AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

INDIAN ECONOMY hinges on agriculture 58% of India's population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture .

"If agriculture goes wrong ,nothing else will have a chance to go right in India "- M.S.SWAMINATH.

CONTENTS:

1. Land Utilization

2. Determinants of Agriculture .

• physical factors

• Institutional factors

• Infrastructural factors

• Technological factors.

3.Infrastructure and agriculture Inputs.

4.Revolution.

• White revolution

• Green revolution

• Golden revolution

• Blue revolution

1. LAND UTILIZATION: The statistics are available for about 93%of total geographical area (328.75 million hectares).The net sown area accounts for about 46.15%of total reporting area of India, against the world average of about 32%.

• The cultivators and farmers grow crops mainly for the family consumption .It is only in the controlled irrigated parts of the country like Punjab ,Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Kaveri delta where agriculture has become an agri-business or is market oriented .

• At present , the per capita agricultural land is only about 0.10 hectare as against 0.30 hectares in 1951.The world average of per head availability of agricultural land is about 4.5 hectares .The fast growth of population industrialization and urbanization are putting enormous pressure on arable land.

• MIXED CROPPING is a characteristic of subsistent agriculture .The farmers grow rice , mix millets, maize , and pulses in the kharif season and wheat ,gram and barley in the rabi season. In the areas of jhuming (shifting cultivation ), ten to sixteen crops are mixed and sown in the same field.

• In India , agriculture is a labour based enterprise in which most of the agricultural operations like ploughing , levelling ,sowing ,weeding ,spraying ,sprinkling ,harvesting ,and threshing are carried on mainly by human hands .

• In the greater parts of the country , agriculture is largely dependent on rainfall ,especially the summer monsoon .Unfortunately ,the behaviour of the summer is highly erratic .

• The nitrogen fixing crops like pulses are getting less area under their cultivation .consequently the natural fertility of the soil is depleting and the soils is depleting and the soils are losing their resilience characteristics.

• The consumption pattern of chemical fertilizers has with Punjab with 175kg/ha followed by Haryana 160kg/ha .The main cause of low yield per hectare is the low fertility of soil and less care to replenish it through green-manure , fertilizers , fallowing and scientific rotation of crops .

• The globalization of agricultural trade shall provide a method of employment and income generation .The liberalization of agricultural markets will be beneficial to the country in the long run .While framing the policy things need to be taken a list -

1. Population pressure and demographic transitions

2. Investment in agriculture , structural changes and impact on the poor .

3. Impact of globalization on the poor

4. Rapid urbanization and declaration in rural poverty.

• The farmers grow crops according to their convenience this sometimes leads to excess of production and sometimes scarcity .

• Lack of marketing and storage facilities and the role of brokers deprive the farmers to fetch remunerative prices for their agricultural products.

• It is ,significantly high in the areas of heavy rainfall with undulating topography and in the areas of the scanty rainfall .The indiscriminate felling of trees ,cattle grazing ,unscientific land use practices have greatly accelerated the rate of soil erosion in the different parts of the country .Although soil conservation programmes were initiated in 1953 ,their impact has not been very encouraging.

• Gains of new agricultural researchers are not reaching the common cultivators ,especially the marginal and small farmers .Very little attention is being paid for educating and training farmers for the adoption of new agricultural innovations and techniques to increase their agricultural production.

• The indiscriminate feeling of trees , cattle grazing ,unscientific land use practices have greatly accelerated the rate of soil erosion in the different parts of the country .

DETERMINANTS OF AGRICULTURE

1. PHYSICAL FACTORS :Terrain ,topography ,climate ,and soil.

2. INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS

3. INFRASTRUCTURAL FACTORS

4. TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS

PHYSICAL FACTORS

• The highly rarified air ,low pressure ,low temperature ,and shortage of oxygen at high attitudes are the serious impediments not only in the cultivation of crops ,but also in keeping the dairy cattle .The topographical features also affect the distribution of rainfall .Normally , the windward side gets more rainfall than the leeward side .The amount of rainfall received in a region determines the selection of crops to be sown .

• The agricultural scientists have proved the each crop has a specific zero temperature below which it cannot be grown .There is also optimal temperature in which the crop is at the greatest vigour .For each stage of crop life ,i.e., Germination ,Foliation, Blossoming or Fructification a specific zero and optimum can be observed in temperature .In contrast to this, the chilling and freezing temperature have a great adverse effect on the germination ,growth and ripening of crops .

• The excessive amount of water in the soil alters various chemical and biological processes, limiting the amount of oxygen and increasing the formation of the compounds that are toxic to plant roots .

• Soil drought has been described as a condition in which the amount of water needed for transpiration and direct evaporation exceeds the amount of water available of water available in the soil .Drought damages the crops when the plants are inadequately supplied with moisture from the soil .In the drought prone area of India ,dry farming is practiced ,while in the more rainfall recording regions ,intensive agriculture of paddy crops is a common practice.

• In the agricultural operations ,soil is probably the most important determining physical factor. IT determines the cropping patterns ,their associations and production .The fertility of soil ,its texture ,structure and humus contents have a direct bearing on crops and their productivity.

• alluvial soils-wheat ,barley ,gram, oilseeds ,pulses ,and sugarcane.

• clayey loam-rice

• regur soil-cotton

• sandy soil-bajra ,guar ,pulses.

• saline and alkaline soils are useless from the agricultural point of view ,unless they are reclaimed by chemical fertilizers and biological manures and fertilizers.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND AGRICULTURAL INPUTS -Provision of quality and efficient infrastructure is essential to realise the full potential of agriculture .Infrastructure includes the facilities of irrigation ,availability of electricity ,roads ,marketing credit facilities and crop insurance .

• The process of supplying water to crops by artificial means such as canals ,tube wells ,tanks ,etc., is known as Irrigation. In greater parts of India ,agriculture is rain-fed .Irrigation helps in bringing the new area under cultivation on the one hand , and increases the double and multiple cropping on the other .About 84% of the water resources of india is used for irrigation .

• canal irrigation -Canals used to be the main source of irrigation in 1950 -51, irrigating almost 50%of the total irrigated area ,but in third and fourth five year plan, there was a tremendous increase in the tube wells irrigated area .Canals are an effective source of the irrigation in the areas of low and leveled relief ,productive plain areas where perennial source of drainage is available .

• Tube -well irrigation -is the easiest source of irrigation .It can be installed in a short duration of time .It is however ,expensive ,and diminishes the underground water table ,especially in the year .It is high energy costs for pumping ground water because of farmers dependence of diesel and electricity .

TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS- Moderisation of agriculture requires appropriate machinery for ensuring timely field operations ,effective application of agricultural inputs and reducing drudgery in agriculture .The farm mechanisation increases cropping intensity ,timely operations increases crop production and productivity with profitability .Technological factors include HYVs ,chemical fertilizers, insecticides ,and pesticides tractors and other agricultural machinery .