforms: crop insurance against drought, flood, cyclone, fire and disease; Grameen banks, co-operative societies and banks for cheaper loans; the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and Personal Accident Insurance Scheme (PAIS); special weather bulletins and farm programmes on radio and television; and minimum support, remunerative and procurement prices for important crops, to protect farmers from speculators and middlemen.

Bhoodan–Gramdan (NCERT's box): Gandhiji declared Vinoba Bhave his spiritual heir; Vinoba was a foremost satyagrahi and a votary of gram swarajya. After Gandhiji's death he walked the country on padyatra. At Pochampally (now Telangana), landless villagers asked for land; Vinoba promised to speak to the government if they would farm co-operatively, and Shri Ram Chandra Reddy stood up and offered 80 acres to be shared among 80 landless villagers — Bhoodan. Later some zamindars gave whole villages — Gramdan. Many landowners, the book notes, gave part of their land for fear of the land ceiling act. The movement is also called the Blood-less Revolution.

Nine questions in the text, two activities, two projects and the word puzzle. Outlines below.

Three MCQs, three 30-word and two 120-word questions. Try first, then open.

Numbers

One-liners

• Slash and burn lets nature restore fertility while the farmer moves on.
• Intensive subsistence farming squeezes output from small, crowded holdings.
• Plantations join agriculture to industry.
• Rabi is sown in winter, kharif with the monsoon, zaid in summer.
• Rice follows water; wheat follows the cool, dry winter.
• Millets are coarse grains of high nutritional value.
• Pulses fix nitrogen and are grown in rotation.
• Tea needs a warm, moist, frost-free climate on well-drained slopes.
• Cotton needs 210 frost-free days on black soil.
• Technology without institutions concentrates gains in a few areas.

Traps to avoid

• Gram is rabi; groundnut, cotton, maize and rice are kharif.
• Zaid, not kharif, is the short summer season in the text.
• Arhar is a legume and fixes nitrogen — the book's ‘except arhar’ is a slip.
• Coffee: Nilgiris are in Tamil Nadu; Karnataka's coffee is in Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru.
• Jowar is no longer the third food crop — maize has overtaken it.
• Groundnut is no longer half of India's oilseeds.
• Operation Flood is about milk.
• Bhoodan began at Pochampally with Vinoba Bhave.
• The cotton states list on p. 38 follows rubber only because of the layout.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: season groupings (1979, 1987, 2004, 2013), crop conditions (1979, 1997, 2020), rubber's states (1991), tea–coffee overlap (1983), sugarcane's year (1984), nitrogen fixers (1979), jhum (1979), cotton's home and hybrid (2003), Bhoodan (1980, 2007).
• Rankings and leading states change; learn NCERT's conditions and regions here, then check DES's Agricultural Statistics at a Glance for current numbers — always with the year.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1: Green Revolution and the east (2014), tea beyond Darjeeling (2014), pulses (2017), Bhoodan–Gramdan (2013). GS3: farm revolutions (2017), millets (2018, 2024), land reforms (2016).
• For MSP, the Green Revolution, GM crops and subsidies, set out both positions with their authors and give schemes and court or committee findings as dated facts; avoid present-day political commentary.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.