describe the pattern of agriculture followed in your village
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Main Types of Farming Systems Practices in India – Essay
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Based primarily on nature of land, climatic characteristics and available irrigational facilities, the farmers in India practise different types of farming.
(1) Subsistence Farming:
Majority of farmers in the country practise subsistence farming. It is characterised by small and scattered land holdings and use of primitive tools. As the farmers are poor, they do not use fertilisers and high yielding variety of seeds in their fields to the extent they should do. Facilities like electricity and irrigation are generally not available to them. These result into low productivity.
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Most of the food production is consumed by the farmers and their families. Where facilities like irrigation and electricity are available, farming has improved. Important cash crops like sugarcane, oilseeds, cotton and jute are grown.
The subsistence agriculture has given way to commercial agriculture to some extent. Dry land farming is practised in areas where the rainfall is low and irrigation facilities are inadequate. Here, emphasis is laid on conservation of moisture, and on crops like jowar, bajra and pulses, which need less water.
Wetland farming is practised in high rainfall and irrigated areas. Rice, sugarcane and vegetables are important crops in these areas. In dry farming, only one crop is grown while in wet farming, at least two crops are raised in a year-one in the kharif and another in the Rabi seasons.
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Features of Subsistence Farming:
The whole family works on the farm.
Most of the work is done manually.
The farms are small.
Tradition methods of farming are followed.
Yield is not very high.
Most of the yield is consumed by the family with very little surplus for the family.
(2) Shifting Agriculture:
In this type of agriculture, first of all a piece of forest land is cleared by felling trees and burning of trunks and branches. After the land is cleared, crops are grown for two to three years and then the land is abandoned as the fertility of the soil decreases. The farmers then move to new areas and the process is repeated. Dry paddy, maize, millets and vegetables are the crops commonly grown in this type of farming.
The per hectare yield is low. This practice is known by different name in different regions of India like Jhum in Assam, Ponam in Kerala, Podu in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha and bewar masha penda and bera in various parts of Madhya Pradesh. As far as possible governments have tried to discouraged is practice of cultivation by tribals due to wasteful nature such as soil erosion caused by it, when soil erosion caused by it, when soils are not under cultivation.
Features of Shifting Agriculture:
A clearing is made in the forest by cutting and burning of the trees.
Seeds are planted in the ground. This type of cultivation does not involve ploughing the soil or other agricultural practices.
After two or three years, the clearing is abandoned as the yield decreases owing to weeds, soil erosion and loss of soil fertility.
Then a fresh clearing is made and the community migrates of that area.
This is a wasteful method of cultivation.
(3) Plantation Agriculture:
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Plantation farming is bush or tree farming. It was introduced by the British in the nineteenth century. It is a single crop farming of rubber, tea, coffee, cocoa, spices, coconut and fruit crops like apples, grapes, oranges, etc. It is capital intensive and demands good managerial ability, technical know-how, sophisticated machinery, fertilisers, irrigation, and transport facilities.
Some of the plantations like tea, coffee and rubber have a processing factory within the farm itself or close to it. This type of agriculture has developed in hilly areas of north-eastern India, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and in Nilgiri, Anamalai and Cardamom hills in peninsular India.
(4) Intensive Farming:
In areas where irrigation has been possible, the farmers use fertilisers and pesticides on large scale. They have also brought their land under high yielding variety of seeds. They have mechanised agriculture by introducing machines in various processes of farming. These have led intensive farming where the yield per unit area is high. In some areas, this has led to the development of dairy farming.
(5) Dry Agriculture: