Write briefly about the types of farming practised in India.
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Answer
Two-thirds of India's population is engaged in agricultural or farming activities.Different types of farming are in practice here:
Primitive Subsistence Farming:It is still practised in a few parts of India on small patches of land with the help of primitive tools like hoe, dao and digging sticks. It depends upon monsoon, natural fertility of the soil and suitability of other environmental conditions to the crops grown. It is also known as 'Slash and Burn' agriculture. In this type of farming, farmers clear a patch of land and produce cereals and other food crops to sustain their family and when the soil fertility decreases, the farmers shift and clear a fresh patch of land for cultivation. It helps in allowing nature to reload the fertility of the soil through natural processes. Land productivity in this type of agriculture is low as the farmer does not use fertilisers or other moderninputs.
Intensive Subsistence Farming: It ispractised in areas where population pressure on land is high. High amount of biochemical inputs and irrigation are used for higher production. It is practised in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh. Farm size is small and uneconomical due to the division of land. The farmers take maximumoutput from the limited land.
Commercial Farming: In suchfarming there is a use of higher doses of modern inputs, e.g. 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 farming. It Plantation is a type of commercial farming where single crop is grown on a large area. The plantation has an interface of agriculture and industry. The production is mainly for market and all the produce is used as raw material in respective industries. It requires well-developed network of transport and communication to connect the plantation areas, processing industries and markets together. In India, tea, coffee, rubber, sugarcane, banana, etc. are important plantation crops. This type of farming is practised in Assam and North Bengal (tea), andKarnataka (coffee).
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