1.4. Salient Features of Indian Agriculture

Indian agriculture has very wide variations throughout the length and breadth of the country. With growth of technology, more area has been brought under cultivation. Increase in irrigation facilities, coupled with use of fertilizers and pesticides and use of high yield variety of seeds has improved the productivity in the country. Despite the variations, there are some salient features which characterize Indian agriculture. They are:

1. Subsistence agriculture4: In general, the Indian agriculture is subsistence in nature. Farmers generally have a small piece of land and crop production is mostly for family use with surplus sold to market.

2. Pressure of population: Agriculture has to provide food for the rapidly increasing population and also employment to a large section of landless labourers. Hence, there is large pressure on agriculture. Besides, the increasing trend of urbanization is diverting the agricultural land to non-agricultural uses.

3. Importance of animals: In India, many of the agricultural operations such as ploughing, irrigation, threshing and transporting of the agricultural products are done by the animals. Animals form a major part of farmer’s life in India. Complete mechanization of the Indian agricultural system is still a distant goal.

4. Dependent upon monsoons: The Indian farmer depends mainly on the monsoons, which are uncertain, unreliable and irregular. Only about 35 per cent of the total cropped area is under perennial irrigation and the rest depends on the monsoons. Thus, the dependency on monsoon makes life of Indian farmers highly vulnerable.

5. Small land holdings: The national average size of the land holdings is only 1.7 hectares. It is uneconomical to cultivate small farms and thus is a great hindrance to the progress of agriculture. Most of the farmers in our country are not owners of the land they cultivate.

6. Variety of crops: Due to highly suitable environmental conditions, the Indian farmers are able to grow a large variety of tropical and temperate crops. It includes food crops and commercial crops. The food crops score over all other crops for land under agriculture.

7. Predominance of food crops: The production of food crops is the first priority of the farmers, as they have to provide enough food for the rapidly increasing population of our country. About two-thirds of the total land under agriculture is devoted to food crops in India.

8. Less importance to fodder crops: India has the largest population of livestock in the world. Still the fodder crops are not given due consideration in the cropping pattern. Thus, we have very poor quality of domestic animals, when compared internationally.

3 Cropping Intensity is defined as the ratio of Gross Cultivated Area (GCA) to Net Sown Area (NSA). It is generally expressed in percentage.

4 Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families.