Chapter 13: Agriculture – I
Twenty-five years ago this field was alive. Turn a spade of its soil and earthworms coiled away from the light, and beetles ran for cover. The family that farms it grew paddy through the summer rains and wheat through the winter, and the land carried both without complaint. Around 2014-15 the field still gave 95 quintals of paddy and 70 quintals of wheat from every hectare. A quintal is 100 kilograms and a hectare is 10,000 square metres, so that is close to ten tonnes of rice from a plot about the size of two football grounds. Today the same field, given the same quantity of chemical fertiliser, returns 85 quintals of paddy and 65 quintals of wheat. Nothing visible has changed. The tubewell still runs, the seed is still the high-yielding kind, the fertiliser sack still weighs the same. But turn the spade now and the soil is quiet. No worms, no beetles, nothing moving. Ten quintals of paddy have gone missing from every hectare, and nobody carried them away. They were spent slowly, by the way the land was farmed. This chapter is about that bargain — what Indian agriculture gained when it learned to grow more, and what it has been quietly paying since.
Diagram
Fig. 13.A1 Caption: The same field, twenty-five years apart, with the same sack of fertiliser and a smaller harvest. Brief: Two-panel illustration of one field; left panel shows dark crumbly soil with earthworms and beetles and a tall grain heap, right panel shows pale compacted soil with no soil life and a visibly smaller heap; label both panels with the paddy yield per hectare, and place the identical fertiliser sack in both.
13.1 What Agriculture Is
The word ‘agriculture’ comes from two Latin words. ‘Ager’ means ‘land’ and ‘culture’ means ‘cultivation’, so the word carries its own meaning inside it — the working of land. Agriculture is the cultivation of the soil in order to grow crops and rear livestock.
Its essential purpose is simple and it has not changed in ten thousand years. Agriculture produces food from land, for human beings and for animals. Everything else the sector does — supplying mills, earning foreign exchange, employing people — sits on top of that single purpose.
India is primarily an agricultural country, because two-thirds of its population depends on agriculture. That is why agriculture is called the mainstay and the backbone of India’s economy. A backbone does not do the country’s walking, but nothing else stands upright without it.
How Much Of The Economy
According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, agriculture and the allied sector account for a measurable share of what India earns and does. (a) It contributes 16.5% of India’s Gross Value Added, or GVA, which is the value that each sector of the economy adds to the goods it works on. (b) It contributes 17.32% of India’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, which is the total value of all the goods and services the country produces in a year. (c) It makes up a 13% share of the total value of India’s exports. (d) It provides employment to 58% of the labour force, either directly or indirectly. (e) It supports 70% of rural households, who depend upon agriculture for their living.
Hold two of those numbers side by side, because together they say something neither says alone. Agriculture occupies well over half the working population but returns about a sixth of the country’s value added. A great many people are therefore sharing a comparatively small pool of income.
How India’s Land Is Used
Not all of India’s land is farmed, and the land that is farmed is only part of a larger picture. Net sown area is the land actually sown with crops in a year, counted once even where two crops are taken from it. Fig. 13.1 sets out how the country’s land is divided.
Graph
Fig. 13.1 Caption: How India’s land is divided, by share of the total area. Brief: Pie chart redrawn from the land-use chart printed in this chapter; seven slices labelled with name and percentage — net sown area 46.24%, forests 22.78%, non-agricultural 14.17%, fallow lands 8.13%, waste lands 4.17%, pastures and grazing lands 3.38%, trees and groves 1.11%; keep the largest slice visually dominant and set the three smallest slices with leader lines.
What Makes India Suited To Farming
India farms as much of itself as it does because the physical conditions allow it. The chapter names five of them. (a) A vast expanse of level land gives large stretches that can be ploughed, irrigated and worked by machine without terracing. (b) Rich soil across much of that level land supplies the plant nutrients a crop needs. (c) Wide climatic variations mean different parts of the country suit different crops, so between them the states can grow many types. (d) Ample sunshine lets crops photosynthesise strongly for most of the year. (e) A long growing season allows the land to carry a crop over more months than a colder country could manage.
Together these provide the necessary conditions for the development of agriculture in India. They are conditions, though, not guarantees. The agricultural output depends on the monsoon, because nearly 55 per cent of the area sown is dependent on rainfall rather than on any irrigation the farmer controls. Sunshine and level ground are permanent. Rain, in India, is not.
13.2 Importance Of Agriculture
Calling agriculture the backbone of the economy is a claim, and a claim has to be shown. Agriculture plays a significant role in the Indian economy in five distinct ways, and they are not five versions of the same point. (a) It provides food for our expanding population and fodder for our livestock, which is the first demand any economy has to meet before it can do anything else. (b) It generates working capital for non-agricultural development, and supplies raw materials for agro-based industries such as textile, sugar, food processing and vanaspati, which cannot run at all without a farm behind them. (c) It provides a large part of the market for industrial goods, especially the farm inputs a cultivator buys — fertilizers, pesticides, implements and machinery. (d) It accounts for a substantial portion of India’s exports. (e) It provides employment to millions of people.
Point (c) is the one students usually read past, and it is the most interesting. Agriculture is not only a supplier to industry; it is also industry’s customer. A factory making tractors or fertiliser sells to farmers, so a season that leaves cultivators without money empties that factory’s order book. The two sectors are tied at both ends.
