Primary Activities: Agriculture

On a global scale, India is an agricultural powerhouse. It produces the most milk, pulses, and spices in the world, as well as the world’s largest cattle herd (buffaloes) and the world’s largest area planted to wheat, rice, and cotton. It ranks second in the world in the production of rice, wheat, cotton, sugarcane, farmed fish, sheep and goat meat, fruits and vegetables, and tea. Approximately 195 million ha are under cultivation in the country, with approximately 63 percent being rainfed (approximately 125 million ha) and 37 percent being irrigated (70m ha). In addition, forests cover approximately 65 million hectares of land in India.

What are Main Agriculture Systems?

It is clearly defined in Human Geography Class 12:Primary Activities: Agriculture that Plantation agriculture is carried out through a variety of physical and economic factors, resulting in several types of agricultural processes.

Subsistence Agriculture: 

Subsistence agriculture is characterised by farming regions that consume all, or virtually all, of the locally cultivated crops. Primitive Subsistence Farming and Intensive Subsistence Farming are the two types of agriculture.

Primitive Subsistence Agriculture:

• Many tribes in the tropics, particularly in Africa, Central and Southern, and Southeast Asia, perform primitive subsistence farming or shifting cultivation

• Fire is generally used to remove vegetation, and the ashes add to the soil’s fertility. Slash and burn agriculture is another name for shifting farming

• Shifting cultivation is done using relatively rudimentary instruments such as sticks and hoes, and the cultivated areas are quite tiny

• The soil loses its fertility over a period of time (3 to 5 years), therefore the farmer relocates and clears new areas of the forest for farming

• Examples:

• Jhuming in North-eastern states of India

• Milpa in Central America and Mexico

• Ladang in Indonesia and Malaysia

• Due to the decline of fertility in various parcels, the jhum cycle is becoming less and less

Intensive Subsistence Agriculture:  

It’s mostly prevalent in monsoon Asia’s heavily inhabited areas.

Two types of intensive subsistence agriculture:

• Wet paddy farming dominates intensive subsistence agriculture, which is characterised by the rice crop’s supremacy
  • Due to increasing population density, land holdings are quite modest
  • Farmers work with the assistance of family members, resulting in intense land utilisation
  • The use of machinery is minimal, and the majority of agricultural tasks are completed by hand
  • Manure from the farm is utilised to keep the land fertile
  • The output per unit area seems to be great, but the productivity per worker is poor

• Intensive subsistence agriculture dominated by crops other than paddy: 

Paddy cultivation is not feasible in many places of monsoon Asia due to variations in elevation, temperature, soil, and other geographical considerations.

Crops: 

• North Korea, Northern China, North Japan, and Manchuria, cultivate wheat, soybean, barley, and sorghum

• Wheat is cultivated in the western Indo-Gangetic plains, whereas millets are produced in the arid portions of southern and western India

• Except for the fact that irrigation is frequently employed, most of the characteristics of this style of agriculture are identical to those of wet paddy agriculture

Plantation Agriculture:

• It was brought to the tropics by Europeans who established colonies there

• In west Africa, the French constructed cocoa and coffee plantations

• In India and Sri Lanka, the British established enormous rubber plantations, tea gardens in Malaysia. Along with sugarcane and banana planters in the West Indies

• In the Philippines, Spanish and American investors made significant investments in coconut and sugarcane plantations

• In Indonesia, the Dutch previously maintained a monopoly on sugarcane crops

• Important Plantation Crops: cocoa, coffee, bananas, rubber oil palm, sugarcane, tea, cotton, and pineapples

• Characteristic features: Large estates or plantations, significant financial investment, management, and supervisory assistance, scientific cultivation methods, single crop specialisation, low-cost labour, and good transportation infrastructure that connects the estates to industries and markets for product export

• The bulk of plantation agriculture is now owned by the government or inhabitants of the nations involved

Plantation agriculture and Extensive Commercial Grain Farming: 

• In the interiors of semi-arid terrain in the mid-latitudes, industrialised crop growing is practised

• Wheat is the main crop, although other crops such as corn, barley, oats, and rye are farmed as well

• Because the farm is so huge, all of the cultivation processes, from ploughing to harvesting, are automated

• The production per acre is modest, but the yield per person is significant

Mixed Farming

• It can be found in numerous developed regions of the world including Eastern North America,  sections of Eurasia, North-western Europe, and temperate latitudes of Southern continents

• The size of mixed farms is moderate

• Fodder, oats, rye, barley, maize, root crops and wheat, are all linked crops

• Fodder crops play a crucial role in mixed farming

• Crop rotation and intercropping are vital for soil fertility maintenance

• Crop cultivation and animal husbandry are given equal weight. Poultry, Cattle, pigs, and sheep, as well as crops, offer the primary source of revenue

• Mixed farming is distinguished by substantial capital investment in farm gear and structures, intensive use of chemical fertilisers and green manures, as well as the farmers’ competence and knowledge

Mediterranean Agriculture: 

• In the sphere of commercial and plantation agricultural production, it is highly specialised

• It is practised throughout Europe on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, and in North Africa from Tunisia to the Atlantic coast, as well as in central Chile, the south-western, southern California, sections of south-western regions of Australia, and South Africa

• Citrus fruits are a major export from this region
• Viticulture or grape cultivation is a specialty of the Mediterranean region. 
• In many nations in this area, the best-tasting wines throughout the globe with different flavours are created from high-grade grapes.
• The substandard grapes are dried and turned into currants and raisins

• Olives and figs are also grown in this area

• It has the benefit of allowing more valued commodities, such as fruits and vegetables, to be produced during the winter months when demand in European and North American markets is highest

Market and Gardening and Horticulture:

• It excels in the growth of high-value products for urban markets, such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers

• Farms are modest and located in areas with adequate transit links to the metropolitan centre, where a high-income consumer group may be found

• Plantation agriculture is labour and capital demanding, focusing on irrigation, HYV seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, greenhouses, and artificial warmth in colder climates

• It thrives in heavily populated industrial centres in northwestern Europe, the northeastern United States of America, and the Mediterranean

• In areas where farmers mainly grow vegetables, this type of farming is known as truck farming. Truck farming got its name because the distance between truck farms and the market is determined by how far a truck can travel overnight

Mixed farming, in addition to market gardening, is a recent development in Western Europe and North America’s industrial regions.

Conclusion: 

India is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses, and jute, and ranks second in rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruit, and cotton production. It’s also a major producer of spices, fish, poultry, livestock, and plantation crops. With a GDP of $ 2.1 trillion, India is the world’s third largest economy after the United States and China.