AGRICULTURE IN INDIA
Types of Farming
Shifting cultivation allows the soil to
regain its fertility naturally but gives very
poor yield to farmers and leads to large-
scale destruction of forests. Crops like
corn, rice and millets are grown in this
type of farming.
Raw material from agriculture also
supports a number of industries like cotton
textiles, food processing and handicrafts.
Primitive subsistence farming:
• Involves cultivating food crops in small
fields essentially to sustain the farmer’s
family.
• Depends entirely on local soil and
environment conditions and monsoons.
• Involves hard manual labour.
• Is slash-and-burn agriculture.
• Allows the soil to regain its fertility
naturally.
• Gives very poor yield and leads to
large-scale destruction of forests
Besides India, slash-and-burn or shifting
cultivation is practised in many parts of the
world and known by different names.
In India, the most popular name for such
shifting cultivation is Jhumming, in many
of our north-eastern states of Assam,
Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland.
Another system of cultivation practised in
India is called intensive subsistence
farming. This system is practised in
densely populated areas of Punjab,
Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the
coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh. The
main purpose of intensive subsistence
farming is to get maximum yield from the
available land. Extensive irrigation
methods and large quantities of chemical
fertilisers are used in this system of
farming.
Repeated division of land amongst
successive generations of farmers
decreases individual land holding, further
encouraging farmers to use all available
means to increase yield. Commercial
farming is another system of cultivation.
This involves the cultivation of a crop in
large quantities for the purpose of selling it
in the market. This system uses high
yielding seeds, chemical fertilisers and
pesticides. Plantations of crops like tea in
Assam and north Bengal, coffee in
Karnataka, rubber in Kerala, and bamboo,
sugarcane, cotton and banana, are also
forms of commercial farming.
In these plantations, a single crop is
cultivated over vast areas. The cultivation
of a crop can be classified as commercial
or subsistence farming, depending on the
area where it is grown.
Agriculture
This process of transformation of a crop to
a finished product can be divided into three
types of economic activities i.e. Primary,
Secondary and Tertiary Activities. The
activities related to the extraction of
natural resources, growing crops and
rearing livestock, are called primary
activities.
The activities related to the processing of
natural resources, like grinding wheat to
produce flour are called secondary
activities. While the activities that support
the primary and secondary activities
through services, such as transportation
and marketing, are known as tertiary
activities.
Agriculture is derived from the Latin
words ager, meaning field, and cultura,
meaning cultivation. Agriculture hence
refers to the process of producing food,
feed and fibre through the cultivation of
plants, and rearing livestock and is also
known as farming.
About 50% of the world’s population is
engaged in agriculture. In India, more than
2/3rd of the population is dependent on
agriculture for their livelihood. This is
because, India has the land and climatic
conditions favorable for carrying out
agricultural activities. The land that can be
used for cultivation is referred to as arable
land.
Apart from soil conditions, different
climatic factors that affect the cultivation
of crops in an area are rainfall or
precipitation, temperature, and light.
Different crops require different climatic
conditions for a healthy growth.
Other forms of cultivation are: Sericulture,
Pisciculture, Viticulture and Horticulture.
Sericulture is the art and science of rearing
silk worms to produce raw silk and
involves the cultivation of food-plants to
feed the silk worms, and the extraction of
raw silk yarn from the cocoons of the silk
worms for processing and weaving.
Sericulture derives its name from the Latin
words serikos, meaning silk, and cultura,
meaning cultivation.
Pisciculture is the scientific method for
breeding fish in specially designed ponds,
tanks or lakes and is done purely for
commercial purposes. Pisciculture also
derives its name from the Latin words
pisci, meaning fish, and cultura, meaning
cultivation.
Viticulture derives its name from the Latin
words vitis, meaning vine, and cultura,
meaning cultivation and is the science,
study and production of grapes.
Horticulture is the industry and science of
cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers or
ornamental plants. It also derives its name
from the Latin words horti, meaning
garden, and cultura, meaning cultivation. It
involves all the activities carried out to
improve the crop yield, quality and
nutritional value, and resistance to insects
and diseases.
Farming Systems
The farming system has three components:
Input, Process and Output. The inputs to a
farming system include seeds, fertilisers,
machinery and labour while the outputs of
farming are crops, wool, dairy and poultry
products. The outputs are obtained by
processing activities, like tilling, sowing,
irrigating, weeding and harvesting, or
breeding in case of an animal farm.
There are two types of farming:
Subsistence farming and Commercial
farming. Subsistence farming is carried out
at a low scale for a small output while
commercial farming involves activities on
a larger scale and yields a much larger
produce.
Subsistence farming mostly serves to meet
the requirements of the farmer and his
family while commercial farming, the
crops grown and the animals reared are
sold in the market. The technology used in
subsistence farming is very low-end, and
most of the labour is manual whereas in
commercial farming, minimal manual
labour is involved and machines do most
of the work.
Subsistence farming can be further
classified into two types: Intensive
subsistence farming and Primitive
subsistence farming.
In intensive subsistence farming, farmers
use simple tools, such as spades and
ploughs, and manual labour to cultivate a
small plot of land. Intensive subsistence
farming is practiced in areas having fertile
soil and receiving plenty of sunshine
throughout the year. For example, it is
practiced in the tropical and sub-tropical
areas of West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
Intensive subsistence farming is practised
by farmers in the monsoon regions of
south, southeast and east Asia. It is more
common in the thickly populated areas in
these regions. Rice is the main crop grown
through intensive farming in addition to
wheat, maize, pulses and oilseeds on the
same plot of land.
Primitive subsistence farming can be
further classified into: Shifting cultivation
and Nomadic herding.
In shifting cultivation farmers temporarily
use a plot of land for cultivation and then
abandon it when the soil loses its fertility.
This farming system is common in areas
where the rainfall is heavy and the
vegetation can regenerate rapidly. It is
practiced in the dense forest areas of north-
east India, parts of south-east Asia, tropical
Africa and the Amazon basin.
This type of farming is also known as slash
and burn agriculture owing to the process.
The crops grown here are maize, yam,
potatoes and cassava.
Nomadic herding is a form of animal
farming where herdsmen move from one
place to another with their animals, fodder
and water, following defined routes. It is
practiced in semi-arid and arid areas like
Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir
Sahara and Central Asia.
The nomads rear sheeps, goats, camels and
yaks and these animals provide milk, meat,
wool, hides to the herdsmen.
Commercial farming is of three types:
Commercial grain farming, Mixed farming
and Plantations. Commercial grain
farming, is the cultivation of crops for
commercial purposes where crops are
grown for sale in the market. This type of
farming is common in the sparsely
populated areas of the temperate
grasslands of North America, Europe and
Asia. The main crops grown are wheat and
maize.
In mixed farming, the same plot of land is
used for cultivating crops and rearing
livestock. Farmers cultivate food crops like
rice and wheat, and fodder crops like
barley and grass. This type of farming is
common in Europe, parts of eastern USA,
Argentina, southeast Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa.
Plantation refers to large farms or estates
growing a single crop for commercial
usage. This type requires a large amount of
labour, and capital investment in building
an extensive transportation network.
Plantations involve the cultivation of crops
like tea, sugarcane and rubber for supply to
agro-based industries as raw material.
The produce from these plantations, like
tea leaves and rubber latex, are processed
to produce market-ready output, i.e. tea
and rubber sheets. Plantations are common
in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the
world, like India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and
Brazil.
Cropping Seasons in India
Agriculture in India also follows three
distinct cropping seasons i.e. rabi, kharif
and zaid.
Rabi crops are sown from October to
December and harvested in April to June
next year. Important rabi crops are wheat,
mustard, barley, grams and peas. The
important areas of rabi crops are Punjab,
Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal,
Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and
Kashmir.
A movement launched in India in the mid-
1960s promoted the use of high-yield
seeds, and an increase in the use of
fertilisers and irrigation. This movement is
called the Green Revolution of India.
Kharif crops are sown in July to August
with the onset of monsoons and harvested
in September and October. Important
kharif crops are rice, maize, millets like
jowar and bajra, pulses like arhar or tur,
moong and urad, fibre crops like cotton
and jute, and oilseeds like groundnut and
soybean. The main rice-producing areas in
India are Assam, West Bengal, coastal
Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,
Kerala, Konkan in Maharashtra, Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar.
The summer months between harvesting
the rabi crop and sowing the kharif crop,
are called the zaid season. During this
season, famers cultivate crops that grow
quickly, like watermelon, muskmelon,
cucumber, summer vegetables and fodder
crops.
Technological and Institutional Reforms
The main problems faced by farmers in
India are:
• Fragmentation of land holdings by
successive inheritance
• Primitive methods of farming
• Dependence on monsoon and natural
fertility of soil
• Exploitation by local money lenders
and middlemen
• Lack of insurance against natural
calamities
The technological and institutional
changes initiated in India to improve the
condition of farmers include:
The land reforms initiated in the first five-
year plan aimed to:
• abolish zamindari and
• consolidate land holdings. The
consolidation of land holdings involved
combining adjacent small fields into
single large farms and encouraging
individual land owners to do
cooperative farming.
Agricultural reforms in the 1960s and
1970s known as the green revolution in
India:
• Providing high yielding varieties of
seeds and fertilisers to farmers, and
• Developing large-scale irrigation
facilities to allow them to grow two
crops in a year.
• Continued expansion of farming areas.
White revolution:
• Doctor Verghese Kurien is credited
with architecting Operation Flood -- the
largest dairy development programme
in the world.
The government launched a
comprehensive land development
programme in the 1980s and 1990s:
• Insurance cover to farmers against
damage to crops and
• Setting up of rural banks and
cooperative societies to provide them
loans on easy rates of interest.
The government also started broadcasting
radio and television programmes to
educate farmers about new techniques of
agriculture and give them prior warning
about weather conditions. To stop the
exploitation of farmers by middlemen, the
government announced the procurement,
remunerative and minimum support prices
of all the major crops in India.
The government also launched personal
benefit schemes for farmers, like the Kisan
Credit Card and the Personal Accident
Insurance Scheme. Under the Land Ceiling
Act by government no individual or family
could own more than a certain quantum of
land.