Fig. 13.A2 draws these links together, because the connections run in more than one direction at once.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A2 Caption: Farm output leaves the field along four separate routes, and money returns along one of them. Nodes: farm output → food and fodder for the population; farm output → raw materials → agro-based industries (textile, sugar, food processing, vanaspati); farm output → exports → foreign exchange; farm output → sale → farm income → purchase of fertilizers, pesticides, implements and machinery → back to the farm as inputs
The Backbone Of India’s Progress
The same importance can be read a second way, by asking what would be missing if the sector shrank. Agriculture underpins India’s progress at several points at once. (a) Livelihood and employment: agriculture is a primary source of livelihood, employing a substantial portion of the Indian workforce and providing jobs in rural areas. (b) Contribution to GDP: agriculture and the allied sectors contribute significantly to the country’s Gross Value Added. (c) Exports and foreign exchange: India exports agricultural products such as rice, spices and cotton, and these sales earn foreign exchange. (d) Raw materials: it provides the essential raw materials on which numerous agro-based industries depend for their growth. (e) Cost advantage: India holds a competitive advantage in certain agricultural exports, such as cotton and tea, because of low labour costs. (f) Food security: agriculture is fundamental to providing food for India’s large population. (g) Rural development: the sector is crucial for the economic stability and development of rural communities, helping to reduce poverty and to prevent migration to urban centres. (h) Reduced household expenditure: for an individual farmer, growing food at home lowers what the household must spend on buying it.
Point (g) is worth pausing on. When farming supports a family where it already lives, that family has less reason to leave for a city, so agriculture quietly shapes where Indians live and not only what they eat. When it stops supporting them, the movement to towns begins — and that movement is a consequence of conditions in the countryside, never a judgement on the people who make it.
13.3 Indian Agriculture: Problems
A great deal of effort has gone into agricultural development in India, and yet the yield from an Indian field is still low when set beside the yield from a field in a developed country. Yield is the quantity of crop harvested from a fixed area of land, usually a hectare, so it measures how hard the land is working rather than how much land there is.
No single cause explains that gap. Low yield is produced by the interplay of several factors working on each other at once, and the chapter sorts them into four groups. (a) Environmental factors, which concern rain, water, soil and the way land is treated. (b) Institutional factors, which concern how land is owned and who actually works it. (c) Economic factors, which concern money — what the farmer can afford, borrow and sell for. (d) Technological factors, which concern the tools and techniques in use.
Fig. 13.A3 lays the four groups out with the factors that sit inside each, so you can see the shape of the whole problem before entering any part of it.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A3 Caption: Low agricultural yield in India has four groups of causes, and each group holds several. Nodes: low agricultural yield → environmental factors / institutional factors / economic factors / technological factors; environmental factors → unreliable rainfall → lack of irrigation facilities → soil erosion and degradation → methods of cultivation → demand for food crops → reduction in net sown area; institutional factors → small and fragmented landholdings → exploitation of farmers; economic factors → subsistence agriculture → human elements → challenges posed by globalisation; technological factors → old and inefficient techniques
13.3.1 Environmental Factors
Unreliable Rainfall
Indian agriculture depends to a large extent on the monsoons, and the monsoons are uncertain, irregular and unequally distributed. They may arrive late, they may stop in the middle of a growing season, and they may deliver to one district what a neighbouring district needed.
Nearly 55 per cent of the net sown area continues to depend on rainfall rather than on irrigation. That is the reason a failed monsoon is not a local inconvenience. When the rains fail, agricultural production is badly affected, and the result is a scarcity of food grains.
Lack Of Irrigation Facilities
India has the largest irrigated area of cultivated land in the world, which sounds like an answer to the problem above but is not. A large per cent of the net sown area still lacks irrigation facilities and is left dependent on the monsoon, and for such a field either the failure of the monsoon or too much rainfall leads to crop failure.
Where irrigation does exist, it can create a fresh problem of its own. Free power supply to a section of farmers encourages them to pump groundwater in order to grow water-intensive crops in low-rainfall areas — sugarcane in Maharashtra, in the west of the Deccan, and rice in Punjab, in the north-western plains. Neither crop belongs to a dry region by nature; cheap electricity makes it possible to grow them there anyway.
The water for that pumping comes out of aquifers, the layers of rock and sediment underground that hold water in the spaces between their grains. Unsustainable pumping has reduced the water stored in them. Consequently many wells and tubewells have become dry, and losing the well has pushed marginal and small farmers out of cultivation altogether.
Soil Erosion And Degradation
Soil erosion is not only a major cause of decreasing soil fertility; it also results in the loss of valuable crop land, because the soil that leaves a field does not come back. Indiscriminate cutting of trees, overgrazing and faulty land-use practices have greatly accelerated the processes of soil erosion and soil degradation.
Despite years of programmes on crop diversification and sustainable groundwater management, the soils are only deteriorating. As a result, yields are dropping every year. To hold the same yield as the previous year, farmers are forced to use more fertilisers per hectare — which means the input rises while the output stands still, and the cost of that gap is paid by the cultivator.
Methods Of Cultivation
A large number of crops are grown in India, yet their average productivity is quite low compared with other developed countries. The reasons sit one behind another. (a) Old and inefficient methods and techniques of farming are still in use. (b) Irrigation facilities are inadequate, so the crop remains at the mercy of the season. (c) Farmers are unable to purchase good quality seeds and modern equipment, because of a paucity of funds. (d) The latest know-how and inputs do not reach them.
Demand For Food Crops
In India, agriculture is practised by the repetitive cultivation of the main two food crops, rice and wheat. Growing the same two crops on the same land season after season deplete the soil fertility, because each crop draws the same nutrients out of the ground and nothing is put back in their place.
Reduction In Net Sown Area
Over recent decades there has been a gradual shift away from the cultivation of food crops towards fruits, vegetables, oil-seeds and industrial crops. Commercial crops are preferred to food crops, and the result has been a reduction in the net sown area under cereals and pulses.
Land is also being lost from farming altogether. There is competition for land between agriculture and non-agricultural uses such as housing, and this has caused a decline in the net sown area. A smaller sown area growing a smaller share of cereals has led to a decline in food production.
13.3.2 Institutional Factors
Small And Fragmented Landholdings
The majority of landholdings in India are very small, and they are often fragmented as well — one family’s land lying in several separate patches rather than in one block. Small and fragmented holdings cannot promote modern agriculture, because a tractor, a tubewell or a levelling machine cannot be used economically across scattered strips.
These owners are poor. They do not generate enough income to buy new farm machinery or to make heavy investment, and therefore no scientific cultivation with improved techniques and seeds can take place on their land. The holding is small because the family is poor, and the family stays poor because the holding is small.
Exploitation Of Farmers
The land tenure system is another important reason for low productivity in India. Land tenure means the terms on which a person holds the land they cultivate — as owner, as tenant, or on some share of the crop. Under the Zamindari system, the cultivator was only a tenant who could be turned out of the land at the owner’s will.
The Zamindari system has been abolished, but its effects have not been completely wiped out. There is a section of landowners who act as absentee landlords, living away from the land and getting their cultivation done through tenants and share croppers, who pay for the use of the land with a share of what they harvest.
Besides the tenants, a large number of landless labourers also exist. They are paid a paltry sum as wages, and some are made to work as bonded labourers. The consequence for productivity is direct: neither the owners nor the tenants have the urge to raise production, because the person who would gain from the extra effort is not the person who has to make it.
13.3.3 Economic Factors
Subsistence Agriculture
Subsistence agriculture, which is farming carried on mainly to feed the cultivator’s own household rather than to sell, is the type mainly practised in India. The reason is arithmetic rather than choice. The per capita cultivable land in India is a mere one-fourth hectare, and the farm produce from it is just enough to sustain the farmer.
Fifty metres by fifty metres, per person, for a whole year of eating. That figure explains why subsistence rather than sale is the normal condition of Indian farming: on such an area, a household that sold its grain would have nothing to eat. It also explains why a small fall in yield matters so much here, and so little to a farmer working a large holding — when the margin above survival is thin, one bad season removes it entirely.
Human Elements
Farmers in India are poor and debt-ridden, and many have had little formal schooling. They do not follow the modern techniques of farming, nor can they purchase modern equipment, and the barrier in each case is money rather than willingness.
Two further shortages tighten the same knot. Marketing facilities are lacking, so the crop is hard to sell well, and loans at a fair rate of interest are not available, so the farmer cannot invest the requisite resources in agriculture. They also have no security against the failure of crops, and no capital of their own to invest.
Challenges Posed By Globalisation
Till the early 1990’s India had a closed door economic policy, which kept foreign goods and foreign competition largely out of the Indian market. It was largely felt that by opening Indian markets to the world, India’s economy would improve. Globalisation is that opening — the linking of a country’s markets with those of the rest of the world.
The change had a huge impact on Indian agriculture. Firstly, the withdrawal of the government’s role in promoting agriculture led to the removal of many subsidies that had gone from the government to the farmers. A subsidy is money the government pays so that an input, such as fertiliser, costs the buyer less than it costs to produce. Agricultural infrastructure saw less aid from the government, and this in turn led to the plight of farmers who fell prey to corporate intrusion.
Consequently, Indian farmers are facing a big challenge from international competition. Some of the reasons for this are as follows. (a) The cost of production of crops is increasing, because the government has reduced the subsidy on fertilizers. (b) The reduction of import duty on agricultural products has proved detrimental to the farmers, since a lower tax on incoming goods makes foreign produce cheaper in Indian markets. (c) The cost of agricultural crops in the Indian market is increasing, while the cost in international markets is decreasing.
That last point is the one that decides the contest, so it is worth asking why prices abroad are falling. The chapter gives three reasons. (a) Sophisticated farm machinery is used, which has led to a reduction in the cost of production. (b) Rapid progress in the field of biotechnology has made highly productive seeds available to farmers. (c) Heavy subsidies are given to the farmers in the developed countries, which results in a low production cost.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A4 Caption: Three separate causes push world prices down while Indian costs rise, and the Indian farmer stands between them. Nodes: sophisticated machinery → lower production cost; biotechnology → highly productive seeds → higher output per farm; heavy subsidies in developed countries → lower production cost; all three → falling international prices; meanwhile subsidy on fertilizers reduced → rising Indian production cost; falling international prices + reduced import duty + rising Indian cost → Indian produce undercut in its own market
The third reason deserves a second look, because it is not a matter of technology at all. Subsidy is being removed on one side of the world and paid heavily on the other, and the Indian cultivator is competing not only with a foreign farmer but with a foreign government’s treasury.
