All exercise questions from the NCERT textbook India: People and Economy, Chapter 3, “Land Resources and Agriculture”, exactly as the English edition prints them, with a full model answer for each. Try your own answer first, then check it against this one.
1 Choose the right answer of the following from the given options
Q. Which one of the following is NOT a land-use category?
(a) Fallow land (b) Marginal land (c) Net Area Sown (d) Culturable Wasteland
Answer: (b) Marginal land. The Land Revenue Records list nine land-use categories: forests, barren and wastelands, land under non-agricultural uses, permanent pastures and grazing lands, area under misc. tree crops and groves, culturable wasteland, current fallow, fallow other than current fallow, and net area sown. “Marginal land” is not one of these named categories, while fallow land, net area sown and culturable wasteland all are.
Q. What one of the following is the main reason due to which share of forest has shown an increase in the last forty years?
(a) Extensive and efficient efforts of afforestation (b) Increase in community forest land (c) Increase in notified area allocated for forest growth (d) Better peoples’ participation in managing forest area
Answer: (c) Increase in notified area allocated for forest growth. The chapter explains that the increase in the share under forest can be accounted for by an increase in the demarcated (notified) area under forest, rather than an actual increase in the forest cover in the country.
Q. Which one of the following is the main form of degradation in irrigated areas?
(a) Gully erosion (b) Wind erosion (c) Salinisation of soils (d) Siltation of land
Answer: (c) Salinisation of soils. The chapter states that the degradation of cultivable land is particularly alarming in irrigated areas, where a large tract of agricultural land has lost its fertility due to alkalisation and salinisation of soils, and waterlogging.
Q. Which one of the following crops is not cultivated under dryland farming?
(a) Ragi (b) Jowar (c) Groundnut (d) Sugarcane
Answer: (d) Sugarcane. Dryland farming grows hardy, drought-resistant crops such as ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar in regions with annual rainfall under 75 cm; groundnut, too, is described as largely a rainfed kharif crop of drylands. Sugarcane, by contrast, is largely an irrigated crop in India and needs high moisture, so it does not belong to dryland farming.
Q. In which of the following group of countries of the world, HYVs of wheat and rice were developed?
(a) Japan and Australia (b) U.S.A. and Japan (c) Mexico and Philippines (d) Mexico and Singapore
Answer: (c) Mexico and Philippines. The chapter states that new seed varieties of wheat (from Mexico) and rice (from the Philippines), known as High Yielding Varieties (HYVs), became available for cultivation by the mid-1960s.
2 Answer the following questions in about 30 words
Q. Differentiate between barren and wasteland and culturable wasteland.
Answer: Barren and wasteland is land such as barren hilly terrain, desert land or ravines that normally cannot be brought under cultivation with the available technology. Culturable wasteland, on the other hand, is land left fallow for more than five years, which CAN be brought under cultivation after reclamation practices improve it.
Q. How would you distinguish between net sown area and gross cropped area?
Answer: Net sown area is the physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested at least once in a year. Gross cropped area is the total area sown, counting a piece of land more than once if it is cropped more than once in the same agricultural year; the ratio of the two gives the Cropping Intensity.
Q. Why is the strategy of increasing cropping intensity important in a country like India?
Answer: Since the scope for bringing additional land under net sown area is limited, raising cropping intensity increases total output per unit of land from all crops grown in a year. For a land-scarce but labour-abundant country like India, this is also desirable because it increases the demand for labour, helping to reduce unemployment in the rural economy.
Q. How do you measure total cultivable land?
Answer: Total cultivable land is estimated by adding up the net sown area, all categories of fallow land (current fallow and fallow other than current fallow), and the culturable wasteland.
Q. What is the difference between dryland and wetland farming?
Answer: Dryland farming is confined to regions with annual rainfall below 75 cm, growing hardy, drought-resistant crops with soil-moisture conservation measures. Wetland farming occurs where rainfall exceeds the soil moisture requirement of plants, facing flood and soil-erosion hazards, and growing water-intensive crops like rice, jute and sugarcane along with aquaculture.
3 Answer the following questions in about 150 words
Q. What are the different types of environmental problems of land resources in India?
Answer: Land degradation is one of the most serious environmental problems of land resources in India, arising mainly from faulty strategies of irrigation and agricultural development. It may lead to depletion of soil fertility, and the situation is particularly alarming in irrigated areas, where a large tract of agricultural land has lost fertility due to alkalisation and salinisation of soils and waterlogging. Excessive use of chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides has led to their concentration in toxic amounts in the soil profile. Leguminous crops, which naturally fix nitrogen in the soil, have been displaced from the cropping pattern in irrigated areas, and the duration of fallow has substantially reduced owing to multiple cropping, which has obliterated the process of natural fertilisation such as nitrogen fixation. Rainfed areas in humid and semi-arid tropics also experience degradation of several types, such as soil erosion by water and wind erosion, which are often induced by human activities rather than purely natural causes.
