In this post, chapter 4 Agriculture Class 10 Geography Notes are given that is a part of a syllabus of Class 10 SST for session 2024-25.In Chapter 4 Agriculture of Class 10 Geography Ncert ,all topics are covered in descriptive manner so that students could attempt all questions in board exams of CBSE Class 10 SST.
CBSE Class 10 Geography chapter 4 Agriculture Notes
Introduction
India is an agrarian country where two-thirds of its population is engaged in agricultural activities. It is a primary activity, which produces most of the food that we consume. Besides food grains, it also produces raw material for various industries.
Types of Farming
Agriculture is an age-old economic activity in our country. Farming varies from subsistence to commercial type.
Cultivation methods have changed significantly depending upon
•the physical environment
•technological know-how
•Socio-cultural practices.
Primitive Subsistence Farming
•This farming is still practised in few parts of India.
•It is practised on small piece of land with the help of primitive tools like hoe, dao and digging sticks, and family/community labour.
• This farming depends on monsoon, natural fertility of the soil and suitability of other environmental conditions to the crops grown.
•It is a ‘slash and burn’ agriculture.
Slash and Burn Agriculture
Farmers clear a patch of land and produce cereals and other food crops to sustain their family. When the soil fertility decreases, the farmers shift and clear a fresh patch of land for cultivation.
Features
•land productivity is low as the farmer
•fertilisers or other modern inputs are not used.
• Shifting allows nature to replenish the fertility of the soil through natural processes.
It is known by different names in different regions/states of India and the world.
It is jhumming in north-eastern states like Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland;Pamlou in Manipur, Dipa in Bastar district of Chhattishgarh, and in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Intensive Subsistence Farming
•It is practised in areas of high population pressure on land.
•It is labour-intensive farming.
•high doses of biochemical inputs and irrigation are used for obtaining higher production.
•the ‘right of inheritance’ leading to the division of land among successive generations has rendered land-holding size uneconomical.
•the farmers continue to take maximum output from the limited land in the absence of alternative source of livelihood.
Commercial Farming
•use of higher doses of modern inputs,eg- high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides in order to obtain higher productivity.
•The degree of commercialisation of agriculture varies from one region to another. For example, rice is a commercial crop in Haryana and Punjab, but in Odisha, it is a subsistence crop.
Plantation Agriculture
In India, tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane,banana, etc., are important plantation crops.
•It is a type of commercial farming.
•In this farming, a single crop is grown on a large area.
•Tea in Assam and North Bengal and coffee in Karnataka.
•The plantation has an interface of agriculture and industry.
•It cover large tracts of land, using capital intensive inputs, with the help of migrant labourers.
•Since the production is mainly for market, a well-developed network of transport and communication connecting the plantation areas, processing industries and markets plays an important role in the development of plantations
Cropping Pattern
The physical features and plurality of cultures that decides the cropping pattern exist in different parts of the country and on that basis India has three cropping seasons
-Rabi, kharif and zaid.
Rabi crops
•These crops are sown in winter from October to December
•harvested in summer from April to June.
•Important rabi crops are wheat, barley, peas, gram and mustard.
•These crops are grown in large parts of India, states from the north and north-western parts such as Punjab,Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh are important for the production of wheat and other rabi crops
.Kharif
•Sown with the onset of monsoon in different parts of the country
•harvested in September-October.
•Important kharif crops are paddy, maize, jowar, bajra, tur (arhar),moong, urad, cotton, jute, groundnut and Soyabean.
•In states like Assam,West Bengal and Odisha, three crops of paddy are grown in a year. These are Aus, Aman and Boro.
Zaid
•It is grown in between the rabi and the kharif seasons
•It is a short season during the summer months known as the Zaid season.
•Zaid crops are watermelon, muskmelon, cucumber, vegetables and fodder crops.
Major Crops
A variety of food and non food crops are grown in different parts of the country depending upon
•the variations in soil
• climate
•cultivation practices.
Major crops grown in India are rice, wheat, millets, pulses, tea,Coffee, sugarcane, oil seeds, cotton and jute etc.
Rice
•It is the most staple diet of India
•It requires high temperature above 25°C and high humidity.
•Requires an annual rainfall above 100 cm.
•India is the second largest producer of rice in the world after China.
•grow well in the plains of north and north-eastern India, coastal areas and the deltaic regions.
•It is grown even in areas of low rainfall with dense network of canal irrigation and tubewells like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh.
Wheat
•Second most important cereal crop after rice and main food crop in the north and north-western part of India.
•This rabi crop requires a cool growing season and bright sunshine at the time of ripening.
• requires 50 to 75 cm of annual rainfall evenly distributed over the growing season.
•The Ganga-Satluj plains in the northwest and the black soil region of the Deccan are two main wheat-growing zones in India.
•Major wheat producing states are Punjab, Haryana , Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Millets
•Jowar, bajra and ragi are the important millets grown in India.
•these are known as coarse grains
• they have very high nutritional value.
Ragi
•Ragi is a crop of dry regions and grows well on red,black, sandy, loamy and shallow black soils
•rich in iron, calcium, other micro nutrients and roughage.