13.3.4 Technological Factors
Old And Inefficient Techniques
Most of the farmers in India use old and inefficient techniques of farming. Wooden ploughs and bullocks are still used by a large number of farmers, and mechanisation — the replacement of human and animal power by machines — is limited.
The same holds for water. Farmers continue to use traditional methods of irrigation, and with such methods only one-third of the cropped area could be provided with irrigation facilities. Two-thirds of the cropped land is therefore left waiting on the rain, which returns the argument to where this section began.
13.4 Reforms
Agriculture has been the backbone of the Indian economy, and yet over the years its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product has been declining. This is a matter of serious concern, and the reason takes a moment to see. Any decline in agriculture leads to a decline in other sectors of the economy, because those sectors buy their raw material and sell their machinery to the same countryside.
To check this decline, the Government of India has taken a number of steps. (a) The Indian Council of Agriculture Research, or ICAR, was established to carry out research on crops and farming methods. (b) Agricultural universities were set up, so that trained people would be available to work on those problems. (c) Veterinary services and animal breeding centres were provided, since livestock is part of the same farm economy. (d) Horticulture development was taken up, to support the growing of fruits and vegetables. (e) Research and development was extended into meteorology and weather forecasting, so that a farmer might know in advance what the season is likely to do. (f) Kisan Call Centres were set up to address the queries and grievances of farmers.
The laboratory work behind several of these steps looks like Fig. 13.2, where plants are raised and tested under controlled conditions rather than in a field.
Diagram
Fig. 13.2 Caption: Use of biotechnology in agriculture. Brief: Source or draw a photograph of a gloved technician handling young plants growing in a laboratory tray of individual wells; keep the controlled, indoor setting clearly visible and label nothing on the image itself.
Encouraging Crop Diversification
The productivity of agricultural land is reducing because of the extensive cultivation of food crops. Crop diversification is the answer being tried — growing a wider range of crops instead of returning to the same one or two, so that the soil is not asked for the same nutrients every season. The Government is taking measures to encourage it, with three aims: to enhance agricultural sustainability, to improve farmers’ incomes, and to reduce dependency on staple crops.
The measures themselves are of six kinds. (a) The Crop Diversification Programme, or CDP, gives financial assistance to farmers to shift from traditional crops like rice and wheat to high-value crops like fruits, vegetables and pulses. (b) Public-Private Partnerships, or PPP, are collaborations with the private sector to provide better market linkages, so that farmers get fair prices for their diversified crops. (c) Services educate farmers about the benefits of crop diversification and provide technical support, along with high-yielding disease-resistant varieties of alternative crops. (d) Subsidies are given for seeds, fertilizers and other inputs. (e) Crop insurance schemes are offered. (f) Market support establishes better market infrastructure and ensures a Minimum Support Price for diversified crops, to make them more attractive to farmers.
A policy is only as good as what happens when a farmer tries to act on it, and here the difficulties are real. Farmers attempting diversification of crops meet seven kinds of obstacle. (a) Financial constraints, because a new crop demands additional investment in seeds and equipment. (b) Limited market opportunities for the less popular crops, which may be grown and then not sold. (c) Climate sensitivity, since new crops may not be as resilient as traditional crops to changing weather patterns. (d) Inadequate post-harvest infrastructure, such as storage and transportation facilities, which hampers the ability to manage and market diversified crops effectively. (e) Gaps in knowledge and awareness about the benefits and methods of crop diversification. (f) Hesitancy to switch away from traditional crops, because of the risks a farmer perceives in the new ones. (g) Existing policies and governmental schemes, which may not effectively support crop diversification at the ground level.
Read those two lists against each other and a pattern appears. Almost every measure is offered at the moment of sowing, while almost every obstacle arrives after the harvest — in storage, in transport, in finding a buyer. A farmer decides what to plant by imagining the whole journey, not the first step of it.
13.4.1 The Green Revolution
The ‘Green Revolution’ transformed the Indian economy from food scarcity to food self-sufficiency. It refers to the manifold increase in India’s farm production and productivity, particularly in the case of major cereal crops like wheat, which followed the adoption of the ‘New Agricultural Strategy’ since the late-sixties.
The Key Elements Of The New Strategy
The strategy was a package, and the parts of it were meant to work together rather than one at a time. (a) Use of large capital and technological inputs. (b) Adoption of modern scientific methods of farming. (c) Use of High Yielding Varieties, or HYV, of seeds — seeds bred to return far more grain per plant when they are given enough water and nutrients. (d) Extension of irrigation facilities, particularly using ground water resources. (e) Proper use of chemical fertilizers. (f) Improvement in marketing and storage facilities. (g) Use of insecticides and pesticides. (h) Consolidation of landholdings, bringing a family’s scattered patches together into workable blocks. (i) Supply of agricultural credit. (j) Rural electrification.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A5 Caption: One package of inputs produced both the rise in output and the damage that followed it. Nodes: New Agricultural Strategy → HYV seeds + irrigation from ground water + chemical fertilizers + pesticides + credit + rural electrification → higher production and productivity of cereals → food self-sufficiency → shift from subsistence to commercial farming; the same inputs → overuse of fertilizers and pesticides → land degradation; the same inputs → heavy pumping of ground water → drying of aquifers; the same inputs → few crops grown in place of many → vanishing biodiversity
What The Green Revolution Did
The first Green Revolution had five effects on Indian agriculture. (a) It enabled Indian agriculture to change from subsistence to commercial and market-oriented farming. (b) It led to the development of an intensive agricultural production system, which increased production and paved the way for self-sufficiency in food grains. (c) The adoption of new technology created more employment opportunities in the agriculture sector. (d) It enabled farmers to obtain increasing returns from agriculture, by greater utilisation of agricultural inputs. (e) It increased rural prosperity.
At present, however, the Green Revolution is being criticised by environmental scientists. They allege that it caused land degradation through the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, the drying of aquifers, and vanishing biodiversity — the loss of the variety of crops, plants and small creatures that a farmed landscape once held.
Steps Taken Besides The Green Revolution
A number of further steps have been taken to improve agricultural production in India. (a) Various land reforms have been introduced, and Zamindari along with all intermediaries has been completely abolished. (b) Legislations have been passed in most of the states to prevent the subdivision and fragmentation of lands beyond a certain limit. (c) An Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme has been started, to create irrigation infrastructure and ensure that irrigation projects are completed and fully used. (d) The Government announces Minimum Support Prices, or MSP, for agricultural crops from time to time, to ensure adequate returns to the farmers. (e) In 2004 the Government started Kisan Call Centres, which are working in 21 different locations covering almost all the states of the country. (f) The Government provides subsidy on fertilizers, to ensure that adequate fertilizer is available to farmers at reasonable rates. (g) The Government is promoting the balanced use of fertilizers, so that soil fertility is not decreased by excessive use of chemical fertilizers.
The irrigation programme in point (c) carries several other elements with it: the promotion of better management practices, the installation of sprinkler and drip irrigation systems in water scarce and drought prone areas, the conjunctive use of surface and ground water so that neither source is drawn on alone, and the farmer’s own participation in irrigation water systems.
The Kisan Call Centres in point (e) are staffed by agents known as Farm Tele-Advisors, or FTAs, who respond to the queries of farmers and give them knowledge about new and modern methods of farming. Taking into account the diversity of the country, the service is available in 22 vernacular languages. Periodic training and monitoring are conducted for the tele-advisors, for quality assurance and the successful resolution of the issues brought to them.
Point (g) has a piece of equipment behind it. Soil testing laboratories have been set up in India to check the health and fertility of soil, so that a farmer can be told what a particular field actually lacks instead of adding fertiliser by habit.
13.5 Types Of Farming In India
India is a vast country with various climatic patterns and geographical conditions. Against this background, different types of farming are undertaken in different parts of the country. The type practised in a place is not a matter of taste; it follows from how much land a family holds, how many hands are available, how much water reaches the field, and whether there is a market close enough to sell into.
Six types are studied here, and Fig. 13.A6 shows how they are related before we take them one at a time.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A6 Caption: Farming in India divides first by what the produce is for, and then by how the land is worked. Nodes: farming in India → grown mainly to eat / grown mainly to sell; grown mainly to eat → subsistence farming; grown mainly to sell → commercial farming; commercial farming → worked by many hands on small farms → intensive farming; commercial farming → worked by machines on large farms → extensive farming; commercial farming → one crop on a large estate → plantation farming; commercial farming → crops and animals together → mixed farming
13.5.1 Subsistence Farming
The majority of farmers in India practise subsistence farming. It is characterised by small and scattered landholdings, and by the use of primitive tools such as the hoe and the digging stick, worked by the members of the family themselves rather than by hired labour.
Because these farmers are poor, they do not use fertilizers or high yielding varieties of seeds in their fields, and facilities such as electricity and irrigation are generally not available to them. These conditions together result in low productivity. Most of the food produced is consumed by the farmers and their families, so little of it ever reaches a market.
The picture is not fixed, though. Where facilities like irrigation and electricity have become available, farming has improved, and in many places subsistence agriculture has given way to commercial agriculture. What changes the type of farming is the arrival of water and power, not a change of heart.
The main features of subsistence farming are as follows. (a) Landholdings are small and scattered. (b) The farmers use traditional methods of agriculture. (c) It depends upon the monsoon, the natural fertility of the soil and other environmental conditions. (d) The output is not very high, and it is consumed within the family. (e) Food crops dominate, and there is never a surplus for the market.
Diagram
Fig. 13.3 Caption: Subsistence farming, worked with a wooden plough and a pair of bullocks. Brief: Source or draw a photograph of a farmer ploughing a small field behind a yoked pair of bullocks, with palm trees and no machinery anywhere in the frame; keep the field small and irregular in shape.
13.5.2 Commercial Farming
Commercial farming, also known as agribusiness, is a system of agriculture that involves the cultivation of crops and the rearing of livestock for sale in the market. The crops grown are called cash crops, and they include sugarcane, tobacco, fibre crops and oilseeds.
This type of agriculture involves the use of High Yielding Variety seeds, chemical fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides, all of them bought in order to obtain higher productivity. The farmer is spending money at the start of the season in the expectation of earning more at the end of it, which is the essential difference from a subsistence field.
The degree of commercialisation of agriculture varies in different parts of the country, and one crop can belong to two systems at once. Rice is a commercial crop in Punjab and Haryana, but it is a subsistence crop in Odisha, on the east coast. The plant is the same; what differs is whether the household eats the harvest or sells it.
Commercial farming has shown good results in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the upper Ganga plain, Gujarat in the west, and Andhra Pradesh on the south-eastern coast. In most other states there are small landholdings, and therefore commercial farming cannot be popularised throughout the country. The Government is now trying to change this situation through the consolidation of such landholdings.
It is usually practised in areas where plenty of land is available and the market economy is well developed. The main features of commercial farming are as follows. (a) Crops are grown mainly for sale. (b) Large farms are required. (c) Mechanised farming is practised. (d) It is prevalent in areas where farms are large and the market economy is well developed.
Diagram
Fig. 13.4 Caption: Commercial farming, with combine harvesters loading grain straight into waiting trucks. Brief: Source or draw a photograph of a large open field being harvested by two combine harvesters discharging grain into trucks alongside; show unbroken field with no hedges or boundaries to convey scale.
13.5.3 Intensive Farming
Intensive farming is the system under which small farms are cultivated intensively, using large inputs of manual labour, manures and fertilizers. It is a labour intensive system, which means it needs a great deal of human work for every hectare cultivated, and it is therefore practised in those areas where the density of population is high.
The emphasis is laid on increasing the per hectare yield rather than on adding more land. That is done with good quality seeds, rich manure and fertilizers, and a water supply through irrigation. Usually more than one crop is cultivated on the same field, and the land is kept under one crop or another throughout the year, so the soil is never left idle.
This type of agriculture is practised in the irrigated areas of the plains of northern India and in the coastal areas of South India. The main crops grown are rice and wheat, and Fig. 13.5 shows how large a share of India’s cropped output those two account for.
Graph
Fig. 13.5 Caption: The share of India’s crops grown, crop by crop. Brief: Pie chart redrawn from the crops chart printed in this chapter; ten slices labelled with name and percentage — rice 32%, wheat 26%, sugarcane 11%, oilseeds 9%, pulses 5%, cotton 4%, maize 4%, jowar 3%, bajra 3%, jute 3%; keep rice and wheat adjacent so their combined share reads as one arc.
The main features of intensive farming are as follows. (a) Small farms are intensively cultivated. (b) More than one crop is cultivated on the same field. (c) To increase the output, rich manure and fertilizers, good quality seeds and irrigation facilities are used. (d) It is a labour intensive system.
13.5.4 Extensive Farming
Extensive farming is practised on farms of large size with the help of machines, and the input of labour per unit area is low. Crop specialisation is one of its major characteristics — the farmer specialises in a couple of major commercial crops instead of growing many.
The emphasis is laid on increased production. Since the productivity here is based on the natural fertility of the soil, the climate and the terrain of the area rather than on heavy feeding of the land, it is practised on large farms to achieve higher yields. The total crop production is high because the landholding is large, but it is low in terms of per unit production.
That last sentence is the whole contrast between the two systems, and it is worth holding still for a moment. Intensive farming takes a small field and pushes every hectare as hard as it will go, using many hands and much manure, so the yield per hectare is high but the total is limited by the size of the plot. Extensive farming takes a large field and works it lightly with machines, so the yield per hectare is modest while the total harvest is large. Both are commercial; they differ in whether the scarce thing is land or labour.
The main crops grown are rice, wheat, sugarcane and the like. This type of farming is almost absent in India except among some rich farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, because holdings of the required size simply do not exist in most of the country.
The main features of extensive farming are as follows. (a) Farms are huge in size. (b) Machines are used. (c) The farmer specialises in the production of one or two major commercial crops. (d) It is highly capital intensive, which means a great deal of money must be put into machinery before any crop is taken off. (e) Crop yield is high, with a large surplus for sale. (f) Because chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used less, it is an environment friendly method.
Shifting Agriculture
Alongside these systems, one much older practice survives in parts of India. Shifting agriculture, also known as the ‘slash and burn method’, is a primitive agricultural practice in which a patch of forest is cleared, the trees are felled, and the stumps are set on fire. The cleared patch is then cultivated for a few years, until the fertility of the soil is reduced. The farmer then moves to a fresh piece of land, and the same process is repeated.
Like subsistence farming, it is dependent upon the monsoon, the natural fertility of the soil and the suitability of other environmental conditions. Fig. 13.A7 shows why it has to keep moving.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A7 Caption: Shifting agriculture is a cycle, and each turn of it needs a fresh patch of forest. Nodes: patch of forest cleared → trees felled and stumps burnt → ash left on the ground → patch cultivated for a few years → soil fertility falls → patch abandoned → farmer moves to a fresh patch → back to a patch of forest cleared
Diagram
Fig. 13.7 Caption: A cleared patch being burnt before cultivation. Brief: Source or draw a photograph of a farmer standing at the edge of a burning cleared patch with smoke rising across the ground and forest visible behind; show the ash layer left on the burnt surface.
This type of cultivation is known by different names in different regions of India — Jhum in Assam in the north-east, Ponam in Kerala on the south-western coast, Podu in Andhra Pradesh, Koman or Bringa in Odisha, Khil in the Himalayan region, Kuruwa in Jharkhand in eastern India, and Bewar, Masha, Penda and Hera in various parts of Madhya Pradesh in central India. As far as possible the government has tried to discourage this type of cultivation, because of its wasteful nature and its adverse effects on the environment.
Intercropping is used in many areas as an alternative to shifting cultivation. It refers to the practice of growing two or more crops next to each other at the same time, in a way that they do not compete with each other for space, nutrients, water and sunlight. For example, intercropping involves planting one crop with deep roots along with another having shallow roots, so that the two draw from different levels of the soil instead of from the same one. Besides this, the government is promoting timber tree plantations to discourage the practice of shifting cultivation.
