NCERT
Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
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← India: People and Economy — all chaptersLand Resources and Agriculture
Start here: why this chapter matters
In simple wordsLand is like a fixed-size plate at a growing family dinner. More people come every year, the plate does not grow, and some of it is taken away for houses and roads. This chapter asks how India divides its plate, how much is left for crops, how to get more food from the same plate, and what is going wrong.
More than half of India's workers still depend on agriculture (Chapter 1). This chapter looks at the land they work: how it is classified and has changed since 1950, which crops grow in which season and region, how the Green Revolution transformed farming, and the problems that still hold agriculture back.
- Builds on Chapter 1 (Population): the 54.6% of workers in agriculture, rural population and physiological and agricultural density.
- Builds on India: Physical Environment: soils, the monsoon (Chapter 4) and natural vegetation (Chapter 5) decide what grows where.
- Links to Fundamentals of Human Geography Chapter 4 (Primary Activities), which classifies agriculture at world scale — subsistence, plantation, mixed, dairy and so on. This chapter is India's version.
- Leads into Chapter 4 (Water Resources) — irrigation — and Chapter 5–6 (minerals, planning and sustainable development).
- UPSC: GS1 (distribution of key crops, cropping patterns, land use) and GS3 (land reforms, cropping patterns, irrigation, technology, subsidies). Prelims has asked crop conditions, seasons and leading States almost every year since 1979.
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Reporting area | Area for which land-use records exist; differs slightly from the geographical area |
| Net sown area (NSA) | Physical area on which crops are sown and harvested, counted once |
| Gross cropped area (GCA) | Area counted once for every crop grown on it in a year |
| Fallow | Cultivable land left uncultivated for a while to recover fertility |
| Culturable wasteland | Land left uncultivated for more than five years; reclaimable |
| Common property resources (CPRs) | Land owned by the State or community for shared use — pastures, village ponds, community forests |
| Cropping intensity | GCA ÷ NSA × 100 — how many times the same land is cropped in a year |
| Kharif / rabi / zaid | Monsoon season / winter season / short summer season |
| Dryland / wetland farming | Rainfed farming where moisture is short / where rain exceeds crop needs |
| HYV | High yielding varieties of seed — the core of the Green Revolution |
Reading the chapter-opening photograph (page 21)
- A dusty rural track under a hazy sky, with buffaloes grazing along it, palm trees and a few houses at the edge of open land.
- One frame shows several of the chapter's land uses at once: a road (non-agricultural use), open grazing land (a common property resource), trees and groves, and settlement.
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
- Nine land-use categories add up to the reporting area (≠ geographical area); forest = area classified as forest, not actual cover.
- 1950–51 → 2019–20: net sown 41.7 → 45.6%, forest 17 → 23.4%, non-agricultural use 3.2 → 9% (fastest rise); barren, culturable waste, tree crops, old fallow fell.
- Total cultivable land = net sown + all fallows + culturable waste; cropping intensity = GCA ÷ NSA × 100.
- Kharif Jun–Sep, rabi Oct–Mar, zaid Apr–Jun; dryland farming where rain < 75 cm.
- Foodgrains ≈ two-thirds of cropped area; rice ≈ one-fourth, wheat ≈ 14%; India 2nd in rice, wheat, sugarcane, tea; 1st in pulses and jute.
- Green Revolution (mid-1960s): HYVs from Mexico (wheat) and the Philippines (rice) + fertiliser + irrigation in Punjab, Haryana, western UP, AP, Gujarat.
1. Land-use categories
In simple wordsA village patwari's register lists every plot by what it is used for — this one is forest, that one a road, this one left fallow for two years, that one sown with wheat. Add up all the plots in India and you get the nine land-use categories.
Land-use records are kept by the land revenue department. The categories add up to the reporting area, which differs somewhat from the geographical area measured by the Survey of India: the reporting area changes a little with revenue estimates, the geographical area stays fixed.
| Category | What it covers (NCERT) |
|---|---|
| Forests | Area classified/demarcated by government for forest growth — not actual forest cover. This category can rise with no new trees. |
| Barren and wastelands | Barren hills, deserts, ravines — cannot be cultivated with available technology |
| Non-agricultural uses | Settlements, roads, canals, industries, shops — grows as secondary and tertiary activities expand |
| Permanent pastures and grazing land | Mostly owned by the village panchayat or government; panchayat land is a common property resource |
| Miscellaneous tree crops and groves | Orchards and fruit trees not counted in net sown area; mostly private |
| Culturable wasteland | Left fallow for more than five years; can be reclaimed |
| Current fallow | Left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less — to rest the land and recover fertility |
| Fallow other than current fallow | Uncultivated for more than one but less than five years |
| Net area sown | Physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested |
Beyond NCERT
- India's geographical area is about 328.7 million hectares; the reporting area in 2019–20 was 306.5 Mha (Appendix vi).
- Actual forest cover (satellite-measured) was 21.71% of the geographical area in the India State of Forest Report 2021 — below the 23.4% ‘classified as forest’ in revenue records. That gap is exactly NCERT's point. (Forest types and conservation: India: Physical Environment Chapter 5.)
Exam traps
- Marginal land is not a land-use category (exercise Q1-i); fallow land, net area sown and culturable wasteland are.
- The fallow ladder: ≤ 1 year current fallow → 1–5 years other fallow → 5+ years culturable wasteland.
- Barren land cannot be cultivated with present technology; culturable wasteland can, after reclamation (exercise Q2-i).
