Land Resources and Agriculture — NCERT Solutions

Net sown area is the physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested. Gross cropped area (GCA) is the total area sown once or more than once during an agricultural year. So NSA counts land once, while GCA includes repeated cropping on the same land.

Increasing cropping intensity is important in India because the scope for expanding net sown area is limited. By growing more than one crop on the same land in a year, total output increases from limited land. The chapter also says this helps increase demand for labour and is desirable in a land-scarce but labour-abundant country like India.

The total cultivable land is measured by adding net sown area, all fallow lands, and culturable wasteland. The chapter states this directly as the way to arrive at the total stock of agricultural land resources.

In dryland farming, rainfall is less than 75 cm and crops are grown with soil-moisture conservation; hardy crops like ragi, bajra, moong, gram and guar are grown. In wetland farming, rainfall is in excess of the soil moisture requirement; water-intensive crops like rice, jute and sugarcane are grown, and such areas may face floods and soil erosion.

The chapter identifies these main environmental problems of land resources in India: degradation of cultivable land. In irrigated areas, land suffers from alkalisation, salinisation and waterlogging. Excessive use of chemicals leads to toxic concentration of pesticides and insecticides in the soil. In rainfed areas, land degradation occurs through soil erosion by water and wind.

After Independence, the important strategies for agricultural development were: switching from cash crops to food crops, intensification of cropping on already cultivated land, and bringing cultivable and fallow land under plough. Later, to overcome stagnation, the government launched IADP and IAAP. In the mid-1960s, the Green Revolution began with HYVs, chemical fertilisers and assured irrigation in selected states. In the 1980s, emphasis shifted to agro-climatic planning and diversification into dairy farming, poultry, horticulture, livestock rearing and aquaculture. In the 1990s, liberalisation and free market policies also influenced agriculture.