13.5.5 Plantation Farming
Plantations are large tracts of land, or estates, used for the cultivation of a single agricultural crop such as tea, coffee, rubber or spices. A plantation is usually a monoculture over a large area — one crop and one crop only — and it does not include naturally occurring plants.
This type of farming is labour intensive and carries a huge capital investment, involving modern and scientific techniques. Plantations were introduced in India by the Europeans, and plantation crops usually cater to the export market and earn foreign exchange.
Plantation farming is carried on in some parts of India, such as the hills of south India and the north-east. Tea, coffee and rubber are cultivated in Kerala and Karnataka in the south-west, in parts of north Bengal below the eastern Himalayas, and in the Assam lowlands along the Brahmaputra valley.
Diagram
Fig. 13.6 Caption: A rubber plantation, with every tree of one kind and tapping cups fixed to the trunks. Brief: Source or draw a photograph looking down a rubber estate where all trees are the same species, evenly spaced and of the same age, with collection cups strapped to the trunks; keep the undergrowth cleared to show the monoculture.
The main features of plantation farming are as follows. (a) One crop is cultivated using modern scientific methods. (b) Chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides are used extensively. (c) It is undertaken on a large tract of land, using modern machinery. (d) Commercial crops are grown for sale. (e) Capital investment is made in order to meet the expenses. (f) The latest technology and modern methods of agriculture are used.
13.5.6 Mixed Farming
The cultivation of crops and the raising of animals simultaneously is called mixed farming. Subsidiary occupations such as fruit and vegetable gardening or poultry-farming may also be practised on the same holding.
Two or more crops are grown together. In such cases a number of crops with varying maturing periods are sown at the same time, and the crop that matures early is generally harvested before the long maturing crop has finished growing. The field therefore yields twice from one sowing season, without the two crops standing in each other’s way.
Mixed farming ensures a steady income for the farmer. If the agriculture fails, because of adverse climate or for any other reason, the household can fall back on its other means, such as cattle raising, for income. Spreading the risk across crops and animals is the point of the system.
The main features of mixed farming are as follows. (a) Crops and animals are raised simultaneously. (b) Two or more crops are grown together. (c) Rotation of crops is practised. (d) It ensures a steady income to the farmers.
Organic Farming
Organic farming is a holistic system of farming, aimed primarily at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way as to keep the soil in good health. It uses organic wastes — crop, animal, farm and aquatic wastes — along with other biological materials and beneficial microbes known as biofertilisers, which release nutrients to the crops. The purpose is increased sustainable production in an eco-friendly, pollution free environment.
What it leaves out is as important as what it uses. Organic farming excludes synthetic inputs such as chemical fertilizers, and relies instead on crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, off-farm organic waste, and a biological system of nutrient mobilization and plant protection.
Cooperative Farming
Cooperative farming refers to an organisation of farmers in which the farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. Each member-farmer owns his land individually, but carries out all the farming activities jointly with the other member-farmers, and the profit is distributed in the ratio of land owned by each member-farmer.
In short, cooperative farming is a shared farming venture, set up to address common challenges and provide mutual benefit. It is a direct answer to the difficulty met earlier in this chapter — a holding too small to justify a tubewell or a tractor is no longer too small once ten such holdings are worked together.
13.6 Summary
- The word ‘agriculture’ comes from the Latin ‘ager’, meaning ‘land’, and ‘culture’, meaning ‘cultivation’. Agriculture is the cultivation of the soil in order to grow crops and rear livestock, and its essential purpose is to produce food from land for human or animal consumption.
- India is primarily an agricultural country, because two-thirds of its population depends on agriculture, which is the mainstay and the backbone of India’s economy.
- According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, agriculture and the allied sector account for 16.5% of India’s Gross Value Added, 17.32% of its Gross Domestic Product and a 13% share of the total value of exports. It gives employment to 58% of the labour force and supports 70% of rural households.
- Net sown area takes up 46.24% of India’s land, followed by forests at 22.78% and non-agricultural uses at 14.17%.
- Five conditions favour farming in India — a vast expanse of level land, rich soil, wide climatic variations, ample sunshine and a long growing season. Even so, output depends on the monsoon, because nearly 55 per cent of the area sown depends on rainfall.
- Agriculture matters to the economy in five ways.
- It provides food for the population and fodder for livestock.
- It generates working capital for non-agricultural development and supplies raw materials to agro-based industries.
- It provides a large part of the market for industrial goods, especially farm inputs.
- It accounts for a substantial portion of India’s exports.
- It provides employment to millions of people.
- Agricultural yield in India is still low compared with developed countries, and the causes fall into four groups — environmental, institutional, economic and technological.
- The environmental factors are six.
- Unreliable rainfall, since the monsoons are uncertain, irregular and unequally distributed.
- Lack of irrigation facilities, worsened where free power encourages the pumping of groundwater for water-intensive crops until aquifers and wells run dry.
- Soil erosion and degradation, caused by indiscriminate tree cutting, overgrazing and faulty land use, which force farmers to use more fertilisers to hold the same yield.
- Old and inefficient methods of cultivation, which keep average productivity low.
- Demand for food crops, since the repetitive cultivation of rice and wheat depletes soil fertility.
- Reduction in net sown area, as commercial crops replace cereals and housing takes farmland.