2. Land-use changes, 1950–51 to 2019–20
In simple wordsA family farm near a growing town: one field becomes a road, another a house for the son, a third a shop. The family then ploughs the patch of scrub it had ignored for years. That is India's land-use story in one household.
Land use follows the economy, but land is fixed in area. NCERT names three changes in an economy that affect land use:
- Size of the economy grows (population, income, technology) → more pressure on land; marginal lands come into use.
- Composition changes — secondary and tertiary sectors grow faster than agriculture → land shifts from agricultural to non-agricultural use, sharply around big cities.
- Pressure on farmland does not fall, because (a) the share of people dependent on agriculture falls much more slowly than agriculture's share in GDP, and (b) there are ever more people to feed.
⤵ From economic change to land-use change
Economy grows and diversifiesmore people, income, technology; industry and services grow faster
Non-agricultural use expandstowns, roads, canals, factories — fastest-rising category
Farm pressure stays highfarm dependence falls slowly; more mouths to feed
Squeezed categoriesbarren land, culturable waste, tree crops and old fallows shrink as land is reclaimed
Resultfive categories up, four down (Fig. 3.1)
Reading NCERT Figure 3.1 — Changes in Shares of Land-use Categories, 1950–51 and 2019–20 (page 23)
- Paired bars, per cent of reporting area: forests 17 → 23.4; non-agricultural use 3.2 → 9.1; barren and unculturable 13.4 → 5.4; permanent pasture 2.3 → 3.4; misc. tree crops 6.9 → 1.0; culturable waste 8.0 → 3.9; other fallow 6.1 → 3.7; current fallow 3.7 → 4.5; net area sown 41.7 → 45.6.
- What the bars show at a glance: the biggest fall is tree crops and groves (6.9 → 1.0) and barren land (13.4 → 5.4); the biggest absolute rise is forests and net sown area.
- NCERT's two cautions: shares are of the reporting area, and since that area is nearly constant, a fall in one category means a rise in another.
| Rose | Why (NCERT) | Fell | Why (NCERT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-agricultural use (fastest rate) | Industry, services, infrastructure, spreading settlements — at the expense of wastelands and farmland | Barren and wasteland | Pressure from farming and non-farm uses |
| Forest | More area demarcated as forest, not real growth in cover | Culturable wasteland | Reclaimed for farming |
| Current fallow | Cannot be explained from two dates — fluctuates with rainfall and cropping cycles | Tree crops and groves | Pressure from agricultural land |
| Net area sown | Recent rise from using culturable waste; earlier a slow fall caused by non-farm use | Fallow other than current | Brought back under cultivation |
| Permanent pastures | (not explained in the text) |
Watch the numbers
- Rate of increase ≠ actual increase: non-agricultural use rose most in rate (+197%), but forest (+31.3 Mha) and net sown area (+21.2 Mha) rose more in hectares.
- NCERT calls the reporting area ‘relatively constant’; Appendix (vi) shows it grew from 284.32 to 306.5 Mha (+7.8%) as records improved — so comparing shares and comparing hectares can give different pictures.
- The forest ‘increase’ is an increase in notified area (exercise Q1-ii, answer c).
Beyond NCERT — UPSC on land useUPSC 2010 asked the approximate land-use split; the key was net sown about 47%, forests about 23%, others about 30% — close to the 2019–20 shares here. Mains 2026 (GS1) asked the drivers of human-induced land-use change and their consequences — this section's three economic changes are the frame.
3. Common property resources, cultivable land and cropping intensity
In simple wordsThe village pond, the grazing common and the patch of community forest belong to nobody and to everybody. For a landless family with two goats, these are the whole farm. And since India cannot make much new farmland, the only way to grow more is to crop the same field more often.
By ownership, land is private or a common property resource (CPR) — owned by the State for community use. NCERT defines CPRs as a community's natural resource where every member has the right of access and use, with obligations, but nobody has property rights. Examples: community forests, pasture lands, village water bodies and other public spaces. CPRs give fodder for livestock, fuel, and minor forest products — fruits, nuts, fibre, medicinal plants. They matter most to the landless, marginal farmers and weaker sections, who depend on livestock, and to women, who collect most fodder and fuel, often spending long hours in degraded commons.
Land is more crucial for agriculture than for other activities: (i) agriculture is purely land-based, so lack of land is directly tied to rural poverty; (ii) land quality directly sets productivity; (iii) in villages, land ownership has social value and serves as security for credit and against hazards.
Total cultivable land = net sown area + all fallow lands + culturable wasteland.
Reading NCERT Table 3.1 — Composition of Total Cultivable Land (page 25)
- As % of reporting area: culturable waste 8.0 → 3.9; other fallow 6.1 → 3.7; current fallow 3.7 → 4.5; net sown 41.7 → 45.6; total cultivable 59.5 → 57.7.
- As % of cultivable land: net sown 70.0 → 79.0; culturable waste 13.4 → 6.8; other fallow 10.2 → 6.4; current fallow 6.2 → 7.8.
- What the table shows: four-fifths of cultivable land is now actually sown, so the reserve that could still be brought under the plough is small.
NCERT text vs its own tableThe text says there has been ‘a greater decline of cultivated land’. Table 3.1 shows net sown area rising (41.7 → 45.6% of reporting area; 70 → 79% of cultivable land) while total cultivable land fell slightly (59.5 → 57.7). Read the sentence as being about total cultivable land.
Since little new land can be added, India needs land-saving technologies of two kinds: those that raise yield per hectare of a crop, and those that raise total output from a hectare over the year by increasing land-use intensity. The second also creates more demand for labour — ideal for a land-scarce, labour-abundant country.
Why high cropping intensity suits India (exercise Q2-iii)It gets more output from limited land and creates more farm work across the year, reducing rural unemployment — both of India's problems at once.
4. Cropping seasons and types of farming
In simple wordsIn the north, the farm year has three acts: a rainy-season act (kharif), a winter act (rabi) and a short hot interval (zaid). In the warm south the stage never really closes — if there is water, the same crop can be grown again and again.
The northern and interior parts of India have three seasons. Kharif largely coincides with the south-west monsoon and grows tropical crops — rice, cotton, jute, jowar, bajra, tur. Rabi begins with winter in October–November and ends in March–April; its low temperatures suit temperate and subtropical crops — wheat, gram, mustard. Zaid is a short summer season after the rabi harvest, with watermelons, cucumbers, vegetables and fodder on irrigated land. In the south, temperatures allow tropical crops at any time if soil moisture is available, so the same crop can be grown thrice a year.
Reading NCERT Table 3.2 — Cropping Seasons in India (page 25)
- Kharif (June–September) — North: rice, cotton, bajra, maize, jowar, tur. South: rice, maize, ragi, jowar, groundnut.
- Rabi (October–March) — North: wheat, gram, rapeseed and mustard, barley. South: rice, maize, ragi, groundnut, jowar.
- Zaid (April–June) — North: vegetables, fruits, fodder. South: rice, vegetables.
- What the table adds: the southern columns repeat the same crops in kharif and rabi — the table's way of showing that the south has no sharp seasonal split.
⤵ Types of farming by source of moisture (NCERT)
Farmingclassified by the main source of moisture
Irrigated
Protectivesupplement rain to protect crops from moisture deficit — spread water over the largest area
Productiveenough moisture for high productivity — more water per hectare
Rainfed (barani)
Drylandrain < 75 cm; ragi, bajra, moong, gram, guar; moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting
Wetlandrain exceeds needs; rice, jute, sugarcane, aquaculture; floods and erosion risk
Exam traps
- Sugarcane is not a dryland crop (exercise Q1-iv) — it is water-intensive, a wetland/irrigated crop; UPSC 2021 called it the least water-efficient crop.
- Kharif sets asked by UPSC: cotton, groundnut, maize (2004); cotton, groundnut, rice (2013) — wheat and mustard are rabi.
- Dryland farming is extensive in the Deccan (UPSC 1992); horse gram and mustard suit scanty rain (1992); groundnut, sesamum and pearl millet are predominantly rainfed (2012).
- The 75 cm line separates dryland from other rainfed farming.
5. Foodgrains: cereals and pulses
In simple wordsThink of India's thali: rice or roti in the middle, dal beside it. Cereals (rice, wheat, millets) fill the stomach; pulses (gram, tur) add protein — and put nitrogen back into the soil they grow in.
Foodgrains occupy about two-thirds of the total cropped area and dominate everywhere, in subsistence and commercial economies alike. They are classed by grain structure into cereals and pulses. Cereals occupy about 54 per cent of cropped area; India produces about 11 per cent of the world's cereals, third after China and the USA. Cereals are fine (rice, wheat) or coarse (jowar, bajra, maize, ragi).
| Crop | Conditions and season (NCERT) | Leading States (NCERT) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rice | Tropical humid crop but many varieties; sea level to ~2,000 m; kharif in Himalaya and NW; 2–3 crops in the south and West Bengal (aus, aman, boro) | West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab | ≈ ¼ of cropped area; India 22.07%, 2nd after China (2018); high yields in Punjab, TN, Haryana, AP, Telangana, WB, Kerala; low in rainfed MP, Chhattisgarh, Odisha |
| Wheat | Temperate; rabi; mostly irrigated; rainfed in Himalayan highlands and parts of Malwa | UP, MP, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan | ≈ 14% of cropped area; 85% of area in north and central India (Indo-Gangetic plain, Malwa, Himalaya to 2,700 m); yields above 4,000 kg/ha in Punjab, Haryana |
| Jowar | Semi-arid central and south India; kharif and rabi in the south, kharif (fodder) in the north; rainfed south of the Vindhyas | Maharashtra (> half), Karnataka, MP, AP, Telangana | ≈ 5.3% of cropped area; coarse cereals together ≈ 16.5% |
| Bajra | Hot, dry NW and west; hardy, drought-resistant; alone or mixed | Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, Haryana | ≈ 5.2%; yields up with drought-resistant varieties and irrigation |
| Maize | Food and fodder; semi-arid, inferior soils; everywhere except Punjab and the east and NE | Karnataka, MP, Bihar, AP, Telangana, Rajasthan, UP | ≈ 3.6%; highest yield of the coarse cereals, high in the south |
| Pulses | Legumes that fix nitrogen; rainfed drylands of the Deccan, central plateaus and NW | — | ≈ 11%; low, fluctuating yields; gram and tur the main ones |
| Gram | Subtropical; rainfed rabi; one or two light showers or irrigations | MP, UP, Maharashtra, AP, Telangana, Rajasthan | ≈ 2.8%; displaced by wheat in Haryana, Punjab, N Rajasthan after the Green Revolution |
| Tur (arhar) | Red gram / pigeon pea; marginal rainfed land, dry central and south | Maharashtra (≈ ⅓), UP, Karnataka, Gujarat, MP | ≈ 2%; second pulse; low, inconsistent yield |
Reading NCERT Figure 3.3 — India: Distribution of Rice (page 27)
- Two shades: major and minor area.
- Major: one large block over the middle and lower Ganga plain (eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal), the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, Odisha and the Chhattisgarh basin, and the east-coast deltas down through Andhra Pradesh to the Kaveri delta of Tamil Nadu; a strip along the Kerala coast.
- Minor: Punjab, Haryana and western UP (the post-1970 irrigated belt), the western coast from Gujarat to Karnataka, and parts of the interior Deccan.
- Blank: Rajasthan, most of Gujarat's interior, western MP and the dry Deccan interior.
- What the map adds: rice follows water — high rainfall, deltas, or canal irrigation in the dry north-west.
Reading NCERT Figure 3.4 — India: Distribution of Wheat (page 29)
- Major: Punjab, Haryana, Jammu region, western and central UP, northern Rajasthan, and a large lobe over the Malwa plateau of Madhya Pradesh.
- Minor: eastern UP and Bihar, eastern Rajasthan and northern Gujarat, and a small patch in north-western Maharashtra.
- Blank: all of the south and east (Odisha, West Bengal, the north-east, the Peninsula).
- What the map adds: wheat's map is almost the mirror of rice's — north-west and centre versus east and coasts.
Reading NCERT Figure 3.2 — Rice Transplantation in Southern Parts of India (page 26)Four people bent over a flooded field, planting seedlings by hand in rows, with trees on the horizon. It shows why rice needs standing water and so much labour — seedlings are raised in a nursery and transplanted.
Exam traps
- Leading rice State is West Bengal; leading wheat State is Uttar Pradesh; Maharashtra produces over half the jowar; Rajasthan leads bajra.
- Rice in Punjab and Haryana is not traditional — introduced in the 1970s after the Green Revolution; its yields are high because the dry climate means fewer pests.
- Order of foodgrain production: rice > wheat > coarse cereals > pulses (UPSC 2007).
- The east coast produces more rice than the west, though the west coast gets more rain — deltas and wide plains, not rainfall, explain it (UPSC 2003: A true, R false).
- About 90% of pulse area is rainfed (UPSC 2002).
Beyond NCERT
- The UN declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses (UPSC Mains 2017) and 2023 the International Year of Millets — India proposed the latter (Mains 2018, 2024 asked about millets).
- West Bengal's three rice crops: aus (autumn, sown with the pre-monsoon showers), aman (winter, the main monsoon crop), boro (spring–summer, irrigated).
6. Oilseeds, fibres, sugarcane, tea and coffee
In simple wordsYour cooking oil, your cotton shirt, the sugar in your tea and the tea itself all come from crops that grow in quite different places: oilseeds and cotton on dry plateaus, jute in the wet east, sugarcane in irrigated plains, tea and coffee on rainy hill slopes.
| Crop | Conditions (NCERT) | Where / leading States (NCERT) | Numbers (NCERT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oilseeds (all) | Drylands | Malwa, Marathwada, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana, Rayalaseema, Karnataka plateau | ≈ 14% of cropped area |
| Groundnut | Rainfed kharif of drylands; also rabi in the south | Gujarat, Rajasthan, TN, Telangana, AP, Karnataka, Maharashtra; high yield in TN (partly irrigated) | ≈ 3.6%; ≈ 18.8% of world (text) |
| Rapeseed and mustard (rai, sarson, toria, taramira) | Subtropical rabi, NW and central; frost-sensitive; ⅔ irrigated | Rajasthan (≈ ⅓), Haryana, MP | ≈ 2.5% |
| Soyabean | — | MP and Maharashtra ≈ 90% | |
| Sunflower | — | Karnataka, AP, Telangana, adjoining Maharashtra; minor but high-yield in the north | |
| Cotton | Tropical kharif, semi-arid; needs clear sky at flowering; short-staple (Indian) and long-staple American ‘narma’ in the NW | Three areas: Punjab–Haryana–N Rajasthan; Gujarat–Maharashtra; plateaus of AP, Karnataka, TN. Leading: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana | ≈ 4.7%; 2nd after China; high yield irrigated NW, low in rainfed Maharashtra |
| Jute | Cash crop of the wet east | West Bengal (≈ ¾), Bihar, Assam | ≈ 0.5%; much area lost to East Pakistan at Partition |
| Sugarcane | Tropical; rainfed in sub-humid/humid areas but largely irrigated | UP (≈ ⅖), Maharashtra, Karnataka, TN, AP; high yield in the south, low in the north | ≈ 2.4%; 2nd after Brazil, 19.7% of world (2018) |
| Tea | Plantation crop; undulating, well-drained hill slopes in humid and sub-humid tropics and subtropics; native to the hills of northern China | Assam (Brahmaputra valley, from the 1840s) — more than half of output; sub-Himalayan West Bengal (Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar); Nilgiri and Cardamom hills | 21.22% of world, 2nd after China (2018) |
| Coffee | Tropical plantation crop; arabica, robusta, liberica | Western Ghats highlands of Karnataka (> ⅔), Kerala, TN | 3.17% of world, 8th (2018) |
Reading NCERT Figure 3.6 — India: Distribution of Cotton and Jute (page 31)
- Cotton (diagonal hatching): a patch over Punjab–Haryana–northern Rajasthan; a large belt from Gujarat (Saurashtra and the mainland) through western MP into Maharashtra (Vidarbha and Marathwada); a band across the Deccan plateau of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka; and southern interior Tamil Nadu.
- Jute (cross-hatching): West Bengal and northern Bihar, the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, and a small patch on the Odisha coast.
- What the map adds: the two fibres never overlap — cotton on the dry black-soil plateaus, jute on the wet eastern deltas.