•Major ragi producing states are: Karnataka,Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand,Sikkim, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh.
Read more: Water Resources Class 10 Geography Notes
Jowar
•third most important food crop with respect to area and production.
•It is a rain-fed crop mostly grown in the moist areas which hardly needs irrigation.
•Major Jowar producing States are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Bajra
•grows well on sandy soils and shallow black soil.
• Major Bajra producing states are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana. Maize
•It is a kharif crop and used as food and fodder.• It requires temperature between 21°C to 27°C and grows well in old alluvial soil.
•In Bihar maize is grown in rabi season also.
•Use of modern inputs such as HYV seeds, fertilisers and irrigation lead to the increasing production of it.
•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.
•Major pulses that are grown in India are tur (arhar), urad, moong, masur, peas and gram.
•Need less moisture and survive even in dry conditions.
•Being leguminous crops,all pulses except arhar help in restoring soil fertility by fixing nitrogen from the air.
•these are mostly grown in rotation with other crops.
•Major pulse producing states in India are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.
Sugarcane
•It is a tropical as well as a subtropical crop.
• It grows well in hot and humid climate with a temperature of 21°C to 27° C and annual rainfall between 75cm and 100cm.
•It needs manual labour from sowing to harvesting.
• India is the second largest producer of sugarcane only after Brazil.
•main source of sugar, gur ,(jaggary), khandsari and molasses.
•The major sugarcane-producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar,Punjab and Haryana.
Oilseeds
•In 2018 India was the second largest producer of groundnut in the world after China.
•In rapeseed production India was third largest producer in the world after Canada and China in 2018.
•Different oil seeds grown in India covers approximately 12 per cent of the total cropped area of the country.
•Main oil-seeds produced in India are groundnut,mustard, coconut, sesamum (til), soyabean,castor seeds, cotton seeds, linseed and sunflower.
•Most of these are edible and used for cooking and som are also used as raw material in the production of soap, cosmetics and ointments.
•Groundnut is a kharif crop and accounts for about half of the major oilseeds produced in the country.
• Gujarat was the largest producer of groundnut followed by Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu in 2019–20.
• Linseed and mustard are rabi crops.
•Sesamum is a kharif crop in north and rabi crop in south India.
•Castor seed is grown both as rabi and kharif crop.
Tea
important beverage crop introduced by the British in India.
•grows well in tropical and sub-tropical climates with deep and fertile well-drained soil, rich in humus and organic matter.
•Tea bushes require a warm and moist frost-free climate all through the year.
•It requires abundant, cheap and skilled labour.
•Tea is processed within the tea garden to restore its freshness.
•Major tea-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.
•The Arabica variety initially brought from Yemen is produced in India.
•its cultivation was introduced on the Baba Budan Hills and even today 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 was second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world after China.
•Mangoes of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal
• Oranges of Nagpur and Cherrapunjee (Meghalaya)
•bananas of Kerala, Mizoram, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
•Lichi and Guava of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar• Pineapples of Meghalaya
•Grapes of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra
•Apples, pears, apricots and walnuts of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
•Major crops produced are pea, cauliflower, onion, cabbage, tomato, brinjal and potato.
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 moist and humid climate with rainfall of more than 200 cm and temperature above 25°C.
•It is mainly grown in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Garo hills of Meghalaya.
Jute
•It is known as the golden fibre.
•It grows well on well-drained fertile soils in the flood plains where soils are renewed every year.
• Requires high temperature during the time of growth.
•West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha and Meghalaya are the major jute producing states.
• used in making gunny bags, mats, ropes,yarn, carpets and other artefacts.
•Due to its high cost, it is losing market to synthetic fibres and packing materials, particularly the nylon.
Fibre Crops
Cotton, jute, hemp and natural silk are the four major fibre crops grown in India.
•The first three are derived from the crops grown in the soil, the latter is obtained from cocoons of the silkworms fed on green leaves specially mulberry.
• Rearing of silk worms for the production of silk fibre is known as sericulture.
Cotton
•India is believed to be the original home of the cotton plant.
•In 2017, India was second largest producer of cotton after China.
• It 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 sun-shine for its growth.
•It is a kharif crop and requires 6 to 8 months to mature.
•Major cotton-producing states are–Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Technological and Institutional Reforms Sustained uses of land without compatible techno-institutional changes have hindered the pace of agricultural development.
Agriculture which provides livelihood for more than 60 per cent of its population, needs some serious technical and institutional reforms.
•collectivisation, consolidation of holdings, cooperation and abolition of zamindari, and land reforms etc. were given priority to bring about institutional reforms in the country after Independence.
•Introducing agricultural reforms to improve indian agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s like Green Revolution based on the use of package technology and the White Revolution (Operation Flood) were some of the strategies initiated to improve the Indian agriculture.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a comprehensive land development programme was initiated, which included both institutional and technical reforms.
•Provision for crop insurance against drought, flood, cyclone, fire and disease.
•Establishment of Grameen banks, cooperative societies and banks for providing loan facilities to the farmers at lower rates of interest were some important steps in this direction.
•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.
•The government also announces minimum support price, remunerative and procurement prices for important crops to check the exploitation of farmers by speculators and middlemen.