What are the Net Sown Area and Gross Cropped Area?
Answer: The gross cropped area (GCA) is the total area sown once or multiple times in a given year. When a crop is sown twice on the same piece of land, the area is counted twice in GCA.
Net Sown Area, on the other hand, is the area sown with crops but only counted once. This means that if we subtract the net seeded area from the gross cropped area, we get locations where crops are farmed more than once within a given agriculture year. This area refers to the physical area of land where crops are planted and collected.
The utilisation of culturable wasteland for agricultural purposes has resulted in an increase in net area sown. Previously, it had been steadily decreasing. Most of the drop appears to have been caused by increases in non-agricultural land use. The net sown area is the percentage of the country’s total land area that is used to grow crops.
In conclusion, This is the total area sown once or several times in a given year, i.e. the area is tallied as many times as there are sowings in that year. This total area is sometimes referred to as the total cultivated area or the whole sown area. And This is the total amount of land planted with crops and orchards. When an area is sown more than once in the same year, it is only counted once.