Reading NCERT Figure 3.9 — India: Distribution of Sugarcane (page 33)
- A northern belt from Punjab and Haryana across western, central and eastern Uttar Pradesh to north Bihar.
- A western-southern belt down the Deccan of Maharashtra into north Karnataka and interior Tamil Nadu; a patch in Saurashtra (Gujarat); and the Godavari–Krishna deltas on the Andhra coast.
- What the map adds: the northern belt is bigger in area, but the text says yields are higher in the southern belt.
Reading NCERT Figure 3.11 — India: Distribution of Tea and Coffee (page 35)
- Tea: the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys of Assam and northern West Bengal (Darjeeling–Jalpaiguri), spreading into neighbouring north-eastern hills.
- Coffee: a single strip along the Western Ghats of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
- The text adds tea on the Nilgiri and Cardamom hills of the south — so the south is where tea and coffee overlap (UPSC 1983).
Reading the crop photographs (Figs 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, 3.10)
- Fig. 3.5 — farmers sowing soyabean in Amravati, Maharashtra with a bullock-drawn seed drill: soyabean is a rainfed crop of the black-soil plateau.
- Fig. 3.7 — a farmer among waist-high cotton bushes with open white bolls.
- Fig. 3.8 — a dense stand of tall sugarcane taller than a person — a long-duration, water-hungry crop.
- Fig. 3.10 — a tea plucker with a basket among low, trimmed tea bushes under tall shade trees: tea is kept as a waist-high bush and grown under shade.
NCERT inconsistencies and dated claims
- The text gives wheat 12.8% of world output (2017), groundnut 18.8% and jute ‘three-fifth’; Appendix (vi) for 2018 gives 13.58%, 18.18% and 53.72%. Prefer the Appendix for 2018.
- ‘India mostly grows arabica’: by Coffee Board data most of India's coffee output is robusta (roughly 70%); arabica is the superior, higher-priced variety (Beyond NCERT).
- ‘India ranks second among tea exporters after China’: in world trade data Kenya is the largest tea exporter, and India is usually around fourth (Beyond NCERT).
- ‘Assam accounts for 53.2 per cent of the total cropped area’ means of the area under tea, not of all crops.
- The cotton sentence on leading producers is cut short in the reprint: Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana.
Exam traps
- Sugarcane: UP first, Maharashtra second (UPSC 1985, 2000).
- UPSC 1981's key says coffee grows at a higher altitude than tea. Keep the key for the exam, but note it is debatable: Darjeeling tea grows up to about 2,000 m, above most Indian coffee (Beyond NCERT).
- Chikmagalur is coffee country and Mandya sugarcane — not the other way round (UPSC 2008).
- Coffee needs a hot, humid tropical climate; tea grows in tropical and subtropical areas (UPSC 2010).
- Older questions said India was the world's largest tea producer (UPSC 1980, 1982) — true then; today China leads and India is second.
- Lower Ganga plain's ideal pair: paddy and jute (UPSC 2011).
7. Agricultural development since Independence
In simple wordsImagine a family that kept running short of food. First it planted every corner of the yard. Then it got better seeds, fertiliser and a borewell — and suddenly there was a surplus. But the neighbours without a borewell got nothing from the new seeds. That is the Green Revolution story, and why planners later turned to rainfed areas.
Before Independence, agriculture was largely subsistence, with severe droughts and famines in the first half of the twentieth century. At Partition about one-third of the irrigated land went to Pakistan. The first goal was more foodgrains by (i) switching from cash crops to food crops, (ii) intensifying cropping on existing land and (iii) bringing cultivable and fallow land under the plough. Production rose and then stagnated in the late 1950s; the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) and Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP) followed. Two droughts in the mid-1960s brought a food crisis and imports.
By the mid-1960s high yielding varieties of wheat (Mexico) and rice (Philippines) were available. India introduced a package technology — HYVs with chemical fertilisers — in the irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, western UP, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Assured irrigation was a pre-requisite. Foodgrain output rose very fast: the Green Revolution. It also spurred agro-inputs, agro-processing and small industries and made India self-reliant in foodgrains. But it was confined to irrigated areas, causing regional disparities until the 1970s, after which it spread east and to the centre.
⤵ The Green Revolution package and its two faces
InputsHYV seeds (wheat from Mexico, rice from the Philippines) + chemical fertilisers + pesticides + assured irrigation
Whereirrigated Punjab, Haryana, western UP, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat
Gainsfast rise in foodgrain output · self-reliance · agro-inputs, agro-processing, small industries
Costsregional disparity · gram displaced by wheat · fertiliser ×15 · pesticides · salinity, waterlogging
Correction1980s rainfed focus · 1988 agro-climatic planning · diversification (dairy, poultry, horticulture, livestock, aquaculture)
- 1980s: the Planning Commission turned to rainfed areas; agro-climatic planning began in 1988 for regionally balanced development and diversification into dairy, poultry, horticulture, livestock and aquaculture.
- 1990s: liberalisation and the free-market economy influenced agriculture.
- Output and technology: rice and wheat production and yields rose impressively; sugarcane, oilseeds and cotton too. Irrigation expansion was crucial; fertiliser use rose 15 times since the mid-1960s; pesticide use rose because HYVs are pest-prone.
Reading NCERT's boxes ‘National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture’ and ‘Farmer's Portal of India’ (page 36)
- NMSA: make agriculture more productive, sustainable, remunerative and climate-resilient through location-specific integrated/composite farming systems, and conserve resources with soil and moisture conservation. Organic farming is promoted through Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and ‘Rashtriya Vikas Yojana (RKVY)’ — the scheme's full name is Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (Beyond NCERT).
