Agriculture — Notes

• Primitive subsistence farming: families farm small plots with hand tools such as the hoe, dao and digging stick, using family or community labour; harvests rise or fall with the monsoon and the natural fertility of the soil.
• Slash and burn (shifting cultivation): farmers clear and burn a patch, sow grain and vegetables in the ash, and shift once yields drop, so the old plot can recover on its own. No fertilisers, so productivity is low. Names: jhumming (Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland), pamlou (Manipur), dipa (Bastar in Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands); abroad, milpa (Mexico, Central America), conuco (Venezuela), roca (Brazil), masole (Central Africa), ladang (Indonesia), ray (Vietnam).
• Intensive subsistence farming: found where too many people depend on too little land (population pressure); families pour labour, fertilisers and other chemicals, and irrigation into each plot. Because land is split among heirs in every generation (the right of inheritance), plots shrink until they barely pay (uneconomical); with no other work available, families still try to wring the most from them.
• Commercial farming: heavy use of purchased modern inputs (HYV seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides) to raise yields for sale. How far a crop is grown for sale differs by region: rice is commercial in Punjab and Haryana but largely subsistence in Odisha.
• Plantation agriculture: a commercial type where a single crop is grown on a large area with capital-intensive inputs and migrant labour; the produce is raw material for industry, so farm and factory are closely tied. Examples: tea (Assam, north Bengal), coffee (Karnataka), rubber, sugarcane, banana. Needs good transport and communication to link estates, factories and markets.

• Rabi: sown in winter (October–December), harvested in summer (April–June): wheat, barley, peas, gram, mustard. Important in the north and north-west (Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh). Winter rain from western temperate cyclones and the Green Revolution (Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan) support rabi crops.
• Kharif: sown with the onset of the monsoon, harvested in September–October: paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut, soyabean. Rice regions: Assam, West Bengal, coastal Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra (Konkan coast), Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; recently Punjab and Haryana. In Assam, West Bengal and Odisha, three paddy crops a year: aus, aman and boro.
• Zaid: a short summer season between rabi and kharif: watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables, fodder.
• Sugarcane takes almost a year to grow.

• Rice: kharif; above 25 °C, high humidity, over 100 cm rain (irrigation in drier areas). Plains of the north and north-east, coastal and delta regions; canals and tube wells made it possible in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan.
• Wheat: rabi; cool growing season, bright sunshine at ripening, 50–75 cm of evenly spread rain. Zones: Ganga–Satluj plains (north-west) and the black soil region of the Deccan. States: Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan.
• Millets (coarse grains, highly nutritious): jowar — mostly rain-fed, rarely irrigated (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh); bajra — sandy and shallow black soils (Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana); ragi — dry regions, red, black, sandy, loamy and shallow black soils; a good source of iron, calcium and fibre (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh).
• Maize: food and fodder; 21–27 °C, old alluvial soil; mainly kharif (also rabi in Bihar); Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.
• Pulses (tur/arhar, urad, moong, masur, peas, gram): India grows and eats more pulses than any other country; for vegetarians they are the chief source of protein; need little moisture; all except arhar are legumes that fix nitrogen, so grown in rotation. States: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka.
• Sugarcane: tropical and subtropical; 21–27 °C, 75–100 cm rain, hot and humid; many soils; manual labour throughout; sugar, gur, khandsari, molasses. States: Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana.

• Oilseeds: groundnut, mustard, coconut, sesamum (til), soyabean, castor, cotton seed, linseed, sunflower; mostly edible, some used for soap, cosmetics and ointments. Groundnut — kharif; mustard and linseed — rabi; sesamum — kharif in the north, rabi in the south; castor — both.
• Tea: introduced by the British; tropical and subtropical; deep, fertile, well-drained soil rich in humus; warm, moist, frost-free climate all year; frequent, well-spread showers; labour-intensive; processed within the garden. Areas: Assam, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri (West Bengal), Tamil Nadu, Kerala; also Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura.
• Coffee: Arabica, first brought from Yemen, introduced on the Baba Budan Hills; still grown mainly in the Nilgiri region of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• Rubber: equatorial crop; moist, humid, over 200 cm rain, above 25 °C; industrial raw material; Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Garo hills of Meghalaya.
• Fibres: cotton, jute, hemp and natural silk. Sericulture = rearing silkworms (fed on mulberry leaves) for silk.
• Cotton: grown in India since ancient times; drier parts of the black soil of the Deccan; high temperature, light rain or irrigation, 210 frost-free days, bright sunshine; kharif, 6–8 months. States: Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh.
• Jute ("golden fibre"): fertile, well-drained floodplain soils that get fresh silt every year; high temperature; West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Meghalaya; gunny bags, mats, ropes, yarn, carpets; losing markets to cheaper synthetics, especially nylon.
• Horticulture: mangoes (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal), oranges (Nagpur, Cherrapunjee), bananas (Kerala, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu), lichi and guava (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar), pineapples (Meghalaya), grapes (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra), apples, pears, apricots, walnuts (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh).

Board map list (identify): major rice and wheat areas; largest or major producing states of sugarcane (Uttar Pradesh), tea (Assam), coffee (Karnataka), rubber (Kerala), cotton (Maharashtra has the largest area; Gujarat also leads) and jute (West Bengal).

• Farming has been practised for thousands of years, but using land without matching technical and institutional change slowed progress; many farmers still depend on the monsoon and natural fertility.
• After independence: collectivisation, consolidation of holdings, cooperation and abolition of zamindari were priorities. Land reform was the main focus of the First Five Year Plan; laws were passed but often weakly implemented.
• 1960s–1970s: the Green Revolution, based on package technology (HYV seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, irrigation), and the White Revolution (Operation Flood) for milk. Development became concentrated in a few areas.
• 1980s–1990s: a comprehensive land development programme combining institutional and technical reforms: crop insurance against drought, flood, cyclone, fire and disease; Grameen banks, cooperative societies and banks for loans at lower interest.
• Other measures: Kisan Credit Card (KCC), Personal Accident Insurance Scheme (PAIS), special weather bulletins and farm programmes on radio and television, and minimum support, remunerative and procurement prices so that traders and middlemen cannot force prices down.
• Bhoodan–Gramdan: Vinoba Bhave's movement asked landowners to give land to the landless (bhoodan) and, in some cases, whole villages (gramdan); it has been called a "bloodless revolution".