< Previous | Contents | Next >
The spread of the dry farming is in the regions where the average annual rainfall is less than 75 cm and irrigation facilities are not available. About 60% of the net-cultivated area is under dryland and rainfed cultivation in India, which contributes 40% of the total agricultural production. In these areas the rainfall is scanty and uncertain, where hot and dry conditions prevail. It is not only that the average annual rainfall is low, the variability of rainfall in these areas varies between 25 to 60 per cent. Agriculture in the dry farming regions belongs to fragile, high risking and low productive agricultural ecosystem. The areas in which more than 75 cm of average annual rainfall is recorded are known as the areas of rain-fed agriculture (Fig. 9.23).
In India dry-lands cover about 32 million hectares or about 60 per cent of the net arable land. The dry farming areas cover the greater parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Moreover, there are small tracts of dry land farmingin Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh,Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. These areas having scanty rainfall and high variability of rainfall are adversely affected by erratic precipitation, frequent droughts, high temperature, and high wind velocity resulting in soil erosion.