- Farmer's Portal: one place for information on insurance, storage, crops, extension, seeds, pesticides, machinery, fertilisers, market prices, package of practices and schemes; block-level soil fertility, storage and insurance on an interactive map; downloadable handbooks.
- Beyond NCERT: NMSA is one of the eight missions of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008); its Rainfed Area Development component promotes integrated farming systems (UPSC 2026).
Beyond NCERT
- Norman Borlaug, an American working in Mexico, bred the dwarf wheats (Nobel Peace Prize 1970) — UPSC 2008; the rice HYVs (IR8) came from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (UPSC 1985). M.S. Swaminathan led the work in India.
- IADP began in 1960–61 in a few districts; IAAP in 1964–65. HYVs need more water and more fertiliser (UPSC 1984).
- The Planning Commission's agro-climatic planning divided India into 15 agro-climatic regions.
- Mains: why the Green Revolution by-passed the east (2014); the rice–wheat system as success and bane (2020); food scarcity to surplus and diversification policies (2026).
8. Problems of Indian agriculture
In simple wordsA small farmer's year: the rain comes late, the loan from the moneylender has to be repaid anyway, the family plot has been split among brothers into three thin strips, and for four months there is no work at all. Each problem makes the next one worse.
Problems vary by region and history, but some are common, from physical constraints to institutional ones.
| Problem | What NCERT says |
|---|---|
| Erratic monsoon | Irrigation covers only about 33% of cultivated area; poor monsoons also cut canal water; Rajasthan's rain is meagre and unreliable; even wet areas fluctuate → droughts and floods are twin menaces (flash floods in the drylands of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan in 2006 and 2017) |
| Low productivity | Yields of rice, wheat, cotton, oilseeds far below the USA, Russia, Japan; low labour productivity under heavy land pressure; rainfed drylands growing coarse cereals, pulses, oilseeds have low yields |
| Finance and indebtedness | Modern inputs are expensive; small and marginal farmers borrow from institutions and moneylenders; crop failure and low returns trap them in debt |
| Lack of land reforms | Unequal land distribution; of the British systems — Mahalwari, Ryotwari, Zamindari — zamindari was most exploitative; reforms after 1947 weakly implemented for lack of political will |
| Small, fragmented holdings | Many marginal and small farmers; holdings shrink with population and are fragmented; consolidation not done even once in some States, needed again elsewhere; uneconomic |
| Lack of commercialisation | Many farmers grow for self-consumption; commercialisation only in irrigated areas |
| Underemployment | Seasonal unemployment of 4 to 8 months in unirrigated tracts; work not available throughout even in the season |
| Land degradation | Alkalinisation, salinisation and waterlogging in irrigated areas; toxic pesticide residues; legumes displaced and fallows shortened, ending natural nitrogen fixation; water and wind erosion in rainfed humid and semi-arid tropics |
⤵ The small farmer's debt trap
Small, fragmented holdinglittle surplus, no savings
Costly modern inputsseed, fertiliser, pesticide, diesel
Loansinstitutions and moneylenders
Erratic monsoon / low pricescrop failure, low returns
Indebtednessland mortgaged or sold; distress — NCERT links it to farmers' suicides
Beyond NCERT — updated numbers
- Irrigation: recent land-use statistics put net irrigated area at roughly half of net sown area — well above NCERT's ‘about 33 per cent’, but half of India's farmland still depends on rain.
- Holdings: Agriculture Census 2015–16 — average holding 1.08 ha; marginal and small holdings (under 2 ha) were about 86% of all holdings.
- Revenue systems: Zamindari (Permanent Settlement, Bengal, 1793), Ryotwari (Madras and Bombay), Mahalwari (North-Western Provinces and Punjab).
- Salinity: the main soil damage in Punjab and Haryana is salinity and waterlogging (UPSC 1988); salinisation lowers yields and can make land unusable (UPSC 2011).
Exam traps
- Main degradation in irrigated areas = salinisation (exercise Q1-iii), not gully or wind erosion (those are rainfed or dry-area problems).
- Zamindari, not ryotwari, was the most exploitative system (NCERT).
- Low rice productivity in India was blamed on low-yielding varieties in older keys (UPSC 1990); NCERT's general answer is rainfed farming, small holdings and land pressure.
NCERT's in-text questions and activities — short answers
Activity: compare the changes of land use between 1950–51 and 2019–20. (page 23)
Five rose — forest (17 → 23.4%), non-agricultural use (3.2 → 9%), pastures (2.3 → 3.4%), current fallow (3.7 → 4.5%), net sown (41.7 → 45.6%). Four fell — barren (13.4 → 5.4%), tree crops (6.9 → 1.0%), culturable waste (8.0 → 3.9%), other fallow (6.1 → 3.7%). Drivers: urban–industrial growth, reclamation of waste and fallow, notification of forest land.
What is the difference between actual increase and rate of increase? Work them out for all categories from Appendix (vi). (page 24)
Actual = 2019–20 − 1950–51 (Mha); rate = actual ÷ 1950–51 × 100. Forest +31.27 Mha (+77%); non-agricultural +18.41 (+197%, the fastest rate); barren −21.62 (−57%); pastures +3.80 (+57%); tree crops −16.70 (−84%); culturable waste −10.99 (−48%); other fallow −6.21 (−36%); current fallow +3.09 (+29%); net sown +21.15 (+18%). A small base gives a big rate (non-agricultural use); a big base gives a big actual change with a modest rate (net sown).
