Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0168/01684.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 32KB | 537 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01684}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 7A.   Agriculture}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Clarence Edward Pike}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{land
percent
states
hectares
government
india
tenants
million
crops
agricultural}
$Date{1985}
$Log{Bullocks and Plowman*0168401.scf
Bullocks Power*0168402.scf
}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      Clarence Edward Pike
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 7A.   Agriculture

[See Bullocks and Plowman: Bullocks and plowman]

     In the early 1980s agriculture (including animal husbandry, forestry, and
fishing) continued to be the largest and most important sector of the economy.
It accounted for more than one-third of the national income and provided
employment for over two-thirds of the work force. The agricultural sector
produced nearly one-third of the country's exports and provided a large part
of the raw materials used by industry.

     Census figures disclose that as of March 1, 1981, some 526 million
persons, 77 percent of the nation's population, lived in rural areas. Between
1961 and 1981 there was an increase of 166 million rural residents, a gain
about equal to the combined populations of France, Italy, and the Federal
Republic of Germany. Although in this 20-year span the rural population
increased by 46 percent, the net sown area expanded by only 10 percent. As
growing numbers struggled to eke out a livelihood from the soil, farming
units grew smaller, and the ranks of landless laborers grew greater. But
thanks to a breakthrough in crop yields, popularly known as the Green
Revolution, agricultural production in 1981 was more than half again as large
as in 1961.

     India has long desired and, because of its size, needed to produce most
of its foodstuffs. Because of a considerable measure of success with many of
its farm policies and programs, in the mid-1980s it seemed closer to
self-sufficiency than at any time since the early 1940s. As in earlier plans,
India's Sixth Five-Year Plan (FY 1980-84) continued the nation's focus on the
expansion of food grains production. Large investments in fertilizer plants
led to substantial gains in domestic production and increased availabilities
of chemical fertilizers. The expansion of irrigation facilities was a key
element of the sixth plan, and an additional 2.4 million hectares, much of
it planted to food grains, came under irrigation in each of the first three
years of the 1980s. Although increased irrigation has helped to lessen the
sharp year-to-year ups and downs of farm production resulting from the
vagaries of the monsoon rains, it has not eliminated them.

     In the 1983-84 crop year, the production of all crops was an estimated
55 percent above the average of the final three years of the 1960s. Benefiting
more fully than any other crop from the Green Revolution, wheat production
rose by a whopping 235 percent; all cereals rose by about 45 percent. The
harvest of fruits and vegetables, coffee, rubber, sugarcane, and tobacco
increased by one-half or more. Most other crops registered modest gains. An
exception was pulses: production changed hardly at all. A rise in oilseed
production of 45 percent was not sufficient to keep pace with rapidly growing
demand, necessitating a sharp rise in the imports of vegetable oils.

     Although nutrition was insufficient by internationally accepted standards
as measured in calories, in the early 1980s the Indian people as a whole
were as fully fed as at any time in the previous half-century. The estimated
average daily per capita consumption rose from 1,889 calories in the 1975-77
period to 2,056 in 1979-81. Food grains accounted for 136 of this estimated
gain of 167 calories. Consumption of sugar increased, but consumption of
pulses, vital to the largely vegetarian diet of the Indian people, decreased.
In fact, at 120 calories per capita per day, pulse consumption in 1979-81 was
down by 15 percent from 1975-77 and was only half the level of the 1960-62
period. Despite recent impressive gains in the production of several
important crops, in the mid-1980s India still faced tremendous challenges on
the farm front, especially in light of the continued rapid growth in the
nation's already huge population.

Land Use

     The geographical expanse of India encompasses approximately 329 million
hectares. In 1980 some 148 million hectares, 45 percent of the total, were
sown to field crops. (Because 29 million hectares were double-cropped, the
gross sown area came to 177 million hectares.) Another 5 percent, about 17
million hectares, was in pasture or tree crops. Approximately 139 million
hectares, 42 percent of the nation's land surface, were considered
unavailable (built-up areas, etc.) or completely unsuited for agriculture
(steep mountainsides, etc.). The remaining 8 percent-12 million hectares
classified as cultivable but fallow and 13 million hectares classified as
cultivable wasteland-contains all the land left for expanding the sown area,
and for various reasons much of it is unsuited for cropping. Expansion in
crop production must, therefore, come mainly from increasing yields on lands
already in some kind of agricultural use.

     Topography, soils, rainfall, and the availability of water for
irrigation are major determinants of the crop and livestock enterprises
characteristic of the three major geographic regions of India and their
agro-ecological subregions. From north to south the regions are the
Himalayas, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and the Peninsula (see Geography, ch. 2).

Himalayas

     The Himalayan region of some 520,000 square kilometers, which ranks well
behind the other two regions in agricultural importance, is divided into two
principal agro-ecological subregions, separated by 1,000 kilometers of
Nepalese territory. The larger of the subregions-the Western
Himalayas-encompasses the states of Jammu and Kashmir (Kashmir), Himachal
Pradesh, and the districts of Kumaon and Garhwal in western Uttar Pradesh
(see fig. 1). Although rainfall is generally adequate, as a result of the
rugged topography less than 10 percent of the land is used for agriculture.
The principal soils used for agriculture are sandy loams on the hillsides and
alluvial clays in the subregion's premier agricultural locale, the Vale of
Kashmir. The main crops are rice, corn, wheat, barley, millet, and potatoes.
Most of India's temperate-zone fruits (apples, apricots, cherries, and
peaches) and walnuts are grown here. Sericulture and sheepherding are of
some significance.

     The Eastern Himalayan subregion, encompassing Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and the northern tip of West Bengal,
is characterized by heavy rainfall-200 to 400 centimeters annually-most of it
occurring in the May-to-September period. The soils are moderately rich in
organic matter and are acidic. Much of the farming is done on terraced
hillsides, but there is a significant amount of shifting cultivation,
accompanied by deforestation and soil erosion. Rice, corn, millet, potatoes,
and oilseeds are the main crops. But the region is most widely known for
its tea gardens in the Darjeeling area of West Bengal.

Indo-Gangetic Plain

     To the south of the Himalayas, stretching the breadth of the
subcontinent, lies the Indo-Gangetic Plain (see fig. 5). In India the plain
encompasses about 840,000 square kilometers, including all or a major portion
of eight states-Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
West Bengal, and Assam-and the union territory of Delhi. Again, there are
two major agro-ecological subregions.

     The vast Sutlej-Ganges-Brahmaputra alluvial plain, extending from
Punjab to Assam, is the most intensively farmed zone of the country and one
of the most intensively farmed in the world. Rainfall, most of which comes
with the summer monsoon, is generally adequate for karif (summer-grown crops).
But in some years vast areas are seared by drought. Fortunately,