Q. What are the important strategies for agricultural development followed in the post-independence period in India?
Answer: Immediately after Independence, the Government’s goal was to raise foodgrain production by switching from cash crops to food crops, intensifying cropping on already cultivated land, and bringing cultivable and fallow land under the plough; this helped initially, but production stagnated by the late 1950s, so the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) and Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP) were launched. Two consecutive droughts in the mid-1960s caused a food crisis, but the availability of High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) of wheat and rice by then let India introduce package technology (HYVs combined with chemical fertilisers) in the irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, launching the ‘Green Revolution’, which made the country self-reliant in foodgrain production, though initially confined to irrigated areas till it spread to the Eastern and Central parts of the country after the 1970s. In the 1980s, the Planning Commission focused on the problems of rainfed areas and initiated agro-climatic planning in 1988 for regionally balanced development, along with diversification into dairy farming, poultry, horticulture, livestock rearing and aquaculture. The 1990s brought liberalisation and a free-market economy, and more recently the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) has promoted productive, sustainable, remunerative and climate-resilient farming, with organic farming supported through the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and the Rashtriya Vikas Yojana (RKVY).
4 In-text Questions and Activities (asked within the chapter)
Q. Have you ever used a map prepared by Survey of India?
Answer: Yes. Survey of India topographical sheets and the maps in school atlases are prepared by the Survey of India, the agency the chapter names as responsible for measuring the geographical area of administrative units in India. That is why the geographical area stays fixed, while the reporting area used in land revenue records changes somewhat.
Q. Compare the changes of land-use between 1950-51 and 2019-20 (Fig. 3.1).
Answer: Five categories increased: forests (17.0% to 23.4% of reporting area), area under non-agricultural uses (3.2% to 9.1%), permanent pasture and grazing land (2.3% to 3.4%), current fallow (3.7% to 4.5%) and net area sown (41.7% to 45.6%). Four declined: barren and wasteland (13.4% to 5.4%), culturable wasteland (8.0% to 3.9%), area under tree crops and groves (6.9% to 1.0%) and fallow other than current fallow (6.1% to 3.7%). Non-agricultural uses grew at the highest rate because of the growing industrial and services sectors and the spread of settlements; the forest increase reflects a larger demarcated area rather than more actual forest cover; and the wastelands shrank as pressure on land grew.
Q. What is the difference between actual increase and rate of increase? Work out the actual increase and rate of increase for all the land use categories between 1950-51 and 2019-20. Explain the results.
Answer: Actual increase is the plain difference between the two years (value in 2019-20 minus value in 1950-51). Rate of increase is that difference divided by the 1950-51 value, multiplied by 100. The book asks for this from Appendix (vi); using the Fig. 3.1 shares (% of reporting area) the working is: forests +6.4 points (rate 37.6%); non-agricultural uses +5.9 points (184.4%); barren and wasteland -8.0 points (-59.7%); permanent pasture and grazing land +1.1 points (47.8%); tree crops and groves -5.9 points (-85.5%); culturable wasteland -4.1 points (-51.3%); fallow other than current fallow -2.4 points (-39.3%); current fallow +0.8 points (21.6%); net area sown +3.9 points (9.4%). The result shows why the two measures differ: forests had the largest actual increase, but non-agricultural uses had by far the highest rate of increase, because they started from a small base. This matches the chapter’s statement that the rate of increase is highest for area under non-agricultural uses.
Q. Differentiate between different foodgrains. Mix grains of various kinds and separate cereals from pulses. Also, separate fine from coarse cereals.
Answer: This is a classroom activity. Foodgrains are divided by the structure of the grain into cereals and pulses. Cereals: rice, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi; among them rice and wheat are fine grains, and jowar, bajra, maize and ragi are coarse grains. Pulses (legumes, rich in protein): gram and tur (arhar) are the main ones named in the chapter.
Q. Why is agricultural productivity low in dry regions?
Answer: Dry regions are rainfed: irrigation covers only about 33 per cent of the cultivated area, and the rainfall in drought-prone areas is too meagre and highly unreliable. These drylands mostly grow coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds, which the chapter says have low yields, and pulses in particular have low yields that fluctuate from year to year because they are rainfed crops of drylands. There is also seasonal unemployment of 4 to 8 months in unirrigated tracts.
Q. What are the implications of severe indebtedness? Do you feel that the recent incidents of farmers’ suicides in different states of the country are the result of indebtedness?
Answer: Modern inputs are expensive, so marginal and small farmers with little or no savings borrow from institutions and moneylenders; crop failures and low returns then trap them in indebtedness. Severe debt means loss of land or assets, inability to invest in the next crop, and great mental stress on the family. Indebtedness is widely seen as one important factor linked to farmers’ suicides, along with crop failure and low returns; this is a discussion question and the book asks for your view rather than stating a single cause.
Q. What changes have you noticed in agricultural sector and cropping pattern? Discuss in the class.
Answer: Points for discussion from the chapter: spread of high yielding varieties, chemical fertilisers and pesticides; expansion of irrigation; rice cultivation spreading into Punjab and Haryana after the Green Revolution; gram being displaced by wheat in Haryana, Punjab and northern Rajasthan; leguminous crops being displaced in irrigated areas; reduced fallow because of multiple cropping; and more recently diversification into dairy, poultry, horticulture and organic farming. Add changes you have seen in your own area.
Q. Prepare a list of agricultural problems in your own region. How similar or different are these problems compared to the problems mentioned in this chapter?
Answer: Compare your list with the chapter’s eight problems: dependence on erratic monsoon, low productivity, constraints of financial resources and indebtedness, lack of land reforms, small farm size and fragmentation of landholdings, lack of commercialisation, vast underemployment, and degradation of cultivable land. The chapter itself notes that most agricultural problems are region specific, so an irrigated region may report salinisation and waterlogging, while a dry region may report drought, low yields and seasonal unemployment.