Agriculture Chapter Notes - Social Studies (SST) Class 10

Introduction

India is an agriculturally important country as two-thirds of its population is engaged in agricultural activities.

Types of Farming

There are various types of farming systems in different parts of India are:

Primitive Subsistence Farming

It is a ‘slash and burn’ agriculture. It is done with the help of primitive tools like hoe, dao and digging sticks, and family/community labour. The farming depends upon monsoon, natural fertility of the soil and suitability of other environmental conditions to the crops grown.

Primitive Subsistence Farming

Intensive Subsistence Farming

This type of farming is labour-intensive farming, where high doses of biochemical inputs and irrigation are used for obtaining higher production. This method is commonly done where less landholding is available.

Intensive Subsistence Farming

Commercial Farming

This type of farming is done using higher doses of modern inputs, e.g. high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides in order to obtain higher productivity.
Plantation is also a type of commercial farming.
In this type of farming, a single crop is grown on a large area.

Plantations cover large tracts of land, using capital intensive inputs, with the help of migrant labourers. All the produce is used as a raw material in industries.

Commercial Farming

Cropping Pattern

India has three cropping seasons:
1. Rabi: Rabi crops are sown in winter from October to December and harvested in summer from April to June. Important rabi crops are wheat, barley, peas, gram and mustard.

Rabi Crop 

2. Kharif: Kharif crops are grown with the onset of monsoon in different parts of the country and these are harvested in September-October. Important crops grown during this season are paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar), moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut and soyabean.

Kharif Crop 

3. Zaid: In between the rabi and the kharif seasons, there is a short season during the summer months known as the Zaid season. Important crops grown are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops.

Watermelon
( A Zaid Crop)

Major Crops

Major crops grown in India are rice, wheat, millets, pulses, tea, coffee, sugarcane, oilseeds, cotton and jute, etc.

Rice

• Staple food crop
• Our country is the second-largest producer of rice in the world after China.
• It is a kharif crop that requires high temperature, (above 25°C) and high humidity with annual rainfall above 100 cm.
• It is grown in the plains of north and north-eastern India, coastal areas and the deltaic regions.

Wheat

• The second most important cereal crop.
• It is the main food crop, in the north and north-western part of the country.
• This rabi crop requires a cool growing season with 50 to 75 cm of annual rainfall and bright sunshine at the time of ripening.
• Wheat growing regions are the Ganga-Satluj plains in the northwest and black soil region of the Deccan.
  

Millets

• Jowar, bajra and ragi are the important millets grown in India.
• These have very high nutritional value.

A Pearl Millet ( Bajra)

Maize

• It is a Kharif crop.
• It requires a temperature between 21°C to 27°C and grows well in old alluvial soil.
• It is used both as food and fodder.
• Major maize-producing states are Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Pulses

• India is the largest producer as well as the consumer of pulses in the world.
• Major source of protein in a vegetarian diet.
• These need less moisture and survive even in dry conditions.
• Major producing states in India are Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Food Crops other than Grains

Sugarcane

• It is a tropical as well as a subtropical crop.
• It grows well in a hot and humid climate with a temperature of 21°C to 27°C and an annual rainfall between 75 cm. and 100 cm.
• Major producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana.

Oil Seeds

• The oilseeds cover approximately 12 per cent of the total cropped area of the country.
• These are used as cooking mediums as well as used as raw material in the production of soap, cosmetics and ointments.

Different Oilseeds

Tea

• Tea cultivation is an example of plantation agriculture.
• It is an important beverage crop introduced in India initially by the British.
• It requires a warm and moist frost-free climate with frequent showers all through the year.
• Major producing states are Assam, hills of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Coffee

• Indian coffee is known in the world for its good quality.
• Its cultivation is confined to the Nilgiri in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Horticulture Crops

• India is a producer of tropical as well as temperate fruits.
• India produces about 13 per cent of the world’s vegetables.

Horticulture Crops

Non-Food Crops

Rubber

• It is an equatorial crop, but under special conditions, it is also grown in tropical and sub-tropical areas.
• It requires a moist and humid climate with rainfall of more than 200 cm. and a temperature above 25°C.
• It is mainly grown in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andaman and Nicobar islands and Garo hills of Meghalaya.

Natural Rubber (Latex)

Fibre Crops

• Cotton, jute, hemp and natural silk are the four major fibre crops grown in India.
• The rearing of silkworms for the production of silk fibre is known as sericulture.

Cotton ( A Fibre Crop)

Cotton

• It is a kharif crop that grows well in drier parts of the black cotton soil of the Deccan plateau.
• It requires high temperature, light rainfall or irrigation, 210 frost-free days and bright sunshine for its growth.
• Major producing states are – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Cotton Cultivation 

Jute

• It grows well on well-drained fertile soils in the flood plains where soils are renewed every year.
• Major jute-producing states West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha and Meghalaya.
• It is used in making gunny bags, mats, ropes, yarn, carpets and other artefacts.

A Jute Crop

Technological and Institutional Reforms

• • More than 60 per cent of India's population depends on agriculture.
• • After independence, major institutional reforms such as Collectivisation, consolidation of holdings, cooperation and abolition of zamindari, etc. were given priority.
• In the 1960s and 1970s, technical reforms such as Green Revolution and White Revolution also introduced to improve the condition of agriculture.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, various provisions for crop insurance, the establishment of Grameen banks, cooperative societies and banks for providing loan facilities to the farmers at lower rates of interest.
• Kissan Credit Card (KCC), Personal Accident Insurance Scheme (PAIS) are some other schemes introduced by the Government of India for the benefit of the farmers.
• Special weather bulletins and agricultural programmes for farmers were introduced on the radio and television.
• Minimum support price, remunerative and procurement prices for important crops to check the exploitation of farmers by speculators and middlemen.