Indian Geography ( Agriculture)

Question: What are the salient features of Indian agriculture?

Answer: 

'A prosperous farmer means a prosperous nation.'

India is a unique country from agricultural point of view. Its enormous expanse of level plains , rich soils, high percentage of culturable land , wide climate variety with adequate aggregate rainfall combined with sufficient temperature, ample sunshine and long growing season provide solid base to agriculture.

Salient features of Indian agriculture: 

1. Subsistence agriculture: The farmer owns a small piece of land, grows crops with the help of his family members and consumes almost the entire farm produce with little surplus to sell in the market.

2. Pressure of population on agriculture : Agriculture has to provide employment to a large section of work force and has to feed the teeming millions. It will reduce disguised unemployment.

3. Highly dependent upon monsoon : Despite the large scale expansion of irrigation facilities since Independence, two - third of the cropped area has to bear the brunt of vagaries of the monsoons.

 ✓ El - Nino impact

4. Variety of crops : India is a vast country with varied types of relief , climate and soil conditions. Therefore, both the tropical and temperate crops are successfully grown in India.

5. Seasonal pattern: India has three major crop seasons.

a) Kharif : major crops - rice , maize , jowar , bajra , cotton etc.

b) Rabi : Major crops - wheat , barley , jowar , gram etc. 

c) Zaid : major crops - rice , maize , groundnut etc.

6. Mixed cropping : Sometimes four to five crops are grown simultaneously in the same field and in areas Jhuming ten to fifteen area mixed in one field.

7. Labour intensive : Although mechanisation of farming is prevalent in some states like Punjab , Haryana and Western parts of Uttar Pradesh, but in large parts of India agriculture is labour intensive.

8. Importance of animals : Animal force helps in some activities like ploughing, irrigation, threshing and transporting the agricultural produces.

9. Predominance of food crops : More than two - thirds of the total cropped area is devoted to the cultivation of food crops. 

10. Insignificant place to given fodder crops  : Due to the pressing demand of land for food crops , only four percent of fooder agricultural area is devoted to permanent pastures and other grazing lands. 

11. High percentage of reporting area under cultivation : In the year 2010 - 11 , nearly 46 percent of the total reporting area is under cultivation.

Conclusion: 

India is pre - eminently an agricultural country. Today, agriculture and allied sectors contribute nearly 14.4 percent of GDP.