Main features of Indian Agriculture.
Some of the outstanding features of Indian agriculture are mentioned as follows.
1. Subsistence agriculture:
Most parts of India have 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.
This type of agriculture has been practised in India for the last several hundreds of years and still prevails in spite of the large scale changes in agricultural practices after Independence.
2. Pressure of population on agriculture:
The population in India is increasing at a rapid pace and exerts heavy pressure on agriculture. Agriculture has to provide employment to a large section of work force and has to feed the teeming millions. While looking into the present need of food grains, we require an additional 12-15 million hectares of land to cope with the increasing demands by 2010 A.D. Moreover, there is rising trend in urbanization.
Over one-fourth of the Indian population lived in urban areas in 2001 and it is estimated that over one-third of the total population of India would be living in urban areas by 2010 A.D. This requires more land for urban settlements which will ultimately encroach upon agricultural land. It is now estimated that about 4 lakh hectares of farm land is now being diverted to non-agricultural uses each year.
3. Importance of animals:
Animal force has always played a significant role in agricultural operations such as ploughing, irrigation, threshing and transporting the agricultural products. Complete mechanisation of Indian agriculture is still a distant goal and animals will continue to dominate the agricultural scene in India for several years to come.
4. Dependent upon Monsoon:
Indian agriculture is mainly dependent upon monsoon which is uncertain, unreliable and irregular. In spite of the large scale expansion of irrigation facilities since Independence, only one-third of the cropped area is provided by perennial irrigation and the remaining two-third of the cropped area has to bear the brunt of the vagaries of the monsoons.
5. Variety of crops:
India is a vast country with varied types of relief, climate and soil conditions. Therefore, there is a large variety of crops grown in India. Both the tropical and temperate crops are successfully grown in India. Very few countries in the world have a variety of crops comparable to that produced in India.
6. Predominance of food crops:
Since Indian agriculture has to feed a large population, production of food crops is the first priority of the farmers almost everywhere in the country. More than two-thirds of the total cropped area is devoted to the cultivation of food crops. However, with the change in cropping pattern, the relative share of food crops came down from 76.7 per cent in 1950-51 to 58.8 per cent in 2002-03.
7. Insignificant place to given fodder crops:
Although India has the largest population of livestock in the world, fodder crops are given a very insignificant place in our cropping pattern. Only four per cent of the reporting area is devoted to permanent pastures and other grazing lands. This is due to pressing demand of land for food crops. The result is that the domestic animals are not properly fed and their productivity is very low compared to international standards.
8. Seasonal pattern:
India has three major crop seasons.
(i) Kharif season starts with the onset of monsoons and continues till the beginning of winter. Major crops of this season are rice, maize, jowar, bajra, cotton, sesamum, groundnut and pulses such as moong, urad, etc.
(ii) Rabi season starts at the beginning of winter and continues till the end of winter or beginning of summer. Major crops of this season are wheat, barley, jowar, gram and oil seeds such as linseed, rape and mustard.
iii) Zaid is summer cropping season in which crops like rice, maize, groundnut, vegetables and fruits are grown. Now some varieties of pulses have been evolved which can be successfully grown in summer.
(iii) Zaid is cropping season in which crops like rice, maize, groundnut, vegetables and fruits are grown. Now some varieties of pulses have been evolved which can be successfully grown in summer.