Activity: mix grains; separate cereals from pulses, and fine from coarse cereals. (page 30)
Cereals are grass seeds (rice, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi); pulses are legume seeds, often split into two halves (gram, tur, moong, masoor, urad). Fine cereals: rice, wheat. Coarse: jowar, bajra, maize, ragi.
Why is agricultural productivity low in dry regions? (page 37)
Scanty, erratic rain and little irrigation; poor, thin soils; hardy low-yield crops (coarse cereals, pulses, oilseeds); risk discourages costly inputs; frequent droughts; small, unconsolidated holdings.
What are the implications of severe indebtedness? Are farmers' suicides the result of indebtedness? (page 37)
Debt forces distress sale of produce and land, child labour and migration, and blocks investment, so productivity stays low. Indebtedness is a major contributory cause of farmer suicides, together with crop failure, price falls, high input costs and lack of insurance and social support — usually a combination rather than a single cause.
What changes have you noticed in the agricultural sector and cropping pattern? (page 38)
Typical changes: more rice and wheat in irrigated areas; gram and coarse cereals displaced; more horticulture, vegetables, dairy and poultry; machines (tractors, harvesters, seed drills — Fig. 3.12); more borewells and drip irrigation; contract farming and direct marketing; renewed interest in millets and organic farming.
Prepare a list of agricultural problems in your own region and compare with the chapter. (page 39)
Use NCERT's eight heads — monsoon dependence, low productivity, debt, land reforms, small holdings, commercialisation, underemployment, degradation — and add local ones (water-table decline, stubble burning, wild-animal damage, market access). Note which are physical and which institutional.
Reading Figure 3.12 — Roto Till Drill (page 37)
A tractor-mounted machine that tills the soil and drills seed in one pass — saving time, fuel and moisture. It illustrates mechanisation, which raises timeliness and yields but also reduces farm work, adding to underemployment.
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Try each question yourself first, then open the outline to compare. The five multiple-choice questions are in the self-check below.
Differentiate between barren and wasteland and culturable wasteland. (30 words)
Barren and wasteland — barren hills, deserts, ravines — cannot be cultivated with available technology. Culturable wasteland is cultivable land left fallow for more than five years and can be reclaimed.
How would you distinguish between net sown area and gross cropped area? (30 words)
NSA: physical area sown and harvested, counted once. GCA: area counted once for every crop grown on it in the year. GCA ÷ NSA × 100 = cropping intensity.
Why is the strategy of increasing cropping intensity important in a country like India? (30 words)
Little new land can be added; cropping the same land more often raises output from scarce land and creates more farm work — vital for a land-scarce, labour-abundant country with rural unemployment.
How do you measure total cultivable land? (30 words)
Net sown area + current fallow + fallow other than current fallow + culturable wasteland. It was 57.7% of reporting area in 2019–20, with net sown area 79% of it.
What is the difference between dryland and wetland farming? (30 words)
Dryland: rainfed, rain under 75 cm; hardy crops (ragi, bajra, moong, gram, guar); moisture conservation. Wetland: rain exceeds crop needs; water-intensive rice, jute, sugarcane, aquaculture; floods and erosion risk.
What are the different types of environmental problems of land resources in India? (150 words)
Irrigated areas: waterlogging, salinisation and alkalinisation (Punjab, Haryana, canal commands); falling fertility; toxic pesticide residues; legumes and fallows lost, so less natural nitrogen fixation.
Rainfed areas: water erosion (gullies, ravines — Chambal) in humid and semi-arid tropics; wind erosion and desertification in the dry west.
Land-use change: farmland and wetlands lost to non-agricultural use around cities; decline of tree crops and groves; degraded common property resources hurting the poor and women.
Forests: notified area rises but actual cover lags.
Causes: faulty irrigation, over-use of chemicals, monocropping (rice–wheat), population pressure, human-induced erosion.
Remedies: drainage, gypsum, crop diversification, legumes, integrated farming (NMSA), watershed management.
Diagram: the waterlogging–salinity section above.
Rainfed areas: water erosion (gullies, ravines — Chambal) in humid and semi-arid tropics; wind erosion and desertification in the dry west.
Land-use change: farmland and wetlands lost to non-agricultural use around cities; decline of tree crops and groves; degraded common property resources hurting the poor and women.
Forests: notified area rises but actual cover lags.
Causes: faulty irrigation, over-use of chemicals, monocropping (rice–wheat), population pressure, human-induced erosion.
Remedies: drainage, gypsum, crop diversification, legumes, integrated farming (NMSA), watershed management.
Diagram: the waterlogging–salinity section above.
What are the important strategies for agricultural development followed in the post-independence period in India? (150 words)
1947–60: food first — cash to food crops, intensified cropping, more area under plough; land reforms.
Late 1950s–60s: IADP and IAAP after stagnation; mid-1960s droughts and imports.
Green Revolution (mid-1960s): HYVs (Mexico wheat, Philippines rice) + fertilisers + irrigation in Punjab, Haryana, western UP, AP, Gujarat → self-reliance, agro-industries; but regional disparity until spread east in the 1970s.
1980s: rainfed areas; 1988 agro-climatic planning; diversification — dairy, poultry, horticulture, livestock, aquaculture.
1990s: liberalisation.
Now: sustainable agriculture (NMSA), organic farming (PKVY), RKVY, digital information (Farmer's Portal).
Diagram: the timeline above.
Late 1950s–60s: IADP and IAAP after stagnation; mid-1960s droughts and imports.
Green Revolution (mid-1960s): HYVs (Mexico wheat, Philippines rice) + fertilisers + irrigation in Punjab, Haryana, western UP, AP, Gujarat → self-reliance, agro-industries; but regional disparity until spread east in the 1970s.