- The institutional factors are two — small and fragmented landholdings that cannot support modern machinery, and the exploitation of farmers under the land tenure system, which leaves neither owner nor tenant with the urge to raise production.
- The economic factors are three — subsistence agriculture on a per capita cultivable land of only one-fourth hectare, the poverty and indebtedness of farmers, and the challenges posed by globalisation since the early 1990’s.
- The technological factor is the continued use of old and inefficient techniques, with wooden ploughs and bullocks still in wide use and only one-third of the cropped area able to be irrigated by traditional methods.
- To check the declining contribution of agriculture to GDP, the Government set up ICAR, agricultural universities, veterinary and animal breeding centres, horticulture development, weather forecasting research and Kisan Call Centres. It also promotes crop diversification through the Crop Diversification Programme, public-private partnerships, services, subsidies, crop insurance and market support.
- The Green Revolution followed the New Agricultural Strategy of the late-sixties and turned India from food scarcity to food self-sufficiency, especially in cereals like wheat, through HYV seeds, irrigation, chemical fertilizers, credit, consolidation of holdings and rural electrification.
- Its impact and its cost belong to the same package.
- It moved Indian agriculture from subsistence to commercial and market-oriented farming, raised production, created employment and increased rural prosperity.
- Environmental scientists allege that it caused land degradation from overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, the drying of aquifers and vanishing biodiversity.
- Further steps include land reforms abolishing Zamindari, laws against further fragmentation, the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme, Minimum Support Prices, Kisan Call Centres started in 2004 in 21 locations and 22 vernacular languages, fertiliser subsidy, and soil testing laboratories for balanced fertiliser use.
- Six types of farming are practised in India.
- Subsistence farming, on small scattered holdings worked with primitive tools, where the family eats what it grows.
- Commercial farming, or agribusiness, where cash crops and livestock are raised for sale using bought inputs.
- Intensive farming, where small farms are worked hard with labour, manure and irrigation to raise the yield per hectare.
- Extensive farming, where large farms are worked lightly with machines, giving a high total but a low per unit production.
- Plantation farming, a monoculture of tea, coffee, rubber or spices on large estates, catering mainly to the export market.
- Mixed farming, where crops and animals are raised together so that income stays steady if one of them fails.
- Shifting agriculture, or the ‘slash and burn method’, clears and burns a forest patch, cultivates it until fertility falls and then moves on. It is known by names such as Jhum, Ponam, Podu, Koman, Khil, Kuruwa and Bewar, and the government discourages it, promoting intercropping and timber tree plantations instead.
- Organic farming keeps the soil healthy using organic wastes and biofertilisers while excluding synthetic inputs, and cooperative farming lets member-farmers who own land individually pool their resources and work it jointly.
Flowchart
Fig. 13.A8 Caption: The chapter in one chain — conditions, problems, the strategy that answered them, and what that answer cost. Nodes: level land + rich soil + sunshine + long growing season → farming possible across India; but monsoon dependence + small fragmented holdings + old techniques + poverty → low yield and subsistence farming; low yield → New Agricultural Strategy of the late-sixties → HYV seeds + irrigation + chemical fertilizers + credit + electrification → higher production → food self-sufficiency → shift from subsistence to commercial farming; the same inputs → land degradation + drying aquifers + vanishing biodiversity → crop diversification, balanced fertiliser use and soil testing → back to the problem of holding yields on tired land
What This Chapter Cannot Tell You
Every figure here is a national one, and a national figure is an average of enormous differences. A country in which 46.24% of land is net sown area contains districts where almost nothing is sown and districts where almost everything is, and neither pie chart in this chapter says where any of it lies or which year it describes.
The six types of farming are categories, not fences. A single household may keep two animals, grow food for itself on one plot and a cash crop on another, so it sits in three categories at once. The classification tells you how systems differ; it does not tell you how any particular farm is actually run.
The chapter also states the costs of the Green Revolution as allegations made by environmental scientists, without giving the measurements behind them. To weigh the gain against the damage, a student would need the yield and the groundwater records themselves, and those are not printed here. ## 13.7 Check Your Concepts
- Use the two pie charts printed in this chapter.
- From Fig. 13.5, calculate the combined share of rice and wheat, and then the share left for all the other crops together.
- From Fig. 13.1, state one thing the chart does not tell you about the net sown area.
- Intensive farming is practised in the irrigated plains of northern India and the coastal areas of South India, and not on large, thinly peopled farms. Explain why the location of this type of farming follows from the kind of input it depends on.
- Trace, step by step, the chain of events that leads from a free supply of electricity to a small farmer being pushed out of cultivation. Name each step in order.
- Rice is a commercial crop in Punjab and Haryana but a subsistence crop in Odisha, although it is the same plant. Using what this chapter says about subsistence farming, explain what would have to change on an Odisha holding before its rice became a commercial crop.
- Why is agriculture said to be the backbone of the Indian economy?
- What was the impact of the Green Revolution on Indian agriculture?
- Give two points of difference between extensive and intensive farming.
- Give any two effects of globalisation on Indian agriculture.
- Agriculture in India is a gamble on the monsoon. Explain.
13.8 Case-Based Questions
- Look again at Fig. 13.4 and answer the following.
- Identify the farming method shown, and name the crops cultivated by this method.
- List two of its main features.
- How does this method of farming differ from subsistence farming?
- Taking one area of India where this farming is practised, explain how it benefits the farmer.