1980s: rainfed areas; 1988 agro-climatic planning; diversification — dairy, poultry, horticulture, livestock, aquaculture.
1990s: liberalisation.
Now: sustainable agriculture (NMSA), organic farming (PKVY), RKVY, digital information (Farmer's Portal).
Diagram: the timeline above.
What to remember
Numbers
Land-use categories9, adding up to reporting area
Reporting area 1950–51 → 2019–20284.32 → 306.5 Mha
Net sown area41.7% → 45.6% of reporting area
Forests (classified)17% → 23.4%
Non-agricultural use3.2% → 9.0% (+197% — fastest)
Total cultivable land59.5% → 57.7% of reporting area; NSA 70 → 79% of it
Culturable wasteland thresholdfallow more than 5 years
Dryland farmingannual rain below 75 cm
Foodgrains / cereals / pulses / oilseeds≈ ⅔ / 54% / 11% / 14% of cropped area
Rice / wheat share of cropped area≈ 25% / 14%
Rice: India's share of world, 201822.07%, 2nd after China
Wheat area in north and central India85%
Jowar: Maharashtra's sharemore than half
Soyabean: MP + Maharashtra≈ 90%
Jute: West Bengal's share≈ three-fourths
Sugarcane: UP's share; India's world rank≈ two-fifths; 2nd after Brazil
Coffee: Karnataka's share; India's world rank> two-thirds; 8th (3.17%)
Tea in Assam began1840s
Irrigated land lost at Partition≈ one-third
Fertiliser use since the mid-1960s15 times
Agro-climatic planning1988
Irrigation coverage (NCERT)≈ 33% of cultivated area
Seasonal unemployment in unirrigated tracts4 to 8 months
One-liners
- Forest in revenue records = area notified, not trees present.
- Current fallow ≤ 1 yr → other fallow 1–5 yrs → culturable waste 5+ yrs.
- Total cultivable = NSA + all fallows + culturable waste.
- Cropping intensity = GCA ÷ NSA × 100 — more output and more jobs.
- Kharif with the monsoon, rabi with winter, zaid in the irrigated summer.
- Rice follows water; wheat follows cool winters and canals.
- Green Revolution = HYV + fertiliser + irrigation, first in the irrigated north-west.
- Irrigated land degrades by salinity and waterlogging; rainfed land by erosion.
Traps to avoid
- Marginal land is not a land-use category.
- Forest share rose because of notification, not afforestation.
- Sugarcane is not a dryland crop.
- Leading rice State is West Bengal, wheat Uttar Pradesh.
- Rice in Punjab–Haryana dates only from the 1970s.
- Salinisation, not erosion, is the main degradation in irrigated areas.
- India grows mostly robusta coffee, despite NCERT's ‘mostly arabica’.
- Jute share in the Appendix is 53.72% (about half), not ‘three-fifth’.
- NCERT's ‘Rashtriya Vikas Yojana’ is Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
- Crop conditions are UPSC's oldest favourite: rice (1979, 1986, 1994), wheat (1996), coffee (1982, 1981 altitude, 2010 tea vs coffee), crop–condition matches (1999). Learn each crop's temperature, rain, soil and season.
- Seasons: kharif with the monsoon (1979) and kharif sets (1987, 2004, 2013); area under kharif crops (2019). Dry farming and rainfed crops (1992 ×2, 2002, 2012); least water-efficient crop (2021).
- Leading States and regions: sugarcane order (1985, 2000), cotton regions (1996), oilseed order (1997), tea States (1996 Barak, 2022), tea–coffee overlap (1983), Chikmagalur coffee (2008), crop maps (1995, 1997), cotton and gram (1998), Gujarat (2011), lower Ganga crops (2011), east-coast rice (2003).
- Land use and problems: land-use split (2010), NSA of AP vs WB (2006), cropped area (1986), India vs China arable land (2023); Green Revolution — HYVs (1984), IRRI (1985), Borlaug (2008); salinity (1988, 2011); land ceiling and reforms (1981, 1984); NMSA's RAD (2026).
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
- GS1: land-use change drivers (2026); Green Revolution by-passing the east (2014); tea beyond Darjeeling (2014); pulses (2017).
- GS3: land reforms (2013, 2016, 2021, 2023, 2024), declining holdings and leasing (2015), rice–wheat yield decline and diversification (2017, 2020, 2021), agricultural revolutions (2017), cropping-pattern change and millets (2018, 2023, 2024), integrated farming systems (2019, 2022), food scarcity to surplus (2026).
- Answer frame: data (land-use shares, cropped-area shares, world rank) → spatial pattern (crop regions) → causes (climate, soil, irrigation, policy) → problems (monsoon, holdings, debt, degradation) → policy (land reforms, Green Revolution, agro-climatic planning, NMSA, PKVY, RKVY) → way forward (diversification, water-saving, crop insurance).
- Draw the cropping calendar, the land-use change bars and the salinity cross-section; they fit dozens of questions.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. Which one of the following is NOT a land-use category?
2. Which one of the following is the main reason due to which share of forest has shown an increase in the last forty years?
3. Which one of the following is the main form of degradation in irrigated areas?
4. Which one of the following crops is not cultivated under dryland farming?
5. In which of the following group of countries of the world, HYVs of wheat and rice were developed?
6. A field of 1 ha grows kharif rice and rabi wheat in the same year. Its cropping intensity is:
7. Land left uncultivated for three years is classified as:
8. Which land-use category recorded the highest RATE of increase between 1950–51 and 2019–